Part 9

“The Rev. Francis Mahony, or Father Prout, trudging along the Boulevards with his arms clasped behind him, his nose in the air, his hat worn as French caricaturists insist all Englishmen wear hat or cap; his quick, clear, deep-seeking eye wandering sharply to the right or left, and sarcasm--not of the sourest kind--playing like Jack-o’-lantern in the corners of his mouth, Father Prout was as much a character of the French capital as the learned Armenian of the Imperial Library only a few years ago.... It was difficult to meet Father Prout. He was an odd, uncomfortable, uncertain man. His moods changed like April skies. Light little thoughts were busy in his brain, lively and frisking as ‘troutlets in a pool.’ He was impatient of interruption, and shambled forward talking in an undertone to himself, with now and then a bubble or two of laughter, or one short sharp laugh almost like a bark, like that of the marksman when the arrow quivers in the bull’s-eye. He would pass you with a nod that meant ‘Hold off--not to-day!’... He was very impatient if any injudicious friend or passing acquaintance (who took him to be usually as accessible as any _flâneur_ on the macadam), thrust himself forward and would have his hand and agree with him that it was a fine day, but would possibly rain shortly. A sharp answer, and an unceremonious plunge forward without bow or good-day, would put an end to the interruption. Of course the Father was called a bear by shallow-pates who could not see that there was something extra in the little man talking to himself and shuffling, with his hands behind him, through the _fines fleurs_ and _grandes dames_ of the Italian Boulevard.”

[Sidenote: A personal friend.]

“In recalling the Rev. Francis Mahony, I am forcibly reminded of a few lines at the beginning of old Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_: ‘Democritus, as he is described by Hippocrates, and Laërtius, was a little wearish old man, very melancholy by nature, averse from company in his latter dayes, and much given to solitariness, a famous philosopher in his age, ... wholly addicted to his studies at the last, and to a private life; writ many excellent workes.’ Substituting Father Prout’s name for that of Democritus, the words are equally descriptive of the quaint little Irishman. He was a small spare man, with a pale deeply-lined face; badly dressed; with gray unkempt whiskers, and a certain waspish expression on his thin face which was utterly at variance, not only with the good Father’s writings,--which for ‘real larky fun,’ as James Hannay expressed it, are unsurpassed,--but also with the really kind nature of the man. His eyes were by far the best feature of his face. Keen, bright, and piercing, they were eyes that held you. Their glance was very rapid and eager, and instantly prepossessed you in his favour.”

FREDERICK MARRYAT

1792-1848

[Sidenote: F. Marryat’s _Life and Letters of Captain Marryat_.]

“Although not handsome, Captain Marryat’s personal appearance was very prepossessing. In figure he was upright, and broad-shouldered for his height, which measured five feet ten inches. His hands, without being under-sized, were remarkably perfect in form, and modelled by a sculptor at Rome on account of their symmetry. The character of his mind was borne out by his features, the most salient expression of which was the frankness of an open heart. The firm decisive mouth and massive thoughtful forehead were redeemed from heaviness by the humorous light that twinkled in his deep-set gray eyes, which, bright as diamonds, positively flashed out their fun, or their reciprocation of the fun of others. As a young man, dark crisp curls covered his head; but, later in life, when, having exchanged the sword for the pen and the ploughshare, he affected a soberer and more patriarchal style of dress and manner, he wore his gray hair long, and almost down to his shoulders. His eyebrows were not alike, one being higher up and more arched than the other, which peculiarity gave his face a look of inquiry, even in repose. In the upper lip was a deep cleft, and in his chin as deep a dimple--a pitfall for the razor, which, from the ready growth of his dark beard, he was often compelled to use twice a day.”

[Sidenote: _The Cornhill_, 1876.]

“He was not a tall man--five feet ten--but I think intended by nature to be six feet, only having gone to sea when still almost a child, at a time when the between-decks were very low-pitched, he had, he himself declared, had his growth unnaturally stopped. His immensely powerful build and massive chest, which measured considerably over forty inches round, would incline one to this belief. He had never been handsome, as far as features went, but the irregularity of his features might easily be forgotten by those who looked at the intellect shown in his magnificent forehead. His forehead and his hands were his two strong points. The latter were models of symmetry. Indeed, while resident at Rome, at an earlier period of his life, he had been requested by a sculptor to allow his hand to be modelled. At the time I now speak of him he was fifty-two years of age, but looked considerably younger. His face was clean-shaved, and his hair so long that it reached almost to his shoulders, curly in light loose locks like those of a woman. It was slightly gray. He was dressed in anything but evening costume on the present occasion, having on a short velveteen shooting-jacket and coloured trousers. I could not help smiling as I glanced at his dress--recalling to my mind what a dandy he had been as a young man.”--1844.

HARRIET MARTINEAU

1802-1876

[Sidenote: H. Martineau’s _Autobiography_.]

“She was graver and laughed more rarely than any young person I ever knew. Her face was plain, and (you will scarcely believe it) she had _no_ light in the countenance, no expression to redeem the features. The low brow and rather large under lip increased the effect of her natural seriousness of look, and did her much injustice. I used to be asked occasionally, ‘What has offended Harriet that she looks so glum?’--I, who understood her, used to answer, ‘Nothing; she is not offended, it is only her look,’”--1818.

[Sidenote: James Payn’s _Literary Recollections_.]

“In the porch stood Miss Martineau herself. A lady of middle height, ‘inclined’ as the novelists say ‘to _embonpoint_,’ with a smile on her kindly face and her trumpet at her ear. She was at that time, I suppose, about fifty years of age; her brown hair had a little grey in it, and was arranged with peculiar flatness over a low but broad forehead. I don’t think she could ever have been pretty, but her features were not uncomely, and their expression was gentle and motherly.”--1852.

[Sidenote: H. Martineau’s _Autobiography_.]

“... I saw Miss Martineau a few weeks since. She is a large, robust, elderly woman, and plainly dressed; but withal she has so kind, cheerful, and intelligent a face, that she is pleasanter to look at than most beauties. Her hair is of a decided gray, and she does not shrink from calling herself old. She is the most continual talker I ever heard; it is really like the babbling of a brook; and very lively and sensible too; and all the while she talks she moves the bowl of her ear-trumpet from one auditor to another, so that it becomes quite an organ of intelligence and sympathy between her and yourself.... All her talk was about herself and her affairs; but it did not seem like egotism, because it was so cheerful and free from morbidness.”--About 1856.

FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE

1805-1872

[Sidenote: F. Maurice’s _Life of F. D. Maurice_.]

“He was distinctly below the middle height, not above five feet seven inches, but he had a certain dignity of carriage, despite the entire absence of any self-assertion of manner, which in the pulpit, where only his head and shoulders were observable, removed the impression of small stature.... His hair was now of a silvery white, very ample in quantity, fine and soft as silk. The rush of his start for a walk had gone. His movements had, like his life, become quiet and measured. At no time had there been so much beauty about his face and figure. There was now--partly from manner, partly from face, partly from a character that seemed expressed in all,--beauty which seemed to shine round him, and was very commonly observed by those amongst whom he was. It made undergraduates, not specially impressionable, stop and watch him.... Servants and poor people whom he visited often spoke of him as ‘beautiful.’”--1866.

[Sidenote: _The Spectator_, 1872.]

“Yet though Mr. Maurice’s voice seemed to be the essential part of him as a religious teacher, his face, if you ever looked at it, was quite in keeping with his voice. His eye was full of sweetness, but fixed, and, as it were, fascinated on some ideal point. His countenance expressed nervous, high-strung tension, as though all the various play of feelings in ordinary human nature converged, in him, towards a single focus, the declaration of the divine purpose. Yet this tension, this peremptoriness, this convergence of his whole nature on a single point, never gave the effect of a dictatorial air for a moment. There was a quiver in his voice, a tremulousness in the strong deep lines of his face, a tenderness in his eye, which assured you at once that nothing of the hard crystallising character of a dogmatic belief in the Absolute had conquered his heart, and most men recognised this, for the hardest and most business-like voices took a tender and almost caressing tone in addressing him.”

JOHN MILTON

1608-1674

[Sidenote: D’Israeli’s _Curiosities of Literature_.]

“Salmasius sometimes reproaches Milton as being but a puny piece of man, an homunculus, a dwarf deprived of the human figure, a bloodless being composed of nothing but skin and bone, a contemptible pedagogue, fit only to flog his boys; and rising into a poetic frenzy applies to him the words of Virgil: ‘_Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum._’ Our great poet thought this senseless declamation merited a serious refutation; perhaps he did not wish to appear despicable in the eyes of the ladies; and he would not be silent on the subject, he says, lest any one should consider him as the credulous Spaniards are made to believe by their priests, that a heretic is a kind of rhinoceros or a dog-headed monster. Milton says that he does not think any one ever considered him as unbeautiful; that his size rather approaches mediocrity than the diminutive; that he still felt the same courage and the same strength which he possessed when young, when, with his sword, he felt no difficulty to combat with men more robust than himself; that his face, far from being pale, emaciated, and wrinkled, was sufficiently creditable to him: for though he had passed his fortieth year, he was in all other respects ten years younger. And very pathetically he adds, ‘That even his eyes, blind as they are, are unblemished in their appearance; in this instance alone, and much against my inclination, I am a deceiver!’”

[Sidenote: Aubrey’s _Lives of Eminent Persons_.]

“He was scarce as tall as I am.[5] He had light browne hayre. His complexion exceeding fayre. Ovall face, his eie a darke gray. His widowe has his picture drawne very well and like, when a Cambridge scollar. She has his picture when a Cambridge scollar, which ought to be engraven; for the pictures before his books are not at all like him.... He was a spare man.... Extreme pleasant in his conversation, and at dinner, supper, etc., but satyricall. He pronounced the letter _r_ very hard. He had a delicate tuneable voice, and had good skill. His harmonicall and ingeniose soul did lodge in a beautiful and well-proportioned body:--‘In toto nusquam corpore menda fuit.’--Ovid.”

[Sidenote: Keightley’s _Life of Milton_. *]

“In his person Milton was rather under the middle size, well built and muscular. ‘His deportment,’ says Wood, ‘was affable, and his gait erect and manly, bespeaking courage and undauntedness.’ He was skilled in the use of the small sword, and, though he certainly would not have engaged in a duel, he had strength, skill, and courage to repel the attack of any adversary. His hair, which never fell off, was of a light-brown hue, and he wore it parted on his forehead as it is represented in his portraits. His eyes were gray, and, as the cause of his blindness was internal, they suffered no change of appearance from it. His face was oval, and his complexion was so fine in his youth that at Cambridge he was, as we are told by Aubrey, called the Lady of his College; even in his later days his cheeks retained a ruddy tinge. He had a fine ear for music, and was well skilled in that delightful science; he used to perform on the organ and bass-viol. His voice was sweet and musical, and we may presume that his singing showed both taste and science.”

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD

1786-1855

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]

“I certainly was disappointed when a stout little lady, tightened up in a shawl, rolled into the parlour of Newman Street, and Mrs. Holland announced her as Miss Mitford; her short petticoats showing wonderfully stout leather boots, her shawl _bundled_ on, and a little black coal-scuttle bonnet--when bonnets were expanding--added to the effect of her natural shortness and rotundity; but her manner was that of a cordial country gentlewoman; the pressure of her ‘fat’ little hands (for she extended both) was warm; her eyes, both soft and bright, looked kindly and frankly into mine; and her pretty rosy mouth dimpled with smiles that were always sweet and friendly.... She was always pleasant to look at, and had her face not been cast in so broad--so ‘out-spread’--a mould, she would have been handsome; even with that disadvantage, if her figure had been tall enough to carry her head with dignity, she would have been so; but she was most vexatiously ‘dumpy.’ Miss Landon ‘hit off’ her appearance when she whispered, the first time she saw her (and it was at our house), ‘Sancho Panza in petticoats!’ but when Miss Mitford spoke, the awkward effect vanished,--her pleasant voice, her beaming eyes and smiles, made you forget the wide expanse of face; and the roley-poley figure, when seated, did not appear really short.”--1828.

[Sidenote: James Payn’s _Literary Recollections_.]

“I can never forget the little figure rolled up in two chairs in the little Swallowfield room, packed round with books up to the ceiling, on to the floor--the little figure with clothes on of course, but of no recognised or recognisable pattern; and somewhere out of the upper end of the heap, gleaming under a great deep, globular brow, two such eyes as I never, perhaps, saw in any other Englishwoman--though I believe she must have had French blood in her veins, to breed such eyes, and such a tongue, for the beautiful speech which came out of that ugly (it was that) face, and the glitter and depth too of the eyes, like live coals--perfectly honest the while, both lips and eyes--these seemed to me to be attributes of the highest French, or rather Gallic, not of the highest English, woman. In any case, she was a triumph of mind over matter, of spirit over flesh, which gave the lie to all materialism, and puts Professor Bain out of court--at least out of court with those who use fair induction about the men and women whom they meet and know.”--About 1851.

[Sidenote: James Payn’s _Literary Recollections_.]

“I seem to see the dear little old lady now, looking like a venerable fairy, with bright sparkling eyes, a clear, incisive voice, and a laugh that carried you away with it. I never saw a woman with such an enjoyment of--I was about to say a joke, but the word is too coarse for her--of a pleasantry. She was the warmest of friends, and with all her love of fun never alluded to their weaknesses.... I well remember our first interview. I expected to find the authoress of _Our Village_ in a most picturesque residence, overgrown with honeysuckle and roses, and set in an old-fashioned garden. Her little cottage at Swallowfield, near Reading, did not answer this picture at all. It was a cottage, but not a pretty one, placed where three roads met, with only a piece of green before it. But if the dwelling disappointed me, the owner did not. I was ushered upstairs (for at that time, crippled by rheumatism, she was unable to leave her room) into a small apartment, lined with books from floor to ceiling, and fragrant with flowers; its tenant rose from her arm-chair with difficulty, but with a sunny smile and a charming manner bade me welcome. My father had been an old friend of hers, and she spoke of my home and belongings as only a woman can speak of such things. Then we plunged, _in medias res_, into men and books.”--1852.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

1690-1762

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole’s _Letters_.]

“I went last night to visit her. I give you my word of honour, and you who know her will believe me without it, the following is a faithful description: I found her in a little miserable bedchamber of a ready furnished house, with two tallow candles and a bureau covered with pots and pans. On her head, in full of all accounts, she had an old black-laced hood wrapped entirely round so as to conceal all hair, or want of hair; no handkerchief, but instead of it a kind of horseman’s riding-coat, calling itself a _pet-en-l’air_, made of a dark green brocade, with coloured and silver flowers, and lined with furs; bodice laced; a full dimity petticoat, sprigged; velvet muffetees on her arms; gray stockings and slippers. Her face less changed in twenty years than I would have imagined. I told her so, and she was not so tolerable twenty years ago that she should have taken it for flattery, but she did, and literally gave me a box on the ears. She is very lively, all her senses perfect, her language as imperfect as ever, her avarice greater.”

[Sidenote: Horace Walpole’s _Letters_.]

“Did I tell you that Lady Mary Wortley is here? She laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole town. Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any one that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvas petticoat. Her face swelled violently on one side with the remains of a ----, partly covered with a plaister, and partly with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coarse that you would not use it to wash a chimney.--In three words I will give you her picture as we drew it in the ‘Sortes Virgilianae’--

‘Insanam vatem aspicies.’

I give you my honour we did not choose it; but Gray, Mr. Coke, Sir Francis Dashwood, and I, and several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand for different people, most of which did not hit as you may imagine.”--1740.

THOMAS MOORE

1779-1852

[Sidenote: Leigh Hunt’s _Autobiography_.]

“Moore’s forehead was bony and full of character, with ‘bumps’ of wit, large and radiant enough to transport a phrenologist. Sterne had such another. His eyes were as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves; his mouth generous and good-humoured, with dimples; and his manner was as bright as his talk, full of the wish to please and be pleased. He sang, and played with great taste on the pianoforte, as might be supposed from his musical compositions. His voice, which was a little hoarse in speaking (at least I used to think so), softened into a breath, like that of a flute, when singing. In speaking he was emphatic in rolling the letter _r_, perhaps out of a despair of being able to get rid of the national peculiarity.”

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]

“His eyes sparkle like a champagne bubble; there is a kind of wintry red, of the tinge of an October leaf, that seems enamelled on his cheek; his lips are delicately cut, slight, and changeable as an aspen; the slightly-turned nose confirms the fun of the expression; and altogether it is a face that sparkles, beams, and radiates--

‘The light that surrounds him is all from within.’”

1835.

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Retrospect of a Long Life_.]

“I recall him at this moment--his small form and intellectual face rich in expression, and that expression the sweetest, the most gentle, and the kindliest. He had still in age the same bright and clear eye, the same gracious smile, the same suave and winning manner I had noticed as the attributes of what might in comparison be styled his youth (I have stated I knew him as long ago as 1821); a forehead not remarkably broad or high, but singularly impressive, firm, and full, with the organs of music and gaiety large, and those of benevolence and veneration greatly preponderating; the nose, as observed in all his portraits, was somewhat upturned. Standing or sitting, his head was invariably upraised, owing, perhaps, mainly to his shortness of stature. He had so much bodily activity as to give him the attribute of restlessness, and no doubt that usual accompaniment of genius was eminently a characteristic of his. His hair was, at the time I speak of, thin and very gray, and he wore his hat with the jaunty air that has been often remarked as a peculiarity of the Irish. In dress, although far from slovenly, he was by no means precise. He had but little voice, yet he sang with a depth of sweetness that charmed all hearers; it was true melody, and told upon the heart as well as the ear. No doubt much of this charm was derived from association, for it was only his own melodies he sang.”--1845.

HANNAH MORE

1745-1833

[Sidenote: _Memoir of Mrs. Hannah More._]

“I was much struck by the air of affectionate kindness with which the old lady welcomed me to Barley Wood--there was something of courtliness about it, at the same time the courtliness of the _vieille cour_, which one reads of, but so seldom sees. Her dress was of light green Venetian silk; a yellow, richly embroidered crape shawl enveloped her shoulders; and a pretty net cap, tied under her chin with white satin riband, completed the costume. Her figure is singularly _petite_; but to have any idea of the expression of her countenance, you must imagine the small withered face of a woman in her seventy-seventh year; and, imagine also (shaded, but not obscured, by long and perfectly white eyelashes) eyes dark, brilliant, flashing, and penetrating, sparkling from object to object, with all the fire and energy of youth, and smiling welcome on all around.”--1820.

[Sidenote: S. C. Hall’s _Memories of Great Men_.]