" The bust of him in Stratford Church was coloured; it gave
him light hazel eyes, and auburn hair and beard. Rowe says of him that
"besides the advantages of his witt, he was in himself a good-natured
man, of too great sweetness in his manners, and a most agreeable
companion."
I picture him to myself very like Swinburne--of middle height or below
it, inclined to be stout; the face well-featured, with forehead domed to
reverence and quick, pointed chin; a face lighted with hazel-clear vivid
eyes and charming with sensuous-full mobile lips that curve easily to
kisses or gay ironic laughter; an exceedingly sensitive, eager speaking
face that mirrors every fleeting change of emotion....
I can see him talking, talking with extreme fluency in a high tenor
voice, the reddish hair flung back from the high forehead, the eyes now
dancing, now aflame, every feature quick with the "beating mind."
And such talk--the groundwork of it, so to speak, very
intimate-careless; but gemmed with thoughts, diamonded with wit,
rhythmic with feeling: don't we know how it ran--"A hundred and fifty
tattered prodigals.
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