trary, he would often glide
without collision through a crowded assembly, thread with unerring
dexterity a most intricate path, or securely and rapidly tread the most
arduous and uncertain ways."

This word-portrait corresponds in its main details to the descriptions
furnished by other biographers, who had the privilege of Shelley's
friendship. His eyes were blue, unfathomably dark and lustrous. His hair
was brown; but very early in life it became grey, while his unwrinkled
face retained to the last a look of wonderful youth. It is admitted on
all sides that no adequate picture was ever painted of him. Mulready is
reported to have said that he was too beautiful to paint. And yet,
although so singularly lovely, he owed less of his charm to regularity
of feature or to grace of movement, than to an indescribable personal
fascination. One further detail Hogg pointedly insists upon. Shelley's
voice "was excruciating; it was intolerably shrill, harsh and
discordant." This is strongly stated; but, though the terms are
certainly exaggerated, I believe that we must trust this first
impression made on Shelley's friend. There is a considerable mass of
convergent testimony to the fact that Shelley's voice was high pitched,
and that when he became excited, he raised it to a scream. The epithets
"shrill," "piercing," "penetrating," frequently recur in the
descriptions given of it. At the same time its quality seems to have
been less dissonant than thrilling; there is abundance of evidence to
prove that he could modulate it exquisitely in the reading of poetry,
and its tone proved no obstacle to the persuasive charms of his
eloquence in conversation. Like all finely tempered natures, he vibrated
in harmony with the subjects of his thought. Excitement made his
utterance shrill and sharp. Deep feeling of the sense of beauty lowered
its tone to richness; but the timbre was always acute, in sympathy with
his intense temperament. All was of one piece in Shelley's nature. This
peculiar voice, varying from moment to moment, and affecting different
sensibilities in divers ways, corresponds to the high-strung passion of
his life, his fine-drawn and ethereal fancies, and the clear vibrations
of his palpitating verse. Such a voice, far-reaching, penetrating, and
unearthly, befitted one who lived in rarest ether on the topmost heights
of human thought.

The acquaintance begun that October evening soon ripened into close
friendship. Shelley and