by heavy, rough, tufty hair that was brushed cleanly from
his forehead and cut tidily about the neck so that he did not look
unkempt. His long, straight nose was as large as the nose of a
successful business man, but it was not bulbous nor were the nostrils
wide and distended. It was a delicately-shaped and pointed nose, with
narrow nostrils that were as sensitive as the nostrils of a racehorse:
an adventurous, pointing nose that would lead its owner to valiant
lengths, but would never lead him into low enterprises. He had grey eyes
that were quick to perceive, so that he understood things speedily, and
the kindly, forbearing look in them promised that his understanding
would not be stiffened by harshness, that it would be accompanied by
sympathy so keen that, were it not for the hint of humour which they
also held, he might almost have been mawkish, a sentimentalist too
easily dissolved in tears. His thick eyebrows clung closely to his eyes,
and gave him a look of introspection that mitigated the shrewdness of
his pointing nose. There was some weakness, but not much, in the full,
projecting lower lip and the slightly receding chin that caused his
short, tightened upper lip to look indrawn and strained; and the big,
ungainly, jutting ears consorted oddly with the serious look of high
purpose that marked his face in repose. It was as though Puck had turned
poet and then had turned preacher. One looked at the fleshy lower lip
and the jutting ears, and thought of a careless, impish creature; one
looked at the shapely, pointing nose and the kindly, unflinching eyes,
and thought of a man reckless of himself in the pursuit of some fine
purpose. One saw immediately that he was a man who could be moved easily
when his sympathies were touched ... but that he could hardly be
dissuaded from the fulfilment of his good intent. His Nationalism was
like a cleansing fire; it consumed every impure thing that might
penetrate his life. It was so potent that he did ridiculous things in
asserting it.... It was typical of him that he should gaelicise his
name, and equally typical of him that he should be undecided about the
correct spelling of "John" in the ancient Irish tongue. He had called
himself "Sean" Marsh, and then had called himself "Shane" and "Shaun"
and "Shawn." Once, for a while, he transformed "John" into "Eoin" and
then, tiring of it, had reverted to "Sean." But this restlessness over
his name was not a sign of general instabil