ng force engaged the penetrating look. Gazing upon them,
you were drawn in suddenly among the thousand whirring wheels of a
capacious and a vigorous mind, that was both reasoning and prompt, keen
of intellect, acting throughout all its machinery, and having all under
full command: an orbed mind, supplying its own philosophy, and arriving
at the sword-stroke by logical steps,--a mind much less supple than a
soldier's; anything but the mind of a Hamlet. The eyes were dark as the
forest's border is dark; not as night is dark. Under favourable lights
their colour was seen to be a deep rich brown, like the chestnut, or
more like the hazel-edged sunset brown which lies upon our western rivers
in the winter floods, when night begins to shadow them.

The side-view of his face was an expression of classic beauty rarely now
to be beheld, either in classic lands or elsewhere. It was severe; the
tender serenity of the full bow of the eyes relieved it. In profile they
showed little of their intellectual quality, but what some might have
thought a playful luminousness, and some a quick pulse of feeling. The
chin was firm; on it, and on the upper lip, there was a clipped growth
of black hair. The whole visage widened upward from the chin, though not
very markedly before it reached the broad-lying brows. The temples were
strongly indented by the swelling of the forehead above them: and
on both sides of the head there ran a pregnant ridge, such as will
sometimes lift men a deplorable half inch above the earth we tread.
If this man was a problem to others, he was none to himself; and when
others called him an idealist, he accepted the title, reading himself,
notwithstanding, as one who was less flighty than many philosophers and
professedly practical teachers of his generation. He saw far, and he
grasped ends beyond obstacles: he was nourished by sovereign principles;
he despised material present interests; and, as I have said, he was less
supple than a soldier. If the title of idealist belonged to him, we will
not immediately decide that it was opprobrious. The idealized conception
of stern truths played about his head certainly for those who knew and
who loved it. Such a man, perceiving a devout end to be reached, might
prove less scrupulous in his course, possibly, and less remorseful, than
revolutionary Generals. His smile was quite unclouded, and came softly
as a curve in water. It seemed to flow with, and to pass in and out of,
his