s but thinly
scattered; imparting to the monotonous darkness only a more iron
character. As late as the present day, though we have changed in many
things, light-haired men seldom attain eminence among the western
people: many of our legislators are _young_ enough, but none of them are
_beardless_. They have a bilious look, as if, in case of illness, their
only hope would lie in calomel and jalap. One might understand, at the
first glance, that they are men of _talent_, not of _genius_; and that
physical energy, the enduring vitality of the body, has no
inconsiderable share in the power of the mind.

Corresponding to the sable of the hair, the politician's eye was usually
small, and intensely black--not the dead, inexpressive jet, which gives
the idea of a hole through white paper, or of a cavernous socket in a
death's-head; but the keen, midnight darkness, in whose depths you can
see a twinkle of starlight--where you feel that there is meaning as well
as color. There might be an expression of cunning along with that of
penetration--but, in a much higher degree, the blaze of irascibility.
There could be no doubt, from its glance, that its possessor was an
excellent hater; you might be assured that he would never forget an
injury or betray a friend.

A stoop in the shoulders indicated that, in times past, he had been in
the habit of carrying a heavy rifle, and of closely examining the ground
over which he walked; but what the chest thus lost in depth it gained in
breadth. His lungs had ample space in which to play--there was nothing
pulmonary even in the drooping shoulders. Few of his class have ever
lived to a very advanced age, but it was not for want of
iron-constitutions, that they went early to the grave. The same services
to his country, which gave the politician his prominence, also shortened
his life.

From shoulders thus bowed, hung long, muscular arms--sometimes, perhaps,
dangling a little ungracefully, but always under the command of their
owner, and ready for any effort, however violent. These were terminated
by broad, bony hands, which looked like grapnels--their grasp, indeed,
bore no faint resemblance to the hold of those symmetrical instruments.
Large feet, whose toes were usually turned in, like those of the Indian,
were wielded by limbs whose vigor and activity were in keeping with the
figure they supported. Imagine, with these peculiarities, a free, bold,
rather swaggering gait, a swarthy complexion