There was something, as it were, remarkable--yes, _remarkable_, although
this is but a feeble term to express my full meaning--about the entire
individuality of the personage in question. He was, perhaps, six feet
in height, and of a presence singularly commanding. There was an _air
distingue_ pervading the whole man, which spoke of high breeding, and
hinted at high birth. Upon this topic--the topic of Smith's personal
appearance--I have a kind of melancholy satisfaction in being minute.
His head of hair would have done honor to a Brutus;--nothing could be
more richly flowing, or possess a brighter gloss. It was of a jetty
black;--which was also the color, or more properly the no color of
his unimaginable whiskers. You perceive I cannot speak of these latter
without enthusiasm; it is not too much to say that they were the
handsomest pair of whiskers under the sun. At all events, they
encircled, and at times partially overshadowed, a mouth utterly
unequalled. Here were the most entirely even, and the most brilliantly
white of all conceivable teeth. From between them, upon every proper
occasion, issued a voice of surpassing clearness, melody, and strength.
In the matter of eyes, also, my acquaintance was pre-eminently endowed.
Either one of such a pair was worth a couple of the ordinary ocular
organs. They were of a deep hazel, exceedingly large and lustrous; and
there was perceptible about them, ever and anon, just that amount of
interesting obliquity which gives pregnancy to expression.
The bust of the General was unquestionably the finest bust I ever
saw. For your life you could not have found a fault with its wonderful
proportion. This rare peculiarity set off to great advantage a pair of
shoulders which would have called up a blush of conscious inferiority
into the countenance of the marble Apollo. I have a passion for fine
shoulders, and may say that I never beheld them in perfection before.
The arms altogether were admirably modelled. Nor were the lower limbs
less superb. These were, indeed, the _ne plus ultra_ of good legs. Every
connoisseur in such matters admitted the legs to be good. There was
neither too much flesh, nor too little,--neither rudeness nor fragility.
I could not imagine a more graceful curve than that of the _os femoris_,
and there was just that due gentle prominence in the rear of the
_fibula_ which goes to the conformation of a properly proportioned calf.
I wish to God my young and talented f
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