eat air" about him which filled the eye, and gave him the dignity
of elevated stature, the commanding aspect that accompanies the upright
carriage. His figure was inclined to be slender, though broad of
shoulder and deep of chest; it was the figure of a young man and
probably little changed from what it might have been at five-and-twenty.
A certain youthfulness still lingered even on the countenance,--strange,
for sorrow is supposed to expedite the work of age; and Darrell had
known sorrow of a kind most adapted to harrow his peculiar nature,
as great in its degree as ever left man's heart in ruins. No gray was
visible in the dark brown hair, that, worn short behind, still retained
in front the large Jove-like curl. No wrinkle, save at the corner of the
eyes, marred the pale bronze of the firm cheek; the forehead was
smooth as marble, and as massive. It was that forehead which chiefly
contributed to the superb expression of his whole aspect. It was high
to a fault; the perceptive organs, over a dark, strongly-marked, arched
eyebrow, powerfully developed, as they are with most eminent lawyers; it
did not want for breadth at the temples; yet, on the whole, it bespoke
more of intellectual vigour and dauntless will than of serene philosophy
or all-embracing benevolence. It was the forehead of a man formed to
command and awe the passions and intellect of others by the strength
of passions in himself, rather concentred than chastised, and by an
intellect forceful from the weight of its mass rather than the niceness
of its balance. The other features harmonized with that brow; they were
of the noblest order of aquiline, at once high and delicate. The lip had
a rare combination of exquisite refinement and inflexible resolve. The
eye, in repose, was cold, bright, unrevealing, with a certain absent,
musing, self-absorbed expression, that often made the man's words appear
as if spoken mechanically, and assisted towards that seeming of listless
indifference to those whom he addressed, by which he wounded vanity
without, perhaps, any malice prepense. But it was an eye in which the
pupil could suddenly expand, the hue change from gray to dark, and the
cold still brightness flash into vivid fire. It could not have occurred
to any one, even to the most commonplace woman, to have described
Darrell's as a handsome face; the expression would have seemed trivial
and derogatory; the words that would have occurred to all, would have
been somew