et comme perdu dans l’abstraction ou dans une réverie hantée par la désillusion et la lassitude. … Chez le plus faible … on devine bientôt que si le fourreau est usé par la lame, c’est à raison de la dévorante activité de celle-ci. … La tête s’incline avec mélancholie, la bouche a pris l’habitude des contractions douleureuses; mais que de patience invincible dans cette attitude! quelle fécondité, quelle soudaineté d’inspirations marquées sur ces lèvres que plisse le rictus de l’ironie!”
JEREMY BENTHAM
1748–1832
Sir John
Bowring’s
Autobiographical Recollections.
“In the very centre of the group of persons who originated the Westminster Review stands the grand figure of Jeremy Bentham. Though closely resembling Franklin, his face expresses a profounder wisdom and a more marked benevolence than the bust of the American printer. Mingled with a serene contemplative cast, there is something of playful humour in the countenance. The high forehead is wrinkled, but is without sternness, and is contemplative but complacent. The neatly-combed long white hair hangs over the neck, but moves at every breath. Simplex munditiis best describes his garments. When he walks there is a restless activity in his gait, as if his thoughts were, ‘Let me walk fast, for there is work to do, and the walking is but to fit me the better for the work.’ ”
Sir John Bowring’s
Life of Bentham.
“The striking resemblance between the persons of Franklin and Bentham has been often noticed. Of the two, perhaps, the expression of Bentham’s countenance was the more benign. Each remarkable for profound sagacity, Bentham was scarcely less so for a perpetual playfulness of manner and of expression. Few men were so sportive, so amusing, as Bentham—none ever tempered more delightfully his wisdom with his wit. … Bentham’s dress was peculiar out of doors. He ordinarily wore a narrow-rimmed straw hat, from under which his long white hair fell on his shoulders, or was blown about by the winds. He had a plain brown coat, cut in the Quaker style; light-brown cassimere breeches, over whose knees outside he usually exhibited a pair of white worsted stockings; list shoes he almost invariably used; and his hands were generally covered with merino-lined leather gloves. His neck was bare; he never went out without his stick ‘dapple,’ for a companion. He walked, or rather trotted, as if he were impatient for exercise; but often stopped suddenly for purposes of conversation.”
Crabb
Robinson’s
Diary.
“December 31st.—At half-past one went by appointment to see Jeremy Bentham, at his house in Westminster Square, and walked with him for about half an hour in his garden, when he dismissed me to take his breakfast and have the paper read to him. I have but little to report concerning him. He is a small man. He stoops very much (he is eighty-four), and shuffles in his gait. His hearing is not good, yet excellent considering his age. His eye is restless, and there is a fidgety activity about him, increased probably by the habit of having all round fly at his command.”—1831.
RICHARD BENTLEY
1662–1742
R. C. Jebb’s
Bentley. *
“The pose of the head is haughty, almost defiant; the eyes, which are large, prominent, and full of bold vivacity, have a light in them as if Bentley were looking straight at an impostor whom he had detected, but who still amused him; the nose, strong and slightly tip-tilted, is moulded as if Nature had wished to show what a nose can do for the combined expression of scorn and sagacity; and the general effect of the countenance, at a first glance, is one which suggests power—frank, self-assured, sarcastic, and, I fear we must add, insolent: yet, standing a little longer before the picture, we become aware of an essential kindness in those eyes of which the gaze is so direct and intrepid; we read in the whole face a certain keen veracity; and the sense grows—this was a man who could hit hard, but who would not strike a foul blow, and whose ruling instinct, whether always a sure guide or not, was to pierce through falsities to truth.”
JAMES BOSWELL
1740–1795
Littell’s
Living Age, 1870. *
“The sketch by Sir Thomas Lawrence of Boswell, prefixed to Mr. Murray’s edition of Johnson’s Life, illustrates with striking accuracy the saying of Hazlitt, that ‘A man’s life may be a lie to himself and others; and yet a picture painted of him by a great artist would probably stamp his character.’ The busy vanity, the garrulous complacency of the man when out of sight of Dr. Johnson, as he may be supposed to have been when the portrait was etched, are brought out with all the humour and point of a caricature, without its exaggeration. The thin nose, that seems to sniff the air for information, has the sharp shrewdness of a Scotch accent. The small eyes, too much relieved by the high-arched eyebrows, twinkle with the exultation of victories not won—an expression contracted from a vigilant watching of Dr. Johnson, who, when he spoke, spoke always for victory; the bleak lips, making by their protrusion an angle almost the size of the nose, proclaim Boswell’s love of ‘drawing people out,’ a thirst for information at once droll and impertinent; but which finally embodied itself in a form that has been pronounced by Lord Macaulay the most interesting biography in the world; the ample chins, fold upon fold, tell of a strong affection, gross, and almost sottish, for port wine and tainted meats; whilst the folded arms, the slightly-inclined posture, the strong and arrogant setting of the head, exhibit the self-importance, the shrewd understanding, not to be obscurated by vanity, the imperturbable but artless egotism, the clever inquisitiveness which have made him the best-despised and best-read writer in English literature. The portraits handed down to us of Boswell by his contemporaries are most graphic; some of them are malignant, some bitter, some temperate; and those that are temperate are probably just. … Miss Burney thus caricatures the appearance of Boswell in Johnson’s presence, when intent upon his note-taking: ‘The moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of the doctor, and his mouth dropped down to catch every syllable that was uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing, as if hoping from it latently or mystically some information.’ ”
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
1816–1855
Mrs. Gaskell’s
Life of C. Brontë.
“In 1831, she was a quiet,
