Before him lay the
lake where the long morning lights quivered and danced, as its calm
was now and again ruffled by a gentle breeze. The whole scene had a
lovely and peaceful look, and, gazing on it, Arthur fell into a
reverie.
Sitting thus dreamily, his face looked at its best, its expression of
gentle thoughtfulness giving it an attraction beyond what it was
entitled to, judged purely from a sculptor's point of view. It was an
intellectual face, a face that gave signs of great mental
possibilities, but for all that a little weak about the mouth. The
brow indicated some degree of power, and the mouth and eyes no small
capacities for affection and all sorts of human sympathy and kindness.
These last, in varying lights, could change as often as the English
climate; their groundwork, however, was blue, and they were honest and
bonny. In short, a man in looking at Arthur Heigham at the age of
twenty-four would have reflected that, even among English gentlemen,
he was remarkable for his gentleman-like appearance, and a "fellow one
would like to know;" a girl would have dubbed him "nice-looking;" and
a middle-aged woman--and most women do not really understand the
immense difference between men until they are getting on that way--
would have recognized in him a young man by no means uninteresting,
and one who might, according to the circumstances of his life, develop
into anything or--nothing in particular.
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