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Show Ruskin's Voice About His Only AtLcction I never met anyone in my life whose personal appearance disappointed me more than Ruskin's, writes Frank Harris Har-ris in American Mercury. Until I saw him I had always believed that a man of great ability showed his genius in some feature or other, but I could find no hint In Ruskin's face or figure that suggested abnormal talent. His appearance was not even prepossessing. pre-possessing. He looked shriveled up and shrunken, though he was perhaps five feet seven in height; he was slight to frailty and stooped; in spite of a large nose, his face was too small, bony, thin and very wrinkled ; the gray hair that must once have been reddish was carefully brushed flat ; the beard and whiskers were gray, too, and straggling thin; the eyes were bright, grayish-blue in color, quick-glancing quick-glancing now, now meditative under the thick outjutting brows ; the high aquiline nose was matched by a somewhat some-what receding chin; jothing in his face or figure was impressive or arresting; ar-resting; his clothes even were loose and ill-fitting; his manner shy, self-conscious, self-conscious, unassured; I was disappointed disap-pointed to doubting his ability. But as soon as he got excited In speaking I noticed his voice, a thin high tenor irresistibly pathetic; it often of-ten wailed and sometimes cursed, but was always intense. The soul of the man was in that singular, musical voice with its high rhetoric and impassioned im-passioned moral appeal. |