CHAPTER XV.

GENIUS AT HOME.

SHALL we now knock at the door of a genius, and see what manner of man he is in the flesh, and by his own fireside?

The first visit paid by an enthusiastic admirer has often been the subject of amusing alarms. To venture into the presence of one of these exalted beings, and receive permission to grasp his hand, has appeared so great a privilege, that some modest people, frightened at their own audacity, have actually run away though their foot might be already on the threshold. When Hannah More and her sister were taken by Miss Reynolds to see Johnson, the worthy spinsters were in such a flutter as they approached his humble mansion that they went off into palpitations of the heart. Nor can we help smiling when we learn how the moralist in petticoats, whilst waiting for the moralist in pantaloons, took her seat in an easy chair, hoping to catch a ray of inspiration from that honoured piece of furniture, but was afterwards informed that it was one which he rarely occupied.

There stands the gifted one, however. At the first glance his personal appearance may convey a very different impression from that which his writings produce. A biographer of Justus Lipsius states that the great critic was so despicable in exterior, and so unimpressive in conversation, that foreigners who came to see

him would inquire for him without suspecting that they were in his presence, and after being informed of his identity would express their astonishment that this could really be the hero of erudition whom the devotees of learning everywhere admired, and whom kings and cardinals delighted to honour.

Lord Byron said of Miss Edgeworth that she looked as if she could scarcely write her own name, much less her numerous and vastly popular productions. Ugo Foscolo, notwithstanding his dandyish pretensions, was so uncomely that a jest upon his ugliness, as a grimly patent fact, became almost permissible; and once an acquaintance of his who affected not to recognise him at first on his entering a restaurant, afterwards apologised on the ground that he had taken him for an orang-outang. Samuel Rogers was said to be vainer of his person than he was of his poetry, his fortune, or his brilliant social position. Yet he had, as the satirist remarked,

'Mouth and chin would shame a knocker;

Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker.'

And so funereal was his look, that Lord Dudley asked him one day when he was going to set up his hearse ?

Sir W. Davenant's notched and disfigured nose was the text of innumerable sarcasms. It afforded play for friend as well as foe, and not only drew out epigrams from wits, but jests even from beggars. Having one day refused to give alms to a mendicant, the latter muttered an ironical prayer that his eyes might not fail him as his proboscis had done, because, in that case, he would have nothing on which to rest his spectacles. The insignificance of the late Charles Darwin's nose nearly lost him a place in the exploring expedition of the 'Beagle,' upon which he shed such lustre. Pope might well have writhed when he found

himself described by Atterbury as the owner of a crooked mind in a crooked body (mens curva in corpore curvo). My girl-like countenance,' wrote Shelley, 'frequently brought me into contempt.' 'You are not like what I expected to see,' said Scheffer to Dickens; 'you are like a Dutch skipper.' Referring to which observation 'Boz' remarks, with charming petulance, 'that people seem to regard any departure from their preconceived notions as a personal injury, and as if you deserved to be kicked because you fail to realise their idea of what you ought to be.'

Dr. Johnson's untidy figure and uncouth ways exposed him to much ridicule, and sometimes to mortifying rebuffs. Accompanying Reynolds and his sister on one occasion to Miss Cotterell's house, in a fashionable quarter, the maid-servant laid hold of the lexicographer's coat as he was ascending the stairs, imagining him to be an intruder, and asked him very sharply what business he had there? I suppose you intend to rob the house?' exclaimed she. The illustrious Samuel was furious, and out of his whole dictionary (big as it was) he could not for some moments find words sufficiently apt to express his indignation. He roared like a bull, instead of treating the very natural mistake in the temper of a tolerant philosopher.

Yet intellect can ennoble the humblest face and light it up with its own phosphorescent glow. Le Kain, the great French actor, was unpardonably plain; but as he proceeded in his performances, the ladies, who commenced by muttering qu'il est laid, concluded by exclaiming qu'il est beau. How pretty and how piquantly feminine was Miss Reynolds' remark after reading the Deserted Village, 'Well, I shall never think Dr. Goldsmith ugly again.' When Madame de Stael grew animated in conversation, the listeners not only forgot that she

was decidedly ill-favoured, but,' says Croker, 'they also forgot that she was a woman.'1

So the visitor may be startled by some great mental discrepancies. When a man's writings might lead us to expect that he was one of the most joyous of mortals, we might find on making his personal acquaintance that melancholy had marked him as her own. Gavarni, the celebrated French artist, who did for France, in the comic line, what Leech did for England, wore so sad an appearance that it was said he looked like a mute performing at his own funeral, and upon being asked by a lady why he never laughed, replied, 'because it is my business to make others laugh.' Persons who were introduced to Thomas Hood, without any previous intimation respecting his physique, have been known to turn away from the quiet man with the calm, mournful face as if it were impossible that he could be the wild, rollicking humourist who had a jest for ever on his tongue, and who held the most mirth-compelling pen in the kingdom. A stranger, indeed, on meeting Mrs. Siddons for the first time in private, would not have been disappointed had he calculated upon finding her a tragedy queen even in a drawing-room. Such she really was, for, as Sydney Smith asserted, she used to 'stab the potatoes' at dinner, and when she uttered the words, 'Boy, bring me some porter,' the attendant was so overawed by her majestic tones that he dropped the dish he was carrying.

Schiller, in the society of his family or his friends, was a very different person from Schiller when engaged in literary work or in correspondence with his acquaintances. The contrast struck Baggesen with peculiar force. The Dane describes the great German poet as cold and morose, chilling in his intercourse with

1 There is something ambiguous in this utterance; for in the case of the brilliant Baroness the difficulty was generally to believe she was a woman at all.

his associates, and specially so in his demeanour towards his wife. Not a single expression of affection appeared to escape his lips. In company, reports the visitor, he was absolutely nothing; for, unless exceptionally excited, he was neither witty nor entertain-ing, and whatever happy thoughts or brilliant fancies might stream from his pen, none seemed to flow from his tongue.

Mackenzie, the 'Man of Feeling,' whose sentimental compositions used to suggest to their weeping readers the idea of a person with a saddened face and a softened voice, was a jovial, rattling fellow, who liked good company, and could even join in savage diversions; for on coming home one day from a cockfight, his glee was so exuberant that his wife could not help reproaching him by exclaiming, 'Oh, Harry, you put all your feelings on paper.'

That a man like Schopenhauer, the wretched pessimist, should have been anything but a pleasant inmate in a house, will be naturally imagined. He, the sourest of philosophers, through whose veins ran vinegar instead of blood, and all of whose organs seem to have been employed in secreting the gall of bitterness instead of the milk of human kindness, would have belied himself had he found ought that was good in a world where everything, in his view, was out of joint, and where no one born of woman could by possibility set matters right—not even himself. True to his doctrines in private, as well as in print, he quarrelled with his mother, and left her; he would not allow his housekeeper to speak to him, except at certain times; he crippled his landlady incurably by throwing her down-stairs, in consequence of which freak he was compelled by law to pay her an annual sum for life; and indulged himself in heartless profligacy as if licensed to sin simply because he was a philosopher.

Men, indeed, whose business it is to sketch character or to