That is, it looks as remote to the memory of
a man of thirty as to that of a man of seventy. What are a mere forty
years of added later life in the contemplation of such a distance? Pshaw!
EYES
There is nothing described with so little attention, with such
slovenliness, or so without verification--albeit with so much confidence
and word-painting--as the eyes of the men and women whose faces have been
made memorable by their works. The describer generally takes the first
colour that seems to him probable. The grey eyes of Coleridge are
recorded in a proverbial line, and Procter repeats the word, in
describing from the life. Then Carlyle, who shows more signs of actual
attention, and who caught a trick of Coleridge's pronunciation instantly,
proving that with his hearing at least he was not slovenly, says that
Coleridge's eyes were brown--"strange, brown, timid, yet earnest-looking
eyes." A Coleridge with brown eyes is one man, and a Coleridge with grey
eyes another--and, as it were, more responsible. As to Rossetti's eyes,
the various inattention of his friends has assigned to them, in all the
ready-made phrases, nearly all the colours.
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