Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1885 — Mr. Emerson’s Appearance. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Emerson’s Appearance.

His head was long and narrow, but lofty, almost symmetrical, and of more nearly equal breadth in its anterior and posterior than many or most heads. His shoulders sloped so much as to be commented upon for this peculiarity by Mr. Gilfillan, and, like “Ammon’s great son,” he carried one shoulder a little higher than the other. His face was thin, his nose somewhat accipitrine, casting a broad shadow; his mouth rather wide, well formed, and well closed, carrying a question and an assertion in its finely finished curves; the lower lip a little prominent, the chin shapely and firm, as becomes the corner-stone of the countenance. His expression was calm, sedate, kindly, with that look of refinement oentering about the lips which is rarely found among the New Englander, unless the family features have been for two or three cultivated generations the battlefield and the playground of varied thoughts and complex emotions as well as the sensuous and nutritive port of entry. His whole look was irradiated ly an ever-active, inquiring intelligence. His manner was noble and gracious.—Oliver Wendell Holmes.