Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1886 — A Portrait of Castelar. [ARTICLE]

A Portrait of Castelar.

It was my good fortune to meet Castelar, in the autumn of 1869, when he was • flushed with the triumph of “the greatest effort of his life,” his fervid speech on the Spanish Constitution. The first impression one has on seeing him is that nature has exhaustednerself in building a perfect machine tor human vocal utterance. Slightly above the middle height, and stoutly built without positive corpulence, his notably erect carriage gives to his splendidly rpunded chest seemingly titanic proportions. The effect is enhanced, perhaps, by his habit of wearing a low-cut waistcoat and a slender necktie, leaving a snowy expanse of linen, on which a rare ink-spot at times attests the absorbing character of his studious pursuits. A low collar shows the prominent sinews of a neck of almost taurine contour. Square, powerful jaws enfi'atoe a large, straight-cut mouth. The lips, slightly sensuous in their fullness, are half hidden by a heavy moustache of wiry, dark-brown hair, curved enough to relieve it from the suspicion of bristliness. He is always cleanshaven as to cheek and chin, which makes the clearness -of his slightly florid complexion more noticeable, and brings into relief a rounded button of a mole just below the left corner of his mouth. I saw no trace of stubble on his ' face, even in the saddest days of the Republic, when he, the responsible head of its power, saw the inevitable end approaching, and, like the poor Lincoln after Fredericksburg, might h ave said: “If there is a soul out of hell that suffers more than I, God pity him!” His head, thrown well back, tip-tilts his nose more than nature intended. It might be a better nose, but he seems to be satisfied with it. The eyes are limpid, neither strikingly large nor dark, but they have a way of looking one frankly through and through, as with self-consciousness of integrity -of— convictions. Wellrounded brows slope upwards into a somewhat receding forehead, made more conspicuous by baldness. One looks, and sighs for. the superhuman frontal bulk of Webster Castelar’s chin, too, is inadequate. It is delicately rounded, but there ought to be more of it. If he had possessed. Serrano’s forehead and chin, the Spanish Republic might have been a living thing to-ejay.., But his.voice! Like Salvini’s, once heard it is never to be forgotten. Whether in the softly modulated tones of conversation, when the peculiar Andalusian accentuation is now and then characteristic, or rising to the sober force of demonstrative declamation, or trembling with feeling, or sweeping all before it in a wild Niagara of invective, it is always resonant. His slightest whisper pierces to .the farthest corner of the Hall of Deputies, his fiercest Boanerges-blast is never harsh. This orator found his chiefest implement ready fashioned to his use. He never had to fill his mouth with sea-shore pebbles.— A. A. Adee, in the Century. f