He seems sweepingly satisfied with himself
and his opinions, which are mostly of a challenging nature. He does not
discuss but attempts to browbeat. His voice is an argument, and the
expression on his face and the fire in his eyes suggest the street
corner. He would have greatly distressed a man like Matthew Arnold, for
the only method against such didactics is to send for the boxing gloves.
All the same he is a man of no little force, perhaps a scattered and
dispersed force, as I am inclined to think; and he is a fighter whose
blows, if not a teacher whose opinions, are more worthy of attention
than his sacerdotal pretensions might lead one to suppose.
In appearance he may be compared with Dr. Clifford, but Dr. Clifford
reduced to youthfulness and multiplied by an infinite cocksureness; a
small, eager, sandy-haired, clean-shaven, boyish-looking man, with
light-coloured eyes behind shining spectacles, the head craning forward,
the body elastic and restless with inexhaustible energy, the whole of
him--body, mind, and spirit--tremulous with a jerkiness of being which
seems to have no effect whatever on his powers of endurance.
One misses in him all feeling, all tone, of mellowness. His mind, at
present, shows no lightest, trace of the hallowing marks of time; it
suggests rather the very architecture he takes so savage a pleasure in
denouncing--a kind of mock Gothic mind, an Early Doulton personality.
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