The Evansville daily journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1870-1875, 1870-12-12
MONDAY. DE0RAgsR IL. ls7o.
Tho Personal appearance OF Great
Men,

AAAh
In nothing, perhaps. are We so fire.
quenUy disappointed IS in the bodily
appearance OF some notorious person.
age with whose sections aud character
We have been long acquainted, but
whose image 10 Che minds eve was
wholly Of our own creation. AT first
we refuse 60 substitute the strange
reality for cur l9ng cherished ideal,
Tor the mind cannot think Of narsons
OF things without creating a picture
81 them. Generally we magnify che
size Of our heroes and enfoId them
with superhuman beauty, or IL they
are hateful we conceive of them as ugly
and deformed.
When Q mao Of gigantic stature is
remarkable also for extraordinary in
telleetusl aud mora. ability-When be
has power 20 govern, or magnetic
eioquence, CT occupies conspicuous
station there can be no question
that be derives great additional in
huence from lie size OF his body,
Constantine, a giant lie body, at the
head of his army or on the throne
provided for him in the great Ecu.
menical Council at Nice UhaIlemange,
towering above others In hight, aud
able to command and reconstruct the
broken elements Of Europe into q
new empire; Peter the Great, who in.
troduced Russia into the si5terhood
Of civilized NATIONS; Washington, the
Father of his Country all satisfied
that instinct which loves to see an
imposing appearance associated with
intellectual power and personal au-
thority.
But facts will not allow as to accept
the msterialistic hypothesis that there
is any connection between the shape
or weight of the body and power Of
mind. Soul, whatever it may be, is
not dependent on the size, nor on any
known quality, of the engine with
which it is connected, for either
amount or intensity of action.
Byron informs his readers that he
was exactly five feet eight and one
half inches in height, slight" aud
muscular about two inches taller
than the average of his eounsrymen,
and about three inches taller than
English lunatios: for DR.. Bsd60e has
ascertained that the adult male in
mates Of lunatic asylums In England
are one inch shorter than their ration
al brethren-perhaps because little
men have q more nervous tempera-
ment, or perhaps because the larger
men outside outvoke and OverpoTer
their smaller brethren, aud put them
into lunatic asylums for safety.
besplerre-perhaps the most re-
markable of all the characters who
figured In the great French Revolu-
= r IL
strongest men the world has ever seen,
seemingly An incarnation of Will-Was
only Ave feet and two or three inches
in height, his complexion liVid and bill
ious, his eyelids constantly blinking.
and his shoulders and neck subject
to frequent spasmodic motions. And
yet he sWayed both the multitude and
Assembly By his logic and eloquenee,
and by the sheer force of intsllect
mastered the storm longer aud more
successfully than any other man.
Marat, his rival, was not even Ave
feet high, his face hideous, and his
head monstrous for size. Danton,
on the other hand, whose ire
menduous eloquence nerved the
new republic successfully against
foreign aggression, was of large and
powerful frame, and had an extraor-
dinarily loud voice.
Peter the Hermit, whose eloquence
stirred all Europe to the Crnsades.-
according 10 BeTingtOn, in his edition
of Abelard aud Heloise was a tall,
thin mar, with a ringing voice.
Whiteield was stout. Wesley was
small. Niebuhr, who revolutionized
the views Of the world on Roman his
tory, was five feet six inches 10 hight,
and slender. Sehleirmacher, who
turned theologic thought into a new
channel, small and deformed. Glib
bon informs US that he was feeble
when q child, small as an adult, hut
corpulent, and bis head was remarka-
bly, large. This vas true also both Of
Sir Isaac Newton aud Of Culver. DR..
Kane, who endured both torrid heat
and polar cold better than any of his
companions, was FIVE feet six inches
in hight; in his best health he
weighed about e9e hundred and thir-
ty-five pounds" Mr.. George Ticknor
relates that TAlleyraEd said to him, In
1916, pointing to portrait of Alexan-
der Hamilton, thai the three greatest
men he had known 10 his time were
Napoleon (smah bat heav7), Charles
Fox large and corpulent), and Alex
andar Hamilton (smalD.
Bismarck, whose name is now more
potent than that Of any other man in
Europe, is more than six feet tall,
we'll proportional, and muscular
Theirs, who represents France before
him, is physically about as insight.
cant a specimen of humanity as could
be picked out Of crowd"
But it is useless to multiply instan'
ees. All the facts show that souls Of
all sorts, in some way, prOmiscuously
occuy bodies Of all sorts. The most
of what is said about temperament
and physiognomy is traditional and
superficial Western Monthly for De