Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1871-01-03
THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE
OF GREAT MEN.

4
bodily appearance Of some notorious
parsonage with whose actions and
character we have been long acquain-
ted, but whose image in the maids
eye was wholly of our own creation.
At first we refuse to substitute the
strange reality for our long cherished
ideal, for the mind cannot think of
persons or things without creating a
picture of them. Generally we mag
nifty the size Of our heroes and enfold
them with superhuman beauty, or
If they are hateful we conceive of
them as ugly and deformed.
! When p map Of giaa ntin st~t.-~ =
remarkable also Tor extraordinary
intellectual and moral abiity-when
he has power to govern, or magnetic
eloquence, or occupies a conspicuous
station-there can be no question
that he derives great additional in
fiuence from the size of his body
Constantine, giant in body, at the
head of his army or on the throne
provided for him in the great Ecum-
enical Council at Nice; Charlemagne,
towering above others in height, and
able to command and reconstruct the
broken elements Of Europe into
new Empire Peter the Great, who
introduced Russia into the sisterhood
Of civilized nations; Washington,
the Father of his Country all salts
fed that instinct which loves to see
an imposing appearance associated
with intellectual power and personal
authority.
But facts will not allow us to ac-
cept the materialistic hypothesis
that there is any connection between
the shape Of weight of the body and
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 eth
er amount or intensity of action.
Byron informs his readers that he
was exactly five feet eight and one
half inches in height, slight" and
muscular, about three inches taller
than English lunatics for Doctor
Reddoe has ascertained that the
adult male inmates of lunatic asylums
in England are one inch shorter than
their rational brethren.
Neutrality-suspicious. the most re-
markable Of all the characters who
figured in the great French Revolu-
ton, and in some respects one Of the
strongest men the world mas ever
seen, seemingly an incarnation of
will-was only five feet and two or
three inches in height, his complex
ion livid and bilious, his eyelids
constantly blinking, and his shout
ders and neck subject to frequent
sP@smodic motions. And yet he
swayed both the multitude and the
Assembly by his logic and eloquence
and by the sheer force Of intellect
mastered the storm longer and more
successfully than any other man.
Marat, his rival, was not over five
feet high, his face hideous, and his
head monstrous for size. Danton,
on the other hand, whose tromen-
dous eloquencesnerved the new re-
public successfully against foreign
aggression, was of a large and pow
crful frame, and had an extraordin-
arily loud voice.
Peter the Hermit, whose eloquence
stirred all Europe to the Crusades-
according to Burlington, in his edi-
ton of AbeIard and Helose-was
tall, thin man, with q ringing voice
Whitefeld was stout. Wesley was
small. Niebuhr, who revolutionized
the views of the world on Roman
history, was five feet six inches in
height, and slender. Schleirmacher,
who turned theologic thought into
new channel, small and deformed.-
Gibbon informs us that he was feeble
when child, small as an adult, but
corpulent, and his head was remark
able large. This was true also both
of Sir Isaac Newton and of Cuvier.
DR.. Kane, who endured both torrid
heat and polar cold better than any
of his companions, twas five feet six
inches in height in his best health
he weighed about one hundred and
thirty-fve pounds. Mr. George Tick
nor relates that Tallyrand said to
him in 1916, pointing to portrait Of
Alexander Hamilton, that the three
greatest men he had known in his
time were Napoleon (small but heavy)
Charles Fox (large an corpuIent,)
and Alexander Hamilton (smalD.
Bismarck, whose name is now
more potent than that of any other
man in Europe is more than six feet
tall, well proportioned, and muscu-
lar. Theirs, who represents France
before him, is physically, about as
Insignificant specimen Of humanity
as could be picked out of crowd"
But it is useless to multiply in
stances. All the facts show that
souls of all sorts, in some way, prom
iscuously occupy bodies of all sorts.
Most of what is said about tempera-
ment and physiognomy is traditional
and superficial Western Monthly for
December.