The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-09-17
Handsome Presidents.

Handsome Presidents.
Justly enough has it been said that
ssno man ever was elected President of
the United States because of his good
looks" Many of our Presidents never
could have been nominated for Office had
bad beauty been an indispensable quail
fcation in our National Chief Magistrate.
Washington was man of imposing
presence, and it would have been ad-
mitted that he was better looking than
most men, even by an observer who was
not under the power of the spell cast by
his great deeds and great name. The
popular idea of the father of his country
comes from Stuart's portrait; and there
is at least one competent authority that
the famous painting is too highly ideal
lied to afford just likeness of the inst
man. In Mr. Edmund Qnincy's noble
Life of Josiah Quincy" we find the
following lively passage: Il was curl
GUS to know how my fathers recollec-
tions of the personal appearance of
Washington agreed with the popular de-
scriptions and pictorial representations
of it with which we are all familiar. He
was not an imaginative man, and never
dressed his heroes in colors Of fancy.
No man had profounder reverence for
Washington than he, but this did not af
feet his perceptions of physical phenom-
ena. nor his recollections of them. My
mother, on the contrary, was of imagi-
nation all compact, and Washington was
in her minds eye, as she recalled him,
more than q hero-a superior being, as
far above the common race of mankind in
majesty and grace of per. on and
bearing as in moral grandeur.
This was one of the few subjects
on which my father and mother differed
in opinion. He maintained that Stuart's
portrait is highly idealized one, pre-
senting its great subject as the artist
thought he ought to live in the minds of
posterity, but not strong resemblance
of the actual man in the flesh. He
always declared that the portrait by
Savage in the college dining-rooms in
Harvard Hall. at Cambridge, was the
best likeness he had ever seen of Wash
ington, though its merits as a work of
art are but small. One day, when talk
ing over those times in his old age, /
asked my father to tell me what were his
recollections of Washington's personal
presence and bearing. I will tell you,'
said he, siust how he struck me. He re-
minded me Of the gentlemen who used
to come to Boston in those days to attend
the General Court from Hampden or
Franklin County, in the western part of
the State. A little stiff in his person,
not a little formal in his manners, not
particularly at ease in the presence of
surangers. He had the air of q country
gentleman not accustomed to mix much
IN society, perfectly polite but not easy
in his address and conversation, and
not graceful in his gait and move
ments.' From the recollections of Mr..
(William) Sullivan, which. he
published many years afterward, it
would seem that the impression made
upon him by Washington, who was the
object of his political idolatry, was the
same as that made upon his friend. He
SAYS: I'm his own house his action was
calm, deliberate and digni6ed, without
pretensions to gracefulness or peculiar
manner, but merely natural, as might be
expected in such p man. When walking
in the street his movements had not the
soldierly air which might have been ex-
pected. His habitual notions had been
formed long before he took command of
the American armies, in the wars of the
interior, or in the surveying of the
wilderness lands-emplo in which
elegance and grace were not likely to be
acquired. It certainly was perfectly
natural that Washington's manners
should have been those of a country
gentleman living remote from cities, he
having been engaged in rural occupations
the chief part of his life, and moving in
a very narrow circle of society when he
was called, at the age af 43, to the leader
ship of the Revolution >" We prefer
Mrs. Josiah Quincy's estimate of Wash
ington to that of her husband, because
she was woman capable of forming
opinions on all matters, and because
women are far better judges of character
than men; but MIR. Quincy's estimate is
entitled to great weight.
President Jonn Adams portraits
create the belief that he was good look
ing man when young, and also in middle
life. His grandson, Mr.. G.. f. Adams, in
closing his Life of his grandfather,
says: s'In figure John Adams was not
tall, scarcely exceeding middle height,
but of stout, well knit frame, denoting
vigor and long life, yet, as he grew old,
inclining more and more TO corpulence.
His head was large and round, with
wide forehead and expanded brows. His
eye was mild and benignant, perhaps
emotion, but when excited it fully ex-
pressed the yehemence of the spirit that
stirred within. His presence was grave
and imposing on serious occasions, but
not unloading" A very good descrip-
tion of the man, and remarkable as COM
ing from relative, who was 10 years old
at the time of the ex-President's death.
President jefferson was a very tall
man-as tall as Washingt this,
drawback on his figure when he was
young and slim, was highly favorable to
his appearance in later life. He was,
even in youth, an impressive man, with
good, but not handsome face. He
was very fair man, and for every man
of that complexion who is good looking
there are at least twenty dark men who
are thus favored by nature. He was q
polite and pleasing man, but he never
insulted others by condescension. Mr..
William Sullivan tells us that President
Madison was "a man of small stature and
grave appearance" when in Congress
l1789-97], adding that at the close of
his Presidency (1817) he seemed to be
q careworn man, and appeared, by his
face, to have advanced to more mature