The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-02-07
GREAT MEN UNT|DY
Noted Painter Had Smallest and
Dirtiest Hands on Record"
Doctor Johnson Was orotesque, But "
Was Fitzgerald Who "Took the
Cake" for S~Iovenllness in the
Ranks of the Great.

1t is surprising how careless OF their
outer appearance many famous men
have been. 1t is said OF Turner, the
great landscape painter, that his hands
were the smallest and dirtiest hands
on record" Perhaps that is an exag-
%geration, but he was certainly very
slovenly in his dress. He wore a black
swallowtail dress coat, very much In
need OF a clothes brush vigorously
used, and In the warmest as well as in
he coolest weather, he wore round his
throat a sort Of wrap or muf1er, which
he would unloosen, letting the ends
dangle down in front and dip into the
colors of his palette. He always
worked either with his old hat on his
head or with this same large muller
over his head. His appearance was
more like that of an old time coach
man than of a famous Royal academi-
clan, for he vas short and stout. with
a red and blotchy face.
Doctor Johnson's slovenliness has
almost passed into proverb. There
are many contemporary accounts OF
his turning out of his house in Bolt
court with his wig back to front and
his stockings down. When Boswell
visited him at 1 Inner Temple lane, he
records, His brown suit of clothes
looked very rusty; he had on a little
old, ~shriveled, unpowdered wig, which
was too small for his head; his shirt
neck and the knees of his breeches
we're loose, his black worsted stock
ings i'll drawn up and by way of slip
pers he had on a pair of untouched
shoes" When it is added that this
great man was constantly twitching.
granting, shaking his head, putting his
cheeks and blinking his eyes 1t must
be admitted that his appearance was
not only uncouth, but gr%otesque.
Thomas Carlyle, coming out Of a
peasant race, never conformed to 30
ciety garb. He was always the in
spired peasant. He would sometimes
go out in his old dressing gown. over
which he buttoned a big coat. gray
with age. When he was left alone in
the house he delighted in swilling his
flagstones with pals of water. and
many a distinguished friend found him
thus engaged with a kind Of smock on
and his bushy hair all tousled. He
went about all the summer among he
highest aristocracy in a frieze jacket
which was part of an old dressing
gown. All the cabmen and bus drivers
Chelsea way knew him. One said: HE
may wear a queer at. but what would
yer give for the 'eadpiece inside of
it,"
1t would not b. seemly to describe
Tennyson as %slovenly in any real
sense. He was a s~ingularly noble look
ing man, but he did not care a jot what
he wore. His old SLOUGH hat had seen
unnumbered years and tapped about
at all angles. and the Inverness cape
(which he invariably %ore a &bout
as old as his hat. People who met him
without knowing his immense distinc'
ton would have regarded him as a
rather quaint character, and a tailors
cutter would not have assessed him at
half a dollar. all told.
This is a description Of the daily ap-
p~earance of Edward Fitzgerald, the
immortal author of THE Rubaiyat" OF
omar Khayyam: Struggling gray hall
and s~lovenly in dress, wearing an an
cient. battered, b~lack-banded, shiny
edged tall hat, around which he would
in wintry weather tie a Handkerchief
to keep it in place; his clothes of bag
gy blue cloth, as though he were q
seafarer, his %trousers short and MS
shoes low, exhibiting a length OF white
; or gray stockings. With an unstarched
, shirt front, high, crumpled. standby
collar, a big black silk tie in a careless
bow; In cold weather trailing a greer
and black and gray plaid shawl, In no
: weather even walking barefoot will
= his boots slung to a stick. Surel!
! "Old Fitz," as Tennyson called him
> took the cake for ~slovenliness of al
the immortalsi