his most salient feature. They betrayed his inextinguishable humour.
When he was amused--and he was seldom, in conversation, grave for
long--they lit up with an extraordinary animation; he had an
unconscious trick of blinking them rapidly once or twice, with the
effect of a fugitive twinkle, which was oddly infectious. His laugh,
too, was communicative; he did not often laugh aloud; his enjoyment
found vent in a low, rich chuckle, which, with the lighting up of his
eyes, was wholly and immediately irresistible. The large head, the
strong, rather boyish face, with its singular mobility and often
sweetness of expression, the bright, vital eyes, set wide apart, the
abundant (though not long), dark hair tinged with grey, the white
skin, the sensitive mouth, rather large and full-lipped, the strong
jaws, the sturdy and athletic build,--he was somewhat above medium
height, with broad shoulders, powerful arms, and large, muscular,
finely shaped hands,--his general air of physical soundness and
vigour: all these combined to form an outer personality that was
strongly attractive. His movements were quick and decisive. To
strangers, even when he felt at ease, his manner was diffident, yet of
an indescribable, almost childlike, simplicity and charm. His voice in
speaking was low-pitched and subdued, like his laugh; in conversation,
when he was entirely himself, he could be brilliantly effective and
witty, and his mirth-loving propensities were irrepressible.

His sense of humour, which was of true Celtic richness, was fluent and
inexhaustible. To an admirer who had affirmed in print that certain
imaginative felicities in some of the verse which he wrote for his
songs recalled at moments the phrasing of Whitman and Shakespeare, he
wrote:

"I will confide in you that if, in the next world, I should happen