character of the man.

From the engraving, the arms and hands are omitted. In the picture,
they are, as they were in nature, indispensable to a correct reading
of the vigorous face. The arms were very peculiar. They were
rather short, and were curiously restrained and checked in their
action at the elbows; in the action of the hands, even when
separately clenched, there was the same kind of pause, and a
noticeable tendency to relaxation on the part of the thumb. Let the
face be never so intense or fierce, there was a commentary of
gentleness in the hands, essential to be taken along with it. Like
Hamlet, Landor would speak daggers, but use none. In the expression
of his hands, though angrily closed, there was always gentleness and
tenderness; just as when they were open, and the handsome old
gentleman would wave them with a little courtly flourish that sat
well upon him, as he recalled some classic compliment that he had
rendered to some reigning Beauty, there was a chivalrous grace about
them such as pervades his softer verses. Thus the fictitious Mr.
Boythorn (to whom we may refer without impropriety in this
connexion, as Mr. Forster does) declaims "with unimaginable energy"
the while his bird is "perched upon his thumb", and he "softly
smooths its feathers with his forefinger".

From the spirit of Mr. Forster's Biography these characteristic
hands are never omitted, and hence (apart from its literary merits)
its great value. As the same masterly writer's Life and Times of
Oliver Goldsmith is a generous and yet conscientious picture of a
period, so this is a not less generous and yet conscientious picture
of one life; of a life, with all its aspirations, achievements, and
disappointments; all its capabilities, opportunities, and