caverns around his eyes and behind his temples, show nothing weakly in
his constitution. His hard membranes, his visible bones are the signs
of remarkable solidity; and though his skin, discolored by excesses,
clings to those bones as if dried there by inward fires, it
nevertheless covers a most powerful structure. He is thin and tall.
His long hair, always in disorder, is worn so for effect. This
ill-combed, ill-made Byron has heron legs and stiffened knee-joints,
an exaggerated stoop, hands with knotty muscles, firm as a crab's
claws, and long, thin, wiry fingers. Raoul's eyes are Napoleonic, blue
eyes, which pierce to the soul; his nose is crooked and very shrewd;
his mouth charming, embellished with the whitest teeth that any woman
could desire. There is fire and movement in the head, and genius on
that brow. Raoul belongs to the small number of men who strike your
mind as you pass them, and who, in a salon, make a luminous spot to
which all eyes are attracted.

He makes himself remarked also by his "neglige," if we may borrow from
Moliere the word which Eliante uses to express the want of personal
neatness. His clothes always seem to have been twisted, frayed, and
crumpled intentionally, in order to harmonize with his physiognomy. He
keeps one of his hands habitually in the bosom of his waistcoat in the
pose which Girodet's portrait of Monsieur de Chateaubriand has
rendered famous; but less to imitate that great man (for he does not
wish to resemble any one) than to rumple the over-smooth front of his
shirt. His cravat is no sooner put on than it is twisted by the
convulsive motions of his head, which are quick and abrupt, like those
of a thoroughbred horse impatient of harness, and constantly tossing
up its head to rid itself of bit and bridle. His long and pointed
beard is neither combed, nor perfumed, nor brushed, nor trimmed, like
those of the elegant young men of society; he lets it alone, to grow