became as pale and white as a woman.

His head was unusually large. His hair, of a fine, bright black in
masses of curls, gave wonderful beauty to his brow, of which the
proportions were extraordinary even to us heedless boys, knowing
nothing, as may be supposed, of the auguries of phrenology, a science
still in its cradle. The distinction of this prophetic brow lay
principally in the exquisitely chiseled shape of the arches under
which his black eyes sparkled, and which had the transparency of
alabaster, the line having the unusual beauty of being perfectly level
to where it met the top of the nose. But when you saw his eyes it was
difficult to think of the rest of his face, which was indeed plain
enough, for their look was full of a wonderful variety of expression;
they seemed to have a soul in their depths. At one moment
astonishingly clear and piercing, at another full of heavenly
sweetness, those eyes became dull, almost colorless, as it seemed,
when he was lost in meditation. They then looked like a window from
which the sun had suddenly vanished after lighting it up. His strength
and his voice were no less variable; equally rigid, equally
unexpected. His tone could be as sweet as that of a woman compelled to
own her love; at other times it was labored, rough, rugged, if I may
use such words in a new sense. As to his strength, he was habitually
incapable of enduring the fatigue of any game, and seemed weakly,
almost infirm. But during the early days of his school-life, one of
our little bullies having made game of this sickliness, which rendered
him unfit for the violent exercise in vogue among his fellows, Lambert
took hold with both hands of one of the class-tables, consisting of
twelve large desks, face to face and sloping from the middle; he
leaned back against the class-master's desk, steadying the table with
his feet on the cross-bar below, and said: