The eminent painter, Mulready, once said that Shelley was too
beautiful for portraiture; and yet the descriptions of him hardly
seem to bear this out. He was quite tall and slender, but he
stooped so much as to make him appear undersized. His head was
very small-quite disproportionately so; but this was counteracted
to the eye by his long and tumbled hair which, when excited, he
would rub and twist in a thousand different directions until it
was actually bushy. His eyes and mouth were his best features. The
former were of a deep violet blue, and when Shelley felt deeply
moved they seemed luminous with a wonderful and almost unearthly
light. His mouth was finely chiseled, and might be regarded as
representing perfection.

One great defect he had, and this might well have overbalanced his
attractive face. The defect in question was his voice. One would
have expected to hear from him melodious sounds, and vocal tones
both rich and penetrating; but, as a matter of fact, his voice was
shrill at the very best, and became actually discordant and
peacock-like in moments of emotion.

Such, then, was Shelley, star-eyed, with the delicate complexion
of a girl, wonderfully mobile in his features, yet speaking in a
voice high pitched and almost raucous. For the rest, he arrayed
himself with care and in expensive clothing, even though he took
no thought of neatness, so that his garments were almost always
rumpled and wrinkled from his frequent writhings on couches and on
the floor. Shelley had a strange and almost primitive habit of
rolling on the earth, and another of thrusting his tousled head
close up to the hottest fire in the house, or of lying in the