manners, and the other effeminacies of emptiness looks the
charlatan he is. Synge gave one from the first the impression of a
strange personality. He was of a dark type of Irishman, though not
black-haired. Something in his air gave one the fancy that his
face was dark from gravity. Gravity filled the face and haunted
it, as though the man behind were forever listening to life's case
before passing judgment. It was "a dark, grave face, with a great
deal in it." The hair was worn neither short nor long. The
moustache was rather thick and heavy. The lower jaw, otherwise
clean-shaven, was made remarkable by a tuft of hair, too small to
be called a goatee, upon the lower lip. The head was of a good
size. There was nothing niggardly, nothing abundant about it. The
face was pale, the cheeks were rather drawn. In my memory they
were rather seamed and old-looking. The eyes were at once smoky
and kindling. The mouth, not well seen below the moustache, had a
great play of humour on it. But for this humorous mouth, the
kindling in the eyes, and something not robust in his build, he
would have been more like a Scotchman than an Irishman.

I remember wondering if he were Irish. His voice, very guttural
and quick, with a kind of lively bitterness in it, was of a kind
of Irish voice new to me at that time. I had known a good many
Irish people; but they had all been vivacious and picturesque,
rapid in intellectual argument, and vague about life. There was
nothing vivacious, picturesque, rapid or vague about Synge. The
rush-bottomed chair next to him was filled by talker after talker,
but Synge was not talking, he was answering. When someone spoke to
him he answered with the grave Irish courtesy. He offered nothing
of his own. When the talk became general he was silent. Sometimes
he went to a reddish earthenware pot upon the table, took out a