age; and Darrell had known sorrow of a kind most adapted to harrow his
peculiar nature, as great in its degree as ever left man's heart in
ruins. No gray was visible in the dark brown hair, that, worn short
behind, still retained in front the large Jove-like curl. No wrinkle,
save at the corner of the eyes, marred the pale bronze of the firm cheek;
the forehead was smooth as marble, and as massive. It was that forehead
which chiefly contributed to the superb expression of his whole aspect.
It was high to a fault; the perceptive organs, over a dark, strongly-
marked, arched eyebrow, powerfully developed, as they are with most
eminent lawyers; it did not want for breadth at the temples; yet, on the
whole, it bespoke more of intellectual vigour and dauntless will than of
serene philosophy or all-embracing benevolence. It was the forehead of a
man formed to command and awe the passions and intellect of others by the
strength of passions in himself, rather concentred than chastised, and by
an intellect forceful from the weight of its mass rather than the
niceness of its balance. The other features harmonized with that brow;
they were of the noblest order of aquiline, at once high and delicate.
The lip had a rare combination of exquisite refinement and inflexible
resolve. The eye, in repose, was cold, bright, unrevealing, with a
certain absent, musing, self-absorbed expression, that often made the
man's words appear as if spoken mechanically, and assisted towards that
seeming of listless indifference to those whom he addressed, by which he
wounded vanity without, perhaps, any malice prepense. But it was an eye
in which the pupil could suddenly expand, the hue change from gray to
dark, and the cold still brightness flash into vivid fire. It could not
have occurred to any one, even to the most commonplace woman, to have
described Darrell's as a handsome face; the expression would have seemed
trivial and derogatory; the words that would have occurred to all, would
have been somewhat to this effect: "What a magnificent countenance! What
a noble head!" Yet an experienced physiognomist might have noted that