remarkable was a mixture, or alternation, of awkwardness with
agility--of the clumsy with the graceful. He would stumble in stepping
across the floor of a drawing room; he would trip himself up on a
smooth-shaven grass-plot, and he would tumble in the most inconceivable
manner in ascending the commodious, facile, and well-carpeted staircase
of an elegant mansion, so as to bruise his nose or his lip on the upper
steps, or to tread upon his hands, and even occasionally to disturb the
composure of a well-bred footman; on the contrary, he would often glide
without collision through a crowded assembly, thread with unerring
dexterity a most intricate path, or securely and rapidly tread the most
arduous and uncertain ways."

This word-portrait corresponds in its main details to the descriptions
furnished by other biographers, who had the privilege of Shelley's
friendship. His eyes were blue, unfathomably dark and lustrous. His hair
was brown; but very early in life it became grey, while his unwrinkled
face retained to the last a look of wonderful youth. It is admitted on
all sides that no adequate picture was ever painted of him. Mulready is
reported to have said that he was too beautiful to paint. And yet,
although so singularly lovely, he owed less of his charm to regularity
of feature or to grace of movement, than to an indescribable personal
fascination. One further detail Hogg pointedly insists upon. Shelley's
voice "was excruciating; it was intolerably shrill, harsh and
discordant." This is strongly stated; but, though the terms are
certainly exaggerated, I believe that we must trust this first
impression made on Shelley's friend. There is a considerable mass of
convergent testimony to the fact that Shelley's voice was high pitched,
and that when he became excited, he raised it to a scream. The epithets
"shrill," "piercing," "penetrating," frequently recur in the
descriptions given of it. At the same time its quality seems to have