nied that the impression he might often thus easily
make had the effect of causing the burden of proof,
in certain directions, to rest on him. It was a little
the fault of his aspect, his personal marks, which
made it almost impossible to name his profession.

He was a longish, leanish, fairish young English
man, not unamenable, on certain sides, to classifi
cation as for instance by being a gentleman, by
being rather specifically one of the educated, one
of the generally sound and generally pleasant; yet,
though to that degree neither extraordinary nor
abnormal, he would have failed to play straight into
an observer's hands. He was young for the House
of Commons, he was loose for the army. He was
refined, as might have been said, for the city, and,
quite apart from the cut of his cloth, he was scep
tical, it might have been felt, for the church. On
the other hand he was credulous for diplomacy, or
perhaps even for science, while he was perhaps at
the same time too much in his mere senses for
poetry, and yet too little in them for art. You
would have got fairly near him by making out in
his eyes the potential recognition of ideas; but you
would have quite fallen away again on the question
of the ideas themselves. The difficulty with Den-
sher was that he looked vague without looking
weak idle without looking empty. It was the acci
dent, possibly, of his long legs, which were apt to
stretch themselves; of his straight hair and his well-
shaped head, never, the latter, neatly smooth, and

[[54]]

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v?