On the first
occasion I saw a small, sturdily built man, with a big, clerical sort
of face with marked features, and, as far as I can recollect, rather
coppery in hue. There was a certain grotesqueness communicated to the
face by large, thin, fly-away whiskers of the kind that used to be
known as "weepers" or "Dundrearies." He had then just dawned upon the
world as a celebrity. I had myself as an under-graduate read and
re-read and revelled in _John Inglesant_, and I was intensely curious
to see him and worship him. But he was not a very worshipful man. He
gave the impression of great courtesy and simplicity; but his stammer
was an obstacle to any sense of ease in his presence. I seem to
recollect that instead of being brought up, as most stammerers are, by
a consonant, it took the form with Shorthouse of repeating the word
"Too--too" over and over again until the barrier was surmounted; and in
order to help himself out, he pulled at his whiskers alternately, with
a motion as though he were milking a cow. Some years after I saw him
again; he was then paler and more worn of aspect. He had discarded his
whiskers, and had grown a pointed beard. He was a distinguished-looking
man now, whereas formerly he had only been an impressive-looking one. I
do not remember that his stammer was nearly so apparent, and he had far
more assurance and dignity, which had come, I suppose, from his having
been welcomed and sought after by all kinds of eminent people, and from
having found that eminent people were very much like any other people,
except that they were more simple and more interesting.
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