Harvard Classics Volume 28: Essays English and American
General
Harvard Classics Volume 28: Essays English and American
American essays; English essays
Pepys spent part of a certain winter Sunday, when he had taken physic,
composing "a song in praise of a liberal genius (such as I take my own to
be) to all studies and pleasures." The song was unsuccessful, but the
Diary is, in a sense, the very song that he was seeking; and his portrait
by Hales, so admirably reproduced in Mynors Bright's edition, is a
confirmation of the Diary. Hales it would appear, had known his
business; and though he put his sitter to a deal of trouble, almost
breaking his neck "to have the portrait full of shadows," and draping him
in an Indian gown hired expressly for the purpose, he was preoccupied
about no merely picturesque effects, but to portray the essence of the
man. Whether we read the picture by the Diary or the Diary by the
picture, we shall at least agree that Hales was among the number of those
who can "surprise the manners in the face." Here we have a mouth
pouting, moist with desires; eyes greedy, protuberant, and yet apt for
weeping too; a nose great alike in character and dimensions; and
altogether a most fleshly, melting countenance. The face is attractive
by its promise of reciprocity. I have used the word _greedy_, but the
reader must not suppose that he can change it for that closely kindred
one of _hungry_; for there is here no aspiration, no waiting for better
things, but an animal joy in all that comes. It could never be the face
of an artist; it is the face of a _viveur_--kindly, pleased and pleasing,
protected from excess and upheld in contentment by the shifting
versatility of his desires. For a single desire is more rightly to be
called a lust; but there is health in a variety, where one may balance
and control another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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