The Wonderful Story of RavaletteRandolph, Paschal Beverly
Science
The Wonderful Story of Ravalette
Randolph, Paschal Beverly
Rosicrucians -- Fiction; Spiritualism -- Fiction
His complexion was tawny, resembling that of the Arab children of
Beyroot and Damascus. The shape and set of the chin, jaws and lips, were
indicative rather of power than force. The mouth, in its slightly
protruding upper lip, and two small ridges at the corners, betokened
executive ability, passion, courage, affection, humor, firmness and
decision. The cheeks were slightly sunken, indicating care and trouble,
while the cheek-bones, being somewhat high and broad, betrayed his
aboriginal ancestry, as did also his general beardlessness, for, save a
tuft beneath the chin of jet black silky hair, and a thin and light
mustache, he could lay no claim to hirsute distinction. His nose, which
had been broken by a fall when a child, was neither large nor small, and
as a simple feature, was in no respect remarkable; but taken with the
other features, was most decidedly so, for when under the influence of
passion, excitement or emotion, there was an indescribable something
about the alæ and nostrils that told you that a volcano slumbered in
that man’s brain and heart, only it required a touch, a vent, in the
right direction, to wake its fires and cause it to blaze forth
vehemently, transforming him in an instant from a passive, uncomplaining
man, into the embodiment of virtuous championship of the cause that was
true, or into a demon of hatred and vindictive fury. The good prevailed;
for the evil spasm was ever a spasm only--save in a very few marked
cases, where he had suffered wrongs, deep and grievous, at the hands of
men whose meanness and duplicity toward himself he only discovered when
they had gained their points and ruined him. These men he hated--and yet
that word does not convey the true idea. His feeling was not vindictive,
but was a craving for, and determination to exact justice for his
wrongs. This satisfied, his ill will died on the instant. His eyes, or
rather eye--for one was nearly lost from an accident--was a deep, dark
hazel, and such as people are in the habit of describing as jet black.
It shone with a lustre peculiar, and strangely magnetic when he let his
soul go forth upon winged words from the rostrum, for he had been a
public speaker in his time, and had won no small degree of fame on that
field.
Once seen and heard, this man was one whom it was impossible ever to
forget, so different was he from all other men, and so marked and
peculiar were his characteristics.
Such, in brief, were the externals of the person to whom the reader is
here introduced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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