Theodore Winthrop

“ Locksley has supplied the theory of Mr. Dreeme’s case. His face illustrates and confirms it. A man of genius, ardent, poor, and nursing a wound. The wound may be merely a scratch, he may merely have had the poet’s quarrel with vulgar life; but, great or small, the hurt has consigned him to this unwholesome solitude, and here he has lavished his mind and body on his art. No, Cecil Dreeme, you are dying because you have ignorantly lived too intensely. But the world does not willingly let such faces die. ”

“ I myself feel the need of you. Even with your eyes closed, the light gone, your countenance tells me of the presence of a character and an experience riper and deeper than my own. What have you been taught by suffering, what have you divined by genius, that you wear maturity so patiently upon your sad young face?”
I took the candle and held it to his lips. ”

“ I therefore stopped intentionally short of a thorough analysis of his countenance. Fair play and my anxiety both made me content with my general impressions. It is error to waste the first look and the first few moments, if one wishes to comprehend a face, — to see into it. No after observations are so sharp and so unprejudiced.
Roughly then, — Cecil Dreeme’s face was refined and sensitive, the face of a born artist. Separately, the features were all good, well cut and strong. Their union did not produce beauty. ”