The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [882]
Mr. Willis has made very few attempts at criticism, and those few (chiefly newspaper articles) have not impressed me with a high idea of his analytic abilities, although with a very high idea of his taste and discrimination.
His style proper may be called extravagant, bizarre, pointed, epigrammatic without being antithetical, (this is very rarely the case,) but, through all its whimsicalities, graceful, classic and accurate. He is very seldom to be caught tripping in the minor morals. His English is correct; his most outrageous imagery is, at all events, unmixed.
Mr. Willis’s career has naturally made him enemies among the envious host of dunces whom he has outstripped in the race for fame; and these his personal manner (a little tinctured with reserve, brusquerie, or even haughtiness) is by no means adapted to conciliate. He has innumerable warm friends, however, and is himself a warm friend. He is impulsive, generous, bold, impetuous, vacillating, irregularly energetic — apt to be hurried into error, but incapable of deliberate wrong.
He is yet young, and, without being handsome, in the ordinary sense, is a remarkably well looking man. In height he is, perhaps, five feet eleven, and justly proportioned. His figure is put in the best light by the ease and assured grace of his carriage. His whole person and personal demeanor bear about them the traces of “good society.” His face is somewhat too full, or rather heavy, in its lower portions. Neither his nose nor his forehead can be defended; the latter would puzzle phrenology. His eyes are a dull bluish gray, and small. His hair is of a rich brown, curling naturally and luxuriantly. His mouth is well cut; the teeth fine; the expression of the smile intellectual and winning. He converses little, well rather than fluently, and in a subdued tone. The portrait of him published about three years ago in “Graham’s Magazine,” conveys by no means so true an idea of the man as does the sketch (by Lawrence) inserted as frontispiece to a late collection of his poems.
WILLIAM M. GILLESPIE.
MR. WILLIAM M. GILLESPIE aided Mr. Park Benjamin, I believe, some years ago, in the editorial conduct of “The New World,” and has been otherwise connected with the periodical press of New York. He is more favorably known, however, as the author of a neat volume entitled “Rome as Seen by a New Yorker,” — a good title to a good book. The endeavor to convey Rome only by those impressions which would naturally be made upon an American, gives the work a certain air of originality — the rarest of all qualities in descriptions of the Eternal City. The style is pure and sparkling, although occasionally flippant and dilletantesque. The love of remark is much in the usual way — selon les règles — never very exceptionable, and never very profound.
Mr. Gillespie is not unaccomplished, converses readily on many topics, has some knowledge of Italian, French, and, I believe, of the classical tongues, with such proficiency in the mathematics as has obtained for him a professorship of civil engineering at Union College, Schenectady.
In character he has much general amiability, is warm-hearted, excitable, nervous. His address is somewhat awkward, but “insinuating “ from its warmth and vivacity. Speaks continuously and rapidly, with a lisp which, at times, is by no means unpleasing; is fidgety, and never knows how to sit or to stand, or what to do with his hands and feet, or his hat. In the street [[he]] walks irregularly, mutters to himself, and, in general, appears in a state of profound abstraction.
In person he is about five feet seven inches high, neither stout nor thin, angularly proportioned; eyes large and dark hazel, hair dark and curling, an ill-formed nose, fine teeth, and a smile of peculiar sweetness; nothing remarkable about