[The newspaper was started up with a Whig orientation in 1851. Here is the final part of Johnston's article. Extra paragraph breaks for easier reading.]
Meantime, his face. expressive as it was ugly, was not much less busy than his limbs, in bearing its part in the conversation, and kept up, all the while, the most speaking by-play, an eloquence of the countenance as great as ugly features could well have.
It stood to his conversation like the artful help of well-imagined illustrations, to the text of a book: a graphic commentary on every word, that was as convincing to the eyes as was his discourse to the ears. The impression which it conveyed was a strong auxiliary of all he uttered: for it begat in you an almost unavoidable persuasion of his sincerity -- a virtue of the appearance of which he made good use, and had vast need.
You may have seen his portraits, his busts, the bronze statue -- faithful enough except as to the limbs -- which the Israelite navy-captain bought in Paris at the price of old clothes, and offered to Congress, but which it put by with disdain, as a stroke of speculation, meant to procure professional advancement not earned in any other way.
From all these. one gets a just enough idea of the mere mold of his physiognomy, but none, of course, of that mobility which was its only fine quality, nor of the oddity of his complexion.
There was much, in its general tint, of the color of cream; but as that substance is one of which you, good people of the great city of Gotham, conceive only as a modification of prepared chalk, let me explain by what they have oftener seen -- the fruity part of a pumpkin pie.
The face looked as if it were battered with such a paste; but in addition to this ghastliness of hue, it was besprinkled with pox-pits, all of which were a lively purple. Bad as was the uncontrasted complexion, you may imagine what its beauty became, when set off by such a foil.
As to features, he had not one that was good, except the eyes; they were a greyish blue, clear and sparkling. His head was well set and well curried, but had the Jacobean shape and air; his hair was originally reddish, but turned to an ill-bleached foxiness; his forehead was large, but not well modelled in those main frontal regions which bespeak loftiness of thought and creativeness of imagination: it indicated clearness, not greatness.
His brows were neither strong not soft, but irregular and uncertain, as those of one who was wanting in will, and yet had not much feeling.
His nose was mean -- a small tube ending in a sudden bulb; it was much cocked up, and derived from that shape a character of pertness and vulgarity.
His mouth was rather large, but the lips were thin and not well cut; the expression setting on them bland but not benevolent, conciliating rather than kindly; its meaning assigned his emotions to the manners, not the heart -- to policy, not the temper. The chin was, like the forehead, broader than it was strong.
Such were his lineaments in detail: quite indifferent, separately; and yet, all together, very expressive and agreeable. As his motions, light and easy, were the contradiction of his ill-made limbs, so was his pleasing and animated countenance that of features, of themselves, ignoble apart.
Lastly, his conversation: he certainly was one of the best talkers I have ever listened to; copious in the extreme, without ever growing tedious; easy yet compact; flowing but never loose; very variously, and to all appearance soundly informed, and continually dealing out his information, but rather as if to gratify you, not himself; his mind seemed to me, then, a great repository of the wisdom that must come from one's self.
Trained in what was once its best school -- the Parisian saloons [salons] -- he understood conversation thoroughly as an art; and he made the most of it, as an engine of personal influence and for the propagation of his party opinions. Towards the inculcation of these, his conversation, whatever the subject, was usually bent; except when a scientific matter was in question; either he knew no literature, law, history, philosophy, morals nor theology, or he could not talk of them, unless as connected, in some direct or indirect way, with Democratic theories.
His power, indeed, of winning and of controlling men, always lay chiefly in his skill of personal communication; for, even in public bodies, he rarely made speeches; nor have we any record of his having ever shone as an orator. In short, not feeling himself strong enough to attack men's convictions by the front gate of manful eloquence, he stole in by the back-door of address and of insinuation in private.
At least, however, he got in; which is, no doubt, the great end; and when the end is great, few people are delicate about the means. His were, perhaps, a little burglarious; but then I must confess that the picklock of his talk was admirable.
[Edward William Johnston (1799-1867)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)]
[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]
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