Anybody without the least notion of drawing could still draw a
speaking, nay scolding, likeness of Keate. If you had no pencil,
you could draw him well enough with a poker, or the leg of a chair,
or the smoke of a candle. He was little more (if more at all) than
five feet in height, and was not very great in girth, but in this
space was concentrated the pluck of ten battalions. He had a
really noble voice, which he could modulate with great skill, but
he had also the power of quacking like an angry duck, and he almost
always adopted this mode of communication in order to inspire
respect. He was a capital scholar, but his ingenuous learning had
NOT "softened his manners" and HAD "permitted them to be fierce"--
tremendously fierce; he had the most complete command over his
temper--I mean over his GOOD temper, which he scarcely ever allowed
to appear: you could not put him out of humour--that is, out of
the ILL-humour which he thought to be fitting for a head-master.
His red shaggy eyebrows were so prominent, that he habitually used
them as arms and hands for the purpose of pointing out any object
towards which he wished to direct attention; the rest of his
features were equally striking in their way, and were all and all
his own; he wore a fancy dress partly resembling the costume of
Napoleon, and partly that of a widow-woman.
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