His eyes
extraordinarily dark, piercing, and brilliant. I felt quite afraid
before them, and remember comparing them to the eyes of the hero of a
certain romance called "Melmoth the Wanderer," which used to alarm us
boys thirty years ago; eyes of an individual who had made a bargain with
a Certain Person, and at an extreme old age retained these eyes in their
awful splendour. I fancy Goethe must have been still more handsome as an
old man than even in the days of his youth. His voice was very rich and
sweet. He asked me questions about myself, which I answered as best I
could. I recollect I was at first astonished, and then somewhat
relieved, when I found he spoke French with not a good accent.
_Vidi tantum._ I saw him but three times. Once walking in the garden of
his house in the _Frauenplan_; once going to step into his chariot on a
sunshiny day, wearing a cap and a cloak with a red collar. He was
caressing at the time a beautiful little golden-haired granddaughter,
over whose sweet fair face the earth has long since closed, too.
Any of us who had books or magazines from England sent them to him, and
he examined them eagerly. _Fraser's Magazine_ had recently come out, and
I remember he was interested in those admirable outline portraits which
appeared for a while in its pages.
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