If I didn’t know who he is, I wouldn’t be able to tell by his appearance. I realize that great men need not conform to that heroic ideal of simple souls, whereby a great poet is always an Apollo in body and a Napoleon in expression, or at the very least a man of distinction with an expressive face. I realize that such notions are as absurd as they are human. But if we can’t expect everything, or almost everything, we can still expect something. And passing from the figure we see to the soul that speaks, although we can’t expect vivacity or verve, we should at least be able to count on
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