Each had a weak chin, which was redeemed by the fine, full forehead and brilliant eye.
In face and features, taken as a whole, Burke had a countenance of surpassing beauty. Note the full sensuous lips, the clear, steady, lustrous, beaming eye, the splendid head! There is nothing small, selfish, mean or trifling about the man—he is open, frank, sympathetic, gentle, generous and wise.
He is a manly man.
No wonder that even the staid and chilly Hannah More loved him; and little Miss Burney worshiped at his shrine even in spite of "his friendship for those detested rebels, the Americans; and the other grievous sin of persecuting that good man, Warren Hastings."
Goldsmith was small in stature, apologetic in manner, hesitating, and at times there was a lisp in speech, which might have been an artistic and carefully acquired adjunct of wit, but it was not. Burke was commanding in stature, dignified, suave, and in speech direct, copious and elegant. Goldsmith overworked the minor key, but Burke merely suggests that it had not been omitted.
At college young Burke did not prove a brilliant student—his intellect and aptitude it seems were a modest mouse-color that escaped attention.
His reading was desultory and pretty general, with spasms of passion for this study or that, this author or the other. And he has remarked, most regretfully, that these passions were all short-lived, none lasting more than six weeks.
It is a splendid sign to find a youth with a passion for any branch of work, or study, or for any author. No matter how brief the love, it adds a ring of growth to character; and if you have loved a book once it is easy to go back to it. In all these varying moods of likes and dislikes, Burke was gathering up material for use in after-years.
But his teachers did not regard it so, neither did his father.
He got through college after a five-years' course, aged twenty, by the grace of his tutors. He knew everything except what was in the curriculum.