1879.
I.
One day in July, 1870, as I was pacing the floor of my room in Paris, with a book in my hand, I heard a modest knock at the door. The clock-maker, thought I, for it was the appointed time when, once each week, on the stroke of the hour, an assistant of the clock-maker was in the habit of making his appearance to wind up all the clocks of the little hotel garni.
I opened the door. Without there stood a tall, thin, elderly man, in a rather long black frock-coat buttoned about the waist. "Walk in!" said I, and resumed my book without bestowing further scrutiny upon him. But the man stood still, raised his hat, and questioningly mentioned my name. "That is my name," I replied, and before I could ask any question in return, I heard uttered in a subdued voice, the words, "I am Mr. Mill." Had the gentleman introduced himself as the king of Portugal, I could scarcely have been more astonished, and I do not know what he could have said that for the moment would have given me greater pleasure. My feeling was the same that a corporal of the young guards, under the first empire, might have experienced, had the great Napoleon, during one of his rounds in the camp, paid him the honor to notice his existence by giving his ear a pull.
I had attempted to make Stuart Mill known in my fatherland, and on this account he had repeatedly written to me, besides sending numerous pamphlets and newspapers, likely to be of interest to me, both to Copenhagen and to Paris; so he knew my address, and as he was passing through Paris, where, strange to relate, he did not possess a single acquaintance, he did not hesitate to traverse the long distance from the Windsor Hotel to the Rue Mazarin to honor his young correspondent with a visit.
As he mentioned his name to me, I recalled at once his portrait. It gave, however, as little idea of the expression of his countenance and the hue of his skin, as of the way in which he walked and stood. Although sixty-four years of age, his complexion was as pure and fresh as that of a child. He had the smooth, childlike skin and the rosy cheeks that are scarcely ever seen in elderly men of the continent, but that not seldom may be observed in the white-haired gentlemen who take their noonday horseback rides in Hyde Park. His eyes were bright, and of a deep, dark blue, his nose slender and curved, his brow high and arched, with a strongly marked protuberance over the left eye; he looked as though the labor of thought might have forced its organs to extend in order to make more room. The face, with its large and marked features, was full of simplicity, but was not calm; it was, indeed, continually distorted by a nervous twitching, which seemed to betray the restless, tremulous life of the soul. In conversation, he had difficulty in finding words, and sometimes stammered at the beginning of a sentence. Seated comfortably in my room, with his fresh, superb physiognomy, and his powerful brow, he looked like a younger and more vigorous man than he really was. When I accompanied him on the street later, however, I observed that his walk, in spite of its rapidity, was rather halting, and that, notwithstanding his slender form, age had left its impress on his bearing. His dress made him seem older than he was. The old-fashioned coat he wore proved how indifferent he was to his external appearance. He was clad in black, and a crape band was wound in many irregular folds about his hat. Although she had been long dead, he still wore mourning for his wife.
No further signs of negligence were visible; a quiet nobility and a perfect self-control pervaded his presence. Even to one who had not read his works it would have been very evident that it was one of the kings of thought that had taken his seat in the red velvet arm-chair near the fireplace, whose mantel clock my unfounded suspicion led me to suppose he had come to wind up.