Dr. Chalmers was a ruler among men: this we know historically; this every man who came within his range felt at once. He was like Agamemnon, a native ἄναζ ἀνδρῶν, and with all his homeliness of feature and deportment, and his perfect simplicity of expression, there was about him “that divinity that doth hedge a king.” You felt a power, in him, and going from him, drawing you to him in spite of yourself. He was in this respect a solar man, he drew after him his own firmament of planets. They, like all free agents, had their centrifugal forces acting ever towards an independent, solitary course, but the centripetal also was there, and they moved with and around their imperial sun,—gracefully or not, willingly or not, as the case might be, but there was no breaking loose: they again, in their own spheres of power, might have their attendant moons, but all were bound to the great massive luminary in the midst.
There is to us a continual mystery in this power of one man over another. We find it acting everywhere, with the simplicity, the ceaselessness, the energy of gravitation; and we may be permitted to speak of this influence as obeying similar conditions; it is proportioned to bulk—for we hold to the notion of a bigness in souls as well as bodies—one soul differing from another in quantity and momentum as well as in quality and force, and its intensity increases by nearness. There is much in what Jonathan Edwards says of one spiritual essence having more being than another, and in Dr. Chalmers’s question, “Is he a man of wecht?”
But when we meet a solar man, of ample nature—soul, body, and spirit; when we find him from his earliest years moving among his fellows like a king, moving them whether they will or not—this feeling of mystery is deepened; and though we would not, like some men (who should know better), worship the creature and convert a hero into a god, we do feel more than in other cases the truth, that it is the inspiration of the Almighty which has given to that man understanding, and that all power, all energy, all light, come to him, from the First and the Last—the Living One. God comes to be regarded by us, in this instance, as he ought always to be, “the final centre of repose”—the source of all being, of all life—the Terminus ad quem and the Terminus a quo. And assuredly, as in the firmament that simple law of gravitation reigns supreme—making it indeed a kosmos—majestic, orderly, comely in its going—ruling, and binding not the less the fiery and nomadic comets, than the gentle, punctual moons—so certainly, and to us moral creatures to a degree transcendantly more important, does the whole intelligent universe move around and move towards and in the Father of Lights.
It would be well if the world would, among the many other uses they make of its great men, make more of this,—that they are manifestors of God—revealers of His will—vessels of His omnipotence—and are among the very chiefest of His ways and works.
As we have before said, there is a perpetual wonder in this power of one man over his fellows, especially when we meet with it in a great man. You see its operations constantly in history, and through it the Great Ruler has worked out many of His greatest and strangest acts. But however we may understand the accessory conditions by which the one man rules the many, and controls, and fashions them to his purposes, and transforms them into his likeness—multiplying as it were himself—there remains at the bottom of it all a mystery—a reaction between body and soul that we cannot explain. Generally, however, we find accompanying its manifestation, a capacious understanding—a strong will—an emotional nature quick, powerful, urgent, undeniable, in perpetual communication with the energetic will and the large resolute intellect—and a strong, hearty, capable body; a countenance and person expressive of this combination—the mind finding its way at once and in full force to the face, to the gesture, to every act of the body. He must have what is called a “presence;” not that he must be great in size, beautiful, or strong; but he must be expressive and impressive—his outward man must communicate to the beholder at once and without fail, something of indwelling power, and he must be and act as one. You may in your mind analyze him into his several parts; but practically he acts in everything with his whole soul and his whole self; whatsoever his hand finds to do, he does it with his might. Luther, Moses, David, Mahomet, Cromwell—all verified these conditions.
And so did Dr. Chalmers. There was something about his whole air and manner, that disposed you at the very first to make way where he went—he held you before you were aware. That this depended fully as much upon the activity and the quantity—if we may so express ourselves—of his affections, upon that combined action of mind and body which we call temperament, and upon a straightforward, urgent will, as upon what is called the pure intellect, will be generally allowed; but with all this, he could not have been and done, what he was and did, had he not had an understanding, in vigor and in capacity, worthy of its great and ardent companions. It was large, and free, mobile, and intense, rather than penetrative, judicial, clear, or fine,—so that in one sense he was more a man to make others act than think; but his own actings had always their origin in some fixed, central, inevitable proposition, as he would call it, and he began his onset with stating plainly, and with lucid calmness, what he held to be a great seminal truth; from this he passed at once, not into exposition, but into illustration and enforcement—into, if we may make a word, overwhelming insistance. Something was to be done, rather than explained.
There was no separating his thoughts and expressions from his person, and looks, and voice. How perfectly we can at this moment recall him! Thundering, flaming, lightening in the pulpit; teaching, indoctrinating, drawing after him his students in his lecture-room; sitting among other public men, the most unconscious, the most king-like of them all, with that broad leonine countenance, that beaming, liberal smile; or on the way out to his home, in his old-fashioned great-coat, with his throat muffled up, his big walking-stick moved outwards in an arc, its point fixed, its head circumferential, a sort of companion, and playmate, with which doubtless, he demolished legions of imaginary foes, errors, and stupidities in men and things, in Church and State. His great look, large chest, large head, his amplitude every way; his broad, simple, childlike, inturned feet; his short, hurried impatient step; his erect, royal air; his look of general good-will; his kindling up into a warm but vague benignity when one he did not recognize spoke to him; the addition, for it was not a change, of keen specialty to his hearty recognition; the twinkle of his eyes; the immediately saying something very personal to set all to rights, and then the sending you off with some thought, some feeling, some remembrance, making your heart burn within you; his voice indescribable: his eye—that most peculiar feature—not vacant, but asleep—innocent, mild, and large; and his soul, its great inhabitant, not always at his window; but then, when he did awake, how close to you was that burning vehement soul! how it penetrated and overcame you! how mild, and affectionate, and genial its expression at his own fireside!
Of his portraits worth mentioning, there are Watson Gordon’s, Duncan’s—the Calotypes of Mr. Hill—Kenneth M’Leay’s miniatures—the Daguerreotype, and Steell’s bust. These are all good, and all give bits of him, some nearly the whole, but not one of them that τὶ θερμόν, that fiery particle—that inspired look—that “diviner mind”—the poco più, or little more. Watson Gordon’s is too much of the mere clergyman—is a pleasant likeness, and has the shape of his mouth, and the setting of his feet very good. Duncan’s is a work of genius, and is the giant looking up, awakening, but not awakened—it is a very fine picture. Mr. Hill’s Calotypes we like better than all the rest; because what in them is true, is absolutely so, and they have some delicate renderings which are all but beyond the power of any human artist; for though man’s art is mighty, nature’s is mightier. The one of the Doctor sitting with his grandson “Tommy” is to us the best; we have the true grandeur of his form—his bulk. M’Leay’s is admirable-spirited—and has that look of shrewdness and vivacity and immediateness which he had when he was observing and speaking keenly; it is, moreover, a fine, manly bit of art. M’Leay is the Raeburn of miniature painters—he does a great deal with little. The Daguerreotype is, in its own way, excellent; it gives the externality of the man to perfection, but it is Dr. Chalmers at a stand-still—his mind and feelings “pulled up” for the second that it was taken. Steell’s is a noble bust—has a stern heroic expression and pathetic beauty about it, and from wanting color and shadow and the eyes, it relies upon a certain simplicity and grandeur;—in this it completely succeeds—the mouth is handled with extraordinary subtlety and sweetness, and the hair hangs over that huge brow like a glorious cloud. We think this head of Dr. Chalmers the artist’s greatest bust.
In reference to the assertion we have made as to bulk forming one primary element of a powerful mind, Dr. Chalmers used to say, when a man of activity and public mark was mentioned, “Has he wecht? he has promptitude—has he power? he has power—has he promptitude? and, moreover, has he a discerning spirit?”