At the beginning of her public career, Clara Barton was short of stature and slender as she was short. Her form rounded out in middle life, but she never exhibited any approach to stoutness. She was so well proportioned as to give the impression of being taller than she was. When she spoke in public, if she stood beside a presiding officer, it was seen that she was small of stature, but when she stood alone, she gave the impression of being, and was often described as being, above medium height. Her maximum height, attained in adolescence, was five feet two inches in moderately high-heeled shoes. The author measured her in her later years, and she was exactly five feet tall without her shoes.
Her carriage was erect, except for a slight stoop in the shoulders. There never came any sag in her person, any letting down of her erect standing. Her spine below the shoulders was carried to the end of her life as erect as in youth. As she stood or sat, she never had the bearing of an old person. When seated, she commonly kept her back well away from the back of the chair, depending upon nothing external to assist her in maintaining her erect bearing.
She walked quietly, deliberately, and flat-footedly. She put her whole foot down at once. There was a certain firmness in her gait which indicated strength of character and resolute purpose. She did not dart or rush or drift or flutter; she walked, and her walk was of moderate speed and of marked decision.
Her hair was brown, and in her younger days she had great wealth of it. She took good care of it; and, while there was less of it in her later years, it retained its fine texture, its soft silky wave, and its rich brown color. The writer asked her once if she had a single gray hair. She replied that she thought she had one, but had forgotten just where it was.
Her eyes were brown, and in some lights appeared black. I find at least one description of her as she appeared on the lecture platform in which she was described as tall, with hair and eyes black as the raven’s wing. The reporter is not to be blamed for his departure from truth. She looked tall when she stood alone, and her eyes and hair appeared as he described them, when seen in some lights.
Her features were regular. Her nose was prominent and straight. Her mouth was large, and very expressive. Her features were remarkably mobile. Her forehead was both high and wide, and in her middle life she wore her hair so that its full breadth and height appeared beneath the graceful parting of the hair. In her later years her hair was combed down over the temples on either side, and remained parted in the middle. Her chin was a very firm chin. It did not protrude, neither did it recede. There was not the slightest suggestion of a lantern-jaw; but there was a clear-cut prominence of the chin that suggested a firm decision and a tenacious purpose. She said to the writer, “Every true Barton knows how to possess an open mind and teachable disposition with a firmness that can be obstinate if necessary, and no one can be more obstinate than a Barton.” Obstinate she certainly could be, but she was reasonable to a marked degree. No one who saw her shut her mouth when she had made a decision could cherish any doubt of her tenacity of purpose; and her chin was anything but a weak one.
She did not stare, but she had a habit of fixing her eyes upon an object or a person which did not put arrogance or pretense at ease. She could, on occasion, look through a person as if she discerned his inmost thoughts. But ordinarily her look into one’s face was gentle and companionable and sympathetic.
Clara Barton affected none of the arts by which women advanced in years attempt to appear young. On the other hand, she had no intention of growing old. She said to me that she did not see why people should be so curious about anybody’s age; what did it matter? So far as she was concerned, there was no secret about it; but when people had learned the date of her birth, how could they know whether she was old or young?
She did not greatly like to be asked for her “latest photograph.” The photograph which she liked best, the one which she had framed and which the author has just as it stood on her desk, was the familiar Civil War portrait.
On December 30, 1910, she wrote in her diary, concerning her friend, Julia Ward Howe, whose death she mourned, and whose biography she had read through with keen interest: