We are not left without precious indication of his gestures
and his looks at this time, when he was a little past the age of fifty.
Where so much has been extravagantly written, or described in a
journalistic key of false emphasis, great is the value of a quiet
portrait by one of those who has studied Ibsen most intelligently. It is
perhaps the most careful pen-sketch of him in any language.
Mr. William Archer, then, has given the following account of his first
meeting with Ibsen. It was in the Scandinavia Club, in Rome, at the
close of 1881:--
I had been about a quarter of an hour in the room, and was standing
close to the door, when it opened, and in glided an undersized man with
very broad shoulders and a large, leonine head, wearing a long black
frock-coat with very broad lapels, on one of which a knot of red ribbon
was conspicuous. I knew him at once, but was a little taken aback by his
low stature. In spite of all the famous instances to the contrary, one
instinctively associates greatness with size. His natural height was
even somewhat diminished by a habit of bending forward slightly from the
waist, begotten, no doubt, of short-sightedness, and the need to peer
into things.
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