He moved very slowly and noiselessly, with his hands behind
his back--an unobtrusive personality, which would have been
insignificant had the head been strictly proportionate to the rest of
the frame. But there was nothing insignificant about the high and
massive forehead, crowned with a mane of (then) iron-gray hair, the
small and pale but piercing eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, or
the thin lipped mouth, depressed at the corners into a curve indicative
of iron will, and set between bushy whiskers of the same dark gray as
the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and
character in the head; yet one would scarcely have guessed it to be the
power of a poet, the character of a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the
ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an expression of reserve, almost of
secretiveness, in the lines of the tight-shut mouth, one would rather
have supposed one's self face to face with an eminent statesman or
diplomatist.
With the further advance of years all that was singular in Ibsen's
appearance became accentuated. The hair and beard turned snowy white;
the former rose in a fierce sort of Oberland, the latter was kept square
and full, crossing underneath the truculent chin that escaped from it.
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