Lyndhurst, New Forest, England
1909.
Aug.19-23
Rudyard Kipling
  On reaching here on the evening of the 19th I found in
the smoking room of the Crown Hotel and almost immediately
entered into conversation with, Rudyard Kipling, not then
knowing who he was. In the course of the next two days I
saw a good deal of him, talking with him, altogether, at
least four or five hours. He is a short, rather slight yet
compactly built and very active & vigorous, man whose  face
and figure remind me forcebly of those of the late Prof.
Jerome B. Greenough, my old friend & neighbor in Cambridge.
At a little distance or in a poor light his face when at rest is exactly
like that represented by his photographs and its general
expression is repellent rather than attractive. But it lights
up at once when he speaks and when he drinks, as he
constantly does when speaking, it beams with friendliness,
and good humor, and quick intelligence. Rarely, indeed,
have I ever seen in any human face a smile so
irresistibly winning and so unmistakably indicative
of serenity of mind and honesty of purpose.
It is a thousand pities that he has to wear spectacles
constantly and that they are of the "gig-lamp" type
for the eyes that their reflecting surfaces conceal and distort
at most times, are, when one looks directly into them,
in a good light, from a distance of only a foot or
two, really wonderful eyes, unlike any that I
remember to have seen before. They are deep blue in color
and very large, yet not protruding. By turns they flash 
and scintillate with intelligence & high spirit or beam
with humor or melt with deep sympathy, while not
seldom they gaze intently into your eyes, with a wondering
expression, curiously childlike. Thus do they vary constantly
in expression with their owner's varying moods.