AND ANOTHER THING
Avoid small generals, but watch out for tall blondes
PAUL JOHNSON
The other day I saw an immensely tall man walking down Westbourne Grove, his head in the air, seeing nobody, perhaps reflecting on the incongruous façades of this undistinguished thoroughfare — it is a fact that good architectural historians are often well over six foot. The sight jogged my memory back 40 years, when I glimpsed the great Cecil King walking down Fleet Street, a foot above the normal line of sight and equally unaware of ordinary people trudging by. King's great height and aloof personality which, as it were, edited out other people from his sight were at the root of his belief that he could make himself invisible. No doubt when I glimpsed his march down Fleet Street he believed his magic was working, reasoning that if he could not see people, then they could not see him, though, in fact, his figure was so striking, not to say alarming, that other pedestrians peered up anxiously as the grim monolith strode past.
I mentioned King's claim to another egregiously tall titan, old Reith, who said fervently, 'I wish I could make myself invisi- ble.' He said his height had always been a curse, the source of endless discomfort in aircraft, etc., and, worse, an alienating fac- tor which had driven lesser mortals from him in terror. Yet at the same time he cursed the fact that he had never been 'fully stretched' as he put it, raising and widening his long, corky arms in a crucified Christ gesture, oceans of fierce self-pity welling up in his cavernous eyes. Tall people, in my experience, often complain that their height is the source of constant ill-health, and it is certainly true they suffer from back pains or lumbago — I do myself, periodi- cally, though I am scarcely over six foot. The Philistines' Goliath was over nine foot tall and so strong he could wear armour weighing 125 lb and hurl a 15 lb spear. But I have seen it argued that he clearly suf- fered from a pituitary tumour and defective eyesight which narrowed his line of vision and enabled David to sneak up on him unobserved from the flank to hurl his fatal stone. Very tall people feel themselves vul- nerable because of their singularity — Lin- coln looks so in the famous photograph of him surrounded by his generals, who appear puny by comparison. De Gaulle had this streak of fragility (enhanced by his con- sciousness of halitosis) and responded with hauteur. I noticed that he preferred to speak or hold forth seated rather than standing and occasionally sought other tall men to stop people staring at him. Thus, at Kennedy's obsequies, he spotted the immensely lanky Galbraith and ordered him to stand close and sit next to him at the funereal lunch.
Famous men, when first seen, are rarely of the height you imagine. I thought Car- lyle was small and discovered only recent- ly he was nearly six foot, though often on his Chelsea rambles he was dwarfed by the shambolic figure of his six-foot-six fel- low-historian, Lecky. On the other hand, I had thought Brahms tall as well as burly and bearded, rather like Prime Minister Salisbury. Then, going through the admirable translation of his letters recently put out by the OUP, I came across an early photo of him seated, next to the standing figure of Joachim, and realised he was tiny. This, irrationally enough, makes me hear his music in quite a differ- ent way. Actors, especially movie actors, are much smaller than imagined, brawny heroes shrinking to dancing-masters in the pitiless light of reality. Though there are exceptions. In the early Fifties, in Paris, I found myself standing in an adjoining stall in one of those circular, steel pissoirs (now abolished, alas, for politically correct reasons) to the great Gary Cooper, who was reassuringly gigan- tic. And the delightful Sean Connery is a big fellow in every way and capable of all the Herculean labours of his films, though in private life well under the control of his diminutive wife Micheline.
Men mind terribly about being small. Alexander Pope, thanks to TB of the bone, was never taller than a 12-year-old, being about four-foot six, as well as a cripple. In that rough age there were never critics lacking to remind him of his infirmities, especially his stature. When he dared to publish the first book of his great Homeric translation, enemies dredged up the cruel lines about the hideous hunchback Ther- sites. On first joining the army I was told, `Keep clear of small generals — they are hell!' I found there were a lot of small gen- erals to be on the look-out for: lack of inches is a challenge to which the deter- mined respond with energy, so that there are more successful small soldiers than tall ones, just as there are countless small titans in the world of business, art and let- ters (Pope being a case in point). Lord John Russell, not a man with any natural gift for politics, was driven by his stature- fury and eventually made it and became PM. He was not all that tiny either: five-foot four-and-three-quarters. Spencer Perceval, another driven shorty, was con- siderably smaller, a characteristic which proved fatal, for it was well known and enabled Bellingham, his assassin, to identify him in a crowded House of Commons lobby and gun him down.
I suspect it is now dangerous, if not actu- ally illegal, to pick people by height. The Guards and police have had to relax their specifications, and the days have gone when the Rothschilds, at their Piccadilly house, had a brass measuring-rod built into the nether regions to ensure footmen were of the minimum height required. Indeed, foot- men are now pampered rareties and tend to be of feminine, not to say queenly, alti- tude. Not that all queens were or are small. Anne of Denmark was a gangling Scandina- vian lass, whence her grandson, Charles II, grew up to be, according to the parliamen- tary 'wanted' poster, 'a black man two yards high'. Women resent being small at least as much as men, though for practical reasons: inability to reach up to high kitchen shelves or bedroom cupboards, immensely aggra- vated difficulty in buying suitable ready- made clothes, hatred of being referred to by that pseudo-genteel, disparaging term `petite', and so on. Dorothy Wordsworth, who was just over five foot, said she loved meeting De Quincey who was just under, `because he was the first person who ever made me feel tall'. Tall girls do not mind being tall, in my experience, so long as peo- ple do not go on about it. I wonder how the Duchesse de Montpensier, that legendary figure from the days of the French Fronde, liked being called la Grande Mademoiselle. Nancy Mitford, a lanky girl herself, always referred to her as the Big Miss, but it was a royal title, not a comment on her appear- ance. Personally I like tall girls (I like the other kind too) and always advise them to make a point of it by wearing high heels. Nothing worse than a lofty, crouching about in sandals. What can be more pleas- ing to spot at a party than the delectable Susannah Herbert of the Daily Telegraph, or that tall, blonde beauty, Santa Palmer- Tomkinson? And three cheers for Ariana Stassinopoulos too!
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