Darnley: The Field of the Cloth of Gold

Indeed, the horseman and his beast, who on the afore-mentioned morning journeyed on together towards Canterbury, were apparently well calculated to encounter what the profane vulgar call the ups and downs of life; for never a stouter cavalier mounted horse, and never a stouter horse was mounted by cavalier; and there was something in the strong, quadrate form of each, in the bold, free movement of every limb, and in the firm, martial regularity of their pace, which spoke a habitual consciousness of tried and unfailing power.

The rider was a man of about five or six-and-twenty, perhaps not so old; but the hardy exposed life which had dyed his florid cheek with a tinge of deep brown, had given also to his figure that look of set, mature strength which is not usually concomitant with youth. But strength with him had nothing of ungracefulness, for the very vigour of his limbs gave them ease of motion. Yet there was something more in his aspect and in his carriage than can rightly be attributed to the grace induced by habits of martial exercise, or to the dignity derived from consciousness of skill or valour: there was that sort of innate nobility of look which we are often weakly inclined to combine in our minds with nobility of station, and that peculiar sort of grace which is a gift, not an acquirement.

To paint him to the mind's eye were very difficult, though to describe him were very easy; for though I were to say that he was a tall, fair man, with the old Saxon blood shining out in his deep blue eye, and in his full, short upper lip, from which the light brown moustache turned off in a sweep, exposing its fine arching line; though I were to speak of the manly beauty of his features, rendered scarcely less by a deep scar upon his forehead; or were I to detail, with the accuracy of a sculptor, the elegant proportion of every limb, I might, indeed, communicate to the mind of the reader the idea of a much more handsome man than he really was; but I should fail to invest the image with that spirit of gracefulness which, however combined with outward form, seems to radiate from within, which must live to be perfect, and must be seen to be understood.