II.—Character and Temperament.
This uncertainty defies any attempt beyond a general approximation, even as to the external appearance of the man. According to Russian authorities, he was tall and thin. He struck foreigners, on the contrary, as being stout and fat. This, probably, is a mere question of standard. The Russians of that period, as we know, were most of them corpulent to an extent rare in other countries. As to Ivan's stature, everybody is agreed. He was very tall and strongly built, high-shouldered and broad-chested. Yet in the Treasury of the Laura of St. Sergius at the Troïtsa there is a kaftan which belonged, so tradition asserts, to the Sovereign, though Monsieur Glagoliév, who has lately taken and published its measurements (Russian Archives, July, 1902), seems to have been led by them to a different conclusion. As to the Tsar's face, his portraits, all of them of most doubtful authenticity, are no guide at all. Contemporary witness is fairly agreed in describing his nose as long and flattened, or turned up; his eyes as blue, small, but very quick and keen-looking; his moustache long, his auburn beard thick, and grizzled towards the close of his reign. He shaved his head: Capillos capitis utque plerique Rutheni novacula radit, says Printz von Buchau.
During the second half of the Sovereign's life, as to which we possess most information, his habitual expression struck the majority of witnesses as being threatening and gloomy, though he often burst into roars of laughter. But here we come to the moral aspect of his physiognomy, which even now remains a riddle, in spite of the innumerable attempts made to solve it, and we find ourselves face to face with contradictions resulting not so much in a divergence of opinion among observers, as in a division of the subject they observe.
Ivan was energetic to the point of violence, and yet timid to downright cowardice; his pride amounted to positive madness, and his humility occasionally descended to baseness. He was intelligent, and yet capable of saying and doing the most foolish things. Why did he insult Erik just when he desired his alliance? How did he come to call himself a 'stinking dog,' and yet persevere in the behaviour which led him to apply this epithet? To such questions, which might be multiplied without end, some people have thought an answer had been found in the recent discoveries of a science at present enjoying what may prove to bean ephemeral favour. Ivan's father and grandfather appear to have possessed well-balanced minds, but his great-grandfather, Vassili the Blind, was a man whose intellect and will were both equally weak. His mother, Helen Glinski,
