Percival's face, when he was silent, was full of calm, serious meditation; when speaking, it lighted up with thought, and became noticeably expressive. He commonly talked in a mild, unimpassioned undertone, but just above a whisper, letting his voice sink with rather a pleasing cadence at the completion of each sentence. Even when most animated, he used no gesture except a movement of the first and second fingers of his right hand backward and forward across the palm of the left, meantime following their monotonous unrest with his eyes, and rarely meeting the gaze of his interlocutor. He would stand for hours, when talking, his right elbow on a mantel-piece, if there was one near, his fingers going through their strange palmistry; and in this manner, never once stirring from his position, he would not unfrequently protract his discourse till long past midnight. An inexhaustible, undemonstrative, noiseless, passionless man, scarcely evident to you by physical qualities, and impressing you, for the most part, as a creature of pure intellect.
His wardrobe was remarkably inexpensive, consisting of little more than a single plain suit, brown or gray, which he wore winter and summer, until it became threadbare. He never used boots; and his shoes, though carefully dusted, were never blacked. A most unpretending bow fastened his cravat of colored cambric. For many years his only outer garment was a brown camlet cloak, of very scanty proportions, thinly lined, and a meagre protection against winter. His hat was worn for years before being laid aside, and put you in mind of the prevailing mode by the law of contrast only. He was never seen with gloves, and rarely with an umbrella. The value of his entire wardrobe scarcely exceeded fifty dollars; yet he was always neat, and appeared unconscious of any peculiarity in his costume.
An accurate portrait of him at any period of his life can scarcely be said to exist. His sensitive modesty seems to have made him unwilling to let his features be exposed to the flaring notoriety of canvas. Once, indeed, he allowed himself to be painted by Mr. George A. Flagg; but the picture having been exhibited in the Trumbull Gallery of Yale College, Percival's susceptibility took alarm, and he expressed annoyance,--though whether dissatisfied with the portrait or its public exposure I cannot say. The artist proposed certain alterations, and the poet listened to him with seeming assent. The picture was taken back to the studio; objectionable or questionable parts of it painted out; the likeness destroyed for the purpose of correction; and Percival was to give another sitting at his convenience. That was the last time he put himself within painting reach of Mr. Flagg's easel.[A]