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"Ludwig Horace Holly, Cambridge Don" Describes His Own "Physical Deficiencies"

“Well,” I said aloud, at last, “it is to be hoped that I shall be able to do something with the inside of my head, for I shall certainly never do anything by the help of the outside.”

This remark will doubtless strike anybody who reads it as being slightly obscure, but I was in reality alluding to my physical deficiencies. Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with some share of the comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied. Short, thick-set, and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long sinewy arms, heavy features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half overgrown with a mop of thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on which the forest had once more begun to encroach; such was my appearance nearly a quarter of a century ago, and such, with some modification, it is to this day. Like Cain, I was branded — branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal ugliness, as I was gifted by Nature with iron and abnormal strength and considerable intellectual powers. So ugly was I that the spruce young men of my College, though they were proud enough of my feats of endurance and physical prowess, did not even care to be seen walking with me. Was it wonderful that I was misanthropic and sullen? Was it wonderful that I brooded and worked alone, and had no friends — at least, only one? I was set apart by Nature to live alone, and draw comfort from her breast, and hers only. Women hated the sight of me. Only a week before I had heard one call me a “monster” when she thought I was out of hearing, and say that I had converted her to the monkey theory. [Chapter I, "My Visitor," 365]

Passage Realised in the Initial Illustration: The Handsome Visitor, John Vincey

I listened before I went to open it, for it was nearly twelve o’clock at night, and I was in no mood to admit any stranger. I had but one friend in the College, or, indeed, in the world — perhaps it was he.

Just then the person outside the door coughed, and I hastened to open it, for I knew the cough.

A tall man of about thirty, with the remains of great personal beauty, came hurrying in, staggering beneath the weight of a massive iron box which he carried by a handle with his right hand. He placed the box upon the table, and then fell into an awful fit of coughing. He coughed and coughed till his face became quite purple, and at last he sank into a chair and began to spit up blood. I poured out some whisky into a tumbler, and gave it to him. He drank it, and seemed better; though his better was very bad indeed.

“Why did you keep me standing there in the cold?” he asked pettishly. “You know the draughts are death to me.”

“I did not know who it was,” I answered. “You are a late visitor.”

“Yes; and I verily believe it is my last visit,” he answered, with a ghastly attempt at a smile. “I am done for, Holly. I am done for. I do not believe that I shall see to-morrow.”

“Nonsense!” I said. “Let me go for a doctor.”

He waved me back imperiously with his hand. “It is sober sense; but I want no doctors. I have studied medicine and I know all about it. No doctors can help me. My last hour has come! For a year past I have only lived by a miracle. Now listen to me as you have never listened to anybody before; for you will not have the opportunity of getting me to repeat my words. We have been friends for two years; now tell me how much do you know about me?” [Chapter I, "My Visitor," 365 in serial; pp. 8-10 in volume]

Commentary: Ludwig Horace Holly, academic linguist, from Cambridge to East Africa

Left: The second image of Ludwig Horace Holly as a Cambridge don, some twenty-five years after the opening scene. He and his adopted son, Leo Vincey, open John Vincey's casket: “At last the lock yielded, and the casket stood open before us.” (9 October 1886). Centre: Johnson depicts the hirsute narrator-protagonist and his African companion and guide, the bearded patriarch, Billali: “I took tis cold fragment of mortality in my hand, and looked at it in the light of the lamp with feelings which I cannot describe.” (30 October 1886). Right: Holly meets the immortal Ayesha, the ancient Queen "Who-must-be-obeyed": “Next second her tall and willowy form was staggering back across the room.” (27 November 1886).

Some time early in the 1860s the novel opens in the Cambridge rooms of linguistics scholar Ludwig Horace Holly, whose hirsute appearance is even more peculiar than his name. He will be present in all but one of the sequence of fourteen weekly illustrations, “Behold the House of She-who-must-be-obeyed,” said Billali. “Had ever such a queen such a throne before?” “It is wonderful, my father,” I answered (6 November 1887).

Since Horace Holly is both the story's protagonist and narrator, the illustrations actually involve a shift in narrative perspective (to the objective or dramatic point of view) in order to depict him as a university professor (plates 1 and 2) and as Leo's adopted father. Holly's keen intellect and knowledge, evident throughout the narrative and particularly in his own dialogue, compensate for his ape-like appearance — a physical form that serves the initial illustrators, Johnson and Greiffenhagen, well. That Holly knows a number of ancient languages (including Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew) is more than a little convenient in that his education enables him to communicate with the ancient tribe of the Amahagger (who speak a form of Arabic) and especially She (who apparently knows all three languages, but no modern languages). Holly's interest in archaeology and the origins of civilisation, piqued by the contents of the ancient iron box that Vincey has willed him and his adopted son, Leo, prompt his undertaking the expedition to study the East African ruins of Kôr, mentioned in the shard (depicted in colour as the double frontispiece in the Harper volume) that he and Leo discover in John Vincey's mysterious casket, which they will open in the following week's instalment.

Rider Haggard, cognizant that his novel will be published serially in an illustrated magazine, prepares readers almost immediately for his protagonist’s unconventional, simian appearance. The detailed description of what Holly sees in his mirror in the opening chapter certainly seems to have aided both of Haggard’s original illustrators, Johnson and Greiffenhagen, for there is no mistaking Horace Holly for any other character in either program:

Short, thick-set, and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long sinewy arms, heavy features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half overgrown with a mop of thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on which the forest had once more begun to encroach; such was my appearance nearly a quarter of a century ago, and such, with some modification, it is to this day. [Chapter 1, "My Vistor," p. 8 in volume]

At the time that the novel opens, Holly is merely twenty-two; by the time he concludes the fabulous narrative, two decades have passed. Haggard also describes in detail Holly’s nocturnal caller, and again the illustrators have realized the caller by making him in every way a physical contrast to the narrator: handsome, tall, well-dressed, but decidedly unwell, if one may judge by young John Vincey’s coughing up blood in the letterpress and his pained expression in the plate. But, of course, it is neither Vincey's demeanour, nor his physique, nor yet his extensive family history that engages us as readers. Rather, we are fascinated to know more about the ancient casket that he has brought back from his travels. And naturally we wonder why Leo Vincey, currently just five years old, will have to have attained so late a majority (twenty-five) before he and Holly may open it: "That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the sealed iron chest?" (volume, p. 16)

Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Haggard, H. Rider. "SHE:" A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. The Graphic Magazine, Vols. XXXIV and XXXV. 2 October 1886 to 8 January 1887.

Haggard, H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. New York: Harper & Bros., 1887.

Haggard, H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure.  Illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen and Charles H. M. Kerr. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888, rpt. 1927.

"Johnson, Edward Killingworth." Haynes Fine Art. Web. Accessed 8 April 2025. https://www.haynesfineart.com/artists/edward-killingworth-johnson-uk

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Created 4 May 2025