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'''Inches and Eminence''' is an article written by Beckles Willson published in [[The Strand Magazine]] in august 1904.

In the 7th chart, [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] size is compared with other authors.

See also the page dedicated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:Height|height]].

== Inches and Eminence ==
''[Authors part only]''

[[File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p214-inches-and-eminence-photo1.jpg|thumb|700px|center|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 214). Conan Doyle is at 6,2 feet.]]

To-day we have few such intellectual giants, and of those we have it must be admitted the larger proportion is short. Mr. Swinburne is, perhaps, our shortest, but the Poet Laureate runs him close. Of lesser writers Mr. Cutcliffe Hyne with six feet four inches is said to be the tallest British author; Mr. Bloundelle-Burton is also well above the stature of one of our most popular novelists, [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]].

In art, who was the most distinguished British painter of the last half century? Was it not the six-footer, Millais? An undue proportion of the members of the Royal Academy are very tall men. Sir Ernest Waterlow is six feet two, Mr. Dicksee is six feet one, while Mr. Sargent and Mr. Jackson are six feet. And it is a six-footer, Mr. Marcus Stone, who has constituted himself, out of his considerable knowledge of the subject, a pronounced opponent of the short genius theory. Not only does he assert it to be untrue that most men of genius are diminutive, but maintains that a majority of England's great men are of lofty stature.

"We do not know Shakespeare's height," remarked Mr. Stone, "but I assume it to have been at least six feet." The famous painter continued: "I must first explain what I mean by genius and greatness. We call military men and politicians great, but in my opinion they possess quite a second-rate ability in comparison with the creative order of intellect, and my inquiries and personal observation have confirmed me in the belief that, so far from genius being usually short, the rule is just the other way. Who was the greatest painter of the Victorian era? Millais. Who was its greatest poet? Tennyson. Its greatest thinkers? Carlyle, Darwin, and Ruskin. Its greatest novelist? Thackeray. Then look at Charles Reade — over six feet — at Leech, Trollope, Hans Andersen, Thomas Arnold, Wordsworth, and Emerson." This list, together with those previously given, is certainly an imposing one, but it can be made longer still if we take in a wider purview. Mr. Stone referred to Scott, who was of the stature of the author of "[[Sherlock Holmes]]," and to Johnson. He might also have added amongst his tall men of genius of past times—George Washington, six feet three inches ; George Borrow, six feet two inches ; Sir Walter Raleigh, six feet ; Sir R. Burton, six feet; Cobbett, six feet; Walt Whitman, six feet ; Lord Brougham, Audabon, Bunyan, Clive, Bismarck, Froude, J. P. Richter, Sheridan, Puvis de Chavannes, Corot, Delacroix, Lessing, Tourgeneff, Poussin, Huxley, James, Thomson, A. de Musset, Sterne, Schiller, Romilly, Smollett, Moltke, Mirabeau, Lamartine, Gounod, and Millet—these are but a few of the tall men, and these are names of the first order.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="250px" caption="Full article">
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p209-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 209)
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p210-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 210)
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p211-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 211)
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p212-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 212)
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p213-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 213)
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p214-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 214)
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p215-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 215)
File:the-strand-magazine-1904-08-p216-inches-and-eminence.jpg|[[The Strand Magazine]] (august 1904, p. 216)
</gallery>

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Inches and Eminence - Revision history

TCDE-Team at 21:30, 24 July 2025