“To me both the portraits are full of deep interest” (these portraits of Keble, the one in the prime of manhood and the other in old age, were drawn by Richmond), “the earlier and the later both—each brings him back to me as he was; in the earlier, he has some of the merry defiance he could assume in argument; in the latter, I see the sad tenderness of his advanced years. Keble had not regular features; he could not be called a handsome man, but he was one to be noticed anywhere, and remembered long; his forehead and hair beautiful in all ages; his eyes, full of play, intelligence, and emotion, followed you while you spoke; and they lighted up, especially with pleasure, or indignation, as it might be, when he answered you. The most pleasing photograph is one in which he is standing by Mrs. Keble’s side; she is sitting with a book in her hand. The later photographs are to me very unpleasant. I will attempt no more particular description, for I feel how little definite I can convey in writing.”

“Mr. Keble greeted us, emerging from his little study, the door of which, as I afterwards noticed, oftener than not, stood open.... His features, indeed, were familiar to us, as to most people, from the engraving of Richmond’s first portrait of him, taken in middle life for Sir John Coleridge. Now the original stood before me, and I saw at a glance that face and figure had been faithfully portrayed. The forehead was pale and serene, the hair silvery; doubtless this token of advancing years must have helped to give softness and refinement to the features; eyebrows, sprinkled with white, shaded eyes of singular brilliancy and depth of expression, as ready (I afterwards well knew) to light up with mirth and mischief while playful talk was going on, as they were to melt into mournful earnestness when graver topics were broached. He habitually wore glasses, but used often to take them off and hold them in his hand when conversing with animation. A dear and old friend of his has told me that he ‘looked almost boyish till about fifty, and after that rapidly aged in personal appearance.’ At this time he was in his sixty-first year, healthy and strong and active.... In appearance he was quite one’s ideal of an old-fashioned country clergyman, but of one whose Oxford days were still fresh in his mind; there was a touch of vieille cour in his manner, which added, I think, to its charm. His voice in speaking was rather low, and especially so when the subject of conversation was very near his heart. It often struck me, when listening to him, that without the slightest effort or aim at effect, he always hit upon the most suitable and telling words, (and the shortest), in which to clothe his ideas. This unconscious beauty of language, coupled with the originality and wisdom of the ideas themselves, riveted them in one’s memory; the look, too, with which they were uttered, could not be forgotten, and rises as vividly before my mind’s eye ‘through the golden mist of years’ as though it belonged to the present, instead of the ‘long ago.’”—1852.

“People who went to look at Mr. Keble as a ‘lion’ were, I think, disappointed to see a very simple old-fashioned clerical gentleman, with very little manner, and so completely unconscious of self that as he talked of common things, they were inclined to think as little of him as he thought of himself. He used to come down early and stand writing at a side-table till it was quite time for prayers and breakfast, and then sit down anywhere and, with a little peculiar jerk of the head and shoulders, read a short ‘Instruction,’ almost as if he were reading it to himself. Certain people even called his reading bad, for his voice was weak, and he had a slight cough which never wholly left him; but he brought out the meaning of Holy Scripture in a manner which I never heard surpassed. Mr. Keble was of middle height, very thin, with a splendid forehead, bright eyes which were rather hidden by his spectacles, and a sweet merry smile. Those who knew him well must remember the way in which he used to pull himself together, as if he were a boy obeying a well-known rule to ‘hold up his head.’ His manner was nervous, so much so that people who were not intimately acquainted with him were rarely quite at their ease when in his presence. The two pictures of Mr. Keble by Richmond are both good likenesses; but the lithograph of the head which was taken from the then-unfinished picture which, in its completed form, now hangs in Keble College, Oxford, has caught the peculiar intelligence of the eyes when lighted up with the eager brightness his friends knew so well. He had the unusual power of being able to write upon one subject and listen to the discussion of another at the same time; and he would often glance up from the paper in which he was apparently immersed, and pushing up his spectacles join eagerly in the conversation.”