There, in a
high armchair, with one stout calf crossed over the other, immobile
throughout the long hours sate he, propping a marble brow on a dexter
finger of the same material. On the table beside him was a vase of
flowers, daily replenished by the children, and a closed volume. It is
remarkable that in none of the many woodcuts in which he has been
handed down to us do we see him reading; he is always meditating on
something he has just read. Occasionally, he is fingering a portfolio
of engravings, or leaning aside to examine severely a globe of the
world. That is the nearest he ever gets to physical activity. In him
we see the static embodiment of perfect wisdom and perfect
righteousness. We take him at his own valuation, humbly. Yet we have a
queer instinct that there was a time when he did not diffuse all this
cold radiance of good example. Something tells us that he has been a
sinner in his day--a rattler of the ivories at Almack's, and an ogler
of wenches in the gardens of Vauxhall, a sanguine backer of the Negro
against the Suffolk Bantam, and a devil of a fellow at boxing the
watch and wrenching the knockers when Bow Bells were chiming the small
hours. Nor do we feel that he is a penitent. He is too Olympian for
that. He has merely put these things behind him--has calmly, as a
matter of business, transferred his account from the worldly bank to
the heavenly.
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