The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 02Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 02
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century; Families -- Fiction
All plump people are more popular than thin people. There is something
jovial and pleasant in the sight of a round face! What conspiracy could
succeed when its head was a lean and hungry-looking fellow, like
Cassius? If the Roman patriots had had Uncle Jack amongst them, perhaps
they would never have furnished a tragedy to Shakspeare. Uncle Jack was
as plump as a partridge,--not unwieldy, not corpulent, not obese, not
vastus, which Cicero objects to in an orator, but every crevice
comfortably filled up. Like the ocean, "time wrote no wrinkles on his
glassy [or brassy] brow." His natural lines were all upward curves, his
smile most ingratiating, his eye so frank, even his trick of rubbing his
clean, well-feel, English-looking hands, had something about it coaxing
and debonnaire, something that actually decoyed you into trusting your
money into hands so prepossessing. Indeed, to him might be fully
applied the expression--Sedem animce in extremis digitis habet,--"He had
his soul's seat in his finger-ends." The critics observe that few men
have ever united in equal perfection the imaginative with the scientific
faculties. "Happy he," exclaims Schiller, "who combines the
enthusiast's warmth with the worldly man's light:" light and warmth,
Uncle Jack had them both. He was a perfect symphony of bewitching
enthusiasm and convincing calculation. Dicaeopolis in the
"Aeharnenses," in presenting a gentleman called Nicharchus to the
audience, observes: "He is small, I confess, but, there is nothing lost
in him: all is knave that is not fool." Parodying the equivocal
compliment, I may say that though Uncle Jack was no giant, there was
nothing lost in him. Whatever was not philanthropy was arithmetic, and
whatever was not arithmetic was philanthropy. He would have been
equally dear to Howard and to Cocker. Uncle Jack was comely too,--
clear-skinned and florid, had a little mouth, with good teeth, wore no
whiskers, shaved his beard as close as if it were one of his grand
national companies; his hair, once somewhat sandy, was now rather
grayish, which increased the respectability of his appearance; and he
wore it flat at the sides and raised in a peak at the top; his organs of
constructiveness and ideality were pronounced by Mr. Squills to be
prodigious, and those freely developed bumps gave great breadth to his
forehead. Well-shaped, too, was Uncle Jack, about five feet eight,--the
proper height for an active man of business. He wore a black coat; but
to make the nap look the fresher, he had given it the relief of gilt
buttons, on--which were wrought a small crown and anchor; at a distance
this button looked like the king's button, and gave him the air of one
who has a place about Court. He always wore a white neckcloth without
starch, a frill, and a diamond pin, which last furnished him with
observations upon certain mines of Mexico, which he had a great, but
hitherto unsatisfied, desire of seeing worked by a grand National United
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account