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Page 69
LYTTLETON BARRY.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP.
A TALE OF THE LATE BUGABOO AND KICKAPOO CAMPAIGN.
_Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau!_
_La moiti�; de ma vie a mis l' autre au tombeau._
CORNEILLE.
I CANNOT just now remember when or where I first made the
acquaintance of that truly fine-looking fellow, Brevet Brigadier
General John A. B. C. Smith. Some one _did_ introduce me to the
gentleman, I am sure - at some public meeting, I know very well -
held about something of great importance, no doubt - at some place or
other, I feel convinced, - whose name I have unaccountably forgotten.
The truth is - that the introduction was attended, upon my part, with
a degree of anxious embarrassment which operated to prevent any
definite impressions of either time or place. I am constitutionally
nervous - this, with me, is a family failing, and I can't help it.
In especial, the slightest appearance of mystery - of any point I
cannot exactly comprehend - puts me at once into a pitiable state of
agitation.
There was something, as it were, remarkable - yes, _remarkable_,
although this is but a feeble term to express my full meaning - about
the entire individuality of the personage in question. He was,
perhaps, six feet in height, and of a presence singularly commanding.
There was an _air distingu�_ pervading the whole man, which spoke of
high breeding, and hinted at high birth. Upon this topic - the topic
of Smith's personal appearance - I have a kind of melancholy
satisfaction in being minute. His head of hair would have done honor
to a Brutus; - nothing could be more richly flowing, or possess a
brighter gloss. It was of a jetty black; - which was also the
color, or more properly the no color of his unimaginable whiskers.
You perceive I cannot speak of these latter without enthusiasm; it
is not too much to say that they were the handsomest pair of whiskers
under the sun. At all events, they encircled, and at times partially
overshadowed, a mouth utterly unequalled. Here were the most entirely
even, and the most brilliantly white of all conceivable teeth. From
between them, upon every proper occasion, issued a voice of
surpassing clearness, melody, and strength. In the matter of eyes,
also, my acquaintance was pre-eminently endowed. Either one of such
a pair was worth a couple of the ordinary ocular organs. They were
of a deep hazel, exceedingly large and lustrous; and there was
perceptible about them, ever and anon, just that amount of
interesting obliquity which gives pregnancy to expression.
The bust of the General was unquestionably the finest bust I ever
saw. For your life you could not have found a fault with its
wonderful proportion. This rare peculiarity set off to great
advantage a pair of shoulders which would have called up a blush of
conscious inferiority into the countenance of the marble Apollo. I
have a passion for fine shoulders, and may say that I never beheld
them in perfection before. The arms altogether were admirably
modelled. Nor were the lower limbs less superb. These were, indeed,
the _ne plus ultra_ of good legs. Every connoisseur in such matters
admitted the legs to be good. There was neither too much flesh, nor
too little, - neither rudeness nor fragility. I could not imagine a
more graceful curve than that of the _os femoris_, and there was just
that due gentle prominence in the rear of the _fibula_ which goes to
the conformation of a properly proportioned calf. I wish to God my
young and talented friend Chiponchipino, the sculptor, had but seen
the legs of Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.
But although men so absolutely fine-looking are neither as plenty
as reasons or blackberries, still I could not bring myself to believe
that _the remarkable_ something to which I alluded just now, - that
the odd air of _je ne sais quoi_ which hung about my new
acquaintance, - lay altogether, or indeed at all, in the supreme
excellence of his bodily endowments. Perhaps it might be traced to
the _manner_; - yet here again I could not pretend to be positive.
There _was_ a primness, not to say stiffness, in his carriage - a
degree of measured, and, if I may so express it, of rectangular
precision, attending his every movement, which, observed in a more
diminutive figure, would have had the least little savor in the
world, of affectation, pomposity or constraint, but which noticed in
a gentleman of his undoubted dimensions, was readily placed to the
account of reserve, _hauteur_ - of a commendable sense, in short, of
what is due to the dignity of colossal proportion.
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