not so very long. "This I did: now examine it." Nothing more needed to
be said by him, if that.

True, he has a temper. It is owned that he is a hero. We take him with
his qualities, impetuosity being one, and not unsuited to his arm of the
service, as be has shown. If his temper is high, it is an element of a
character proved heroical. So has the sun his blotches, and we believe
that they go to nourish the luminary, rather than that they are a disease
of the photosphere.

Lord Ormont's apologists had to contend with anecdotes and dicta now
pouring in from offended Britons, for illustration of an impetuosity
fit to make another Charley XII. of Sweden--a gratuitous Coriolanus
haughtiness as well, new among a people accustomed socially to bow the
head to their nobles, and not, of late, expecting a kick for their pains.
Newspapers wrote of him that, "a martinet to subordinates, he was known
for the most unruly of lieutenants." They alluded to current sayings,
as that he "habitually took counsel of his horse on the field when a
movement was entrusted to his discretion." Numerous were the
journalistic sentences running under an air of eulogy of the lordly
warrior purposely to be tripped, and producing their damnable effect,
despite the obvious artifice. The writer of the letter from Bombay,
signed Ormont, was a born subject for the antithetical craftsmen's
tricky springes.

He was, additionally, of infamous repute for morale in burgess
estimation, from his having a keen appreciation of female beauty and
a prickly sense of masculine honour. The stir to his name roused
pestilential domestic stories. In those days the aristocrat still
claimed licence, and eminent soldier-nobles, comporting themselves as