dinner-table in a state of absolute sobriety. Colonel Dod and my uncle
had learned in Bengal, under the coercion of the climate, habits of
temperance. But the others (though few, perhaps, might be systematic
drinkers) were careless in this respect, and drank under social
excitement quite enough to lay bare the ruling tendencies of their
several characters. Being English, naturally the majority were
energetic, and beyond all things despised dreaming _faineans_
(such, for instance, as we find the politicians, or even the
conspirators, of Italy, Spain, and Germany, whose whole power of action
evaporates in talking, and histrionically gesticulating). Yet still the
best of them seemed inert by comparison with my uncle, and to regard
_his_ standard of action and exertion as trespassing to a needless
degree upon ordinary human comfort.

Commonplace, meantime, my uncle was in the character of his intellect;
there he fell a thousand leagues below my mother, to whom he looked up
with affectionate astonishment. But, as a man of action, he ran so far
ahead of men generally, that he ceased to impress one as commonplace.
He, if any man ever did, realized the Roman poet's description of being
_natus rebus agendis_--sent into this world not for talking, but
for doing; not for counsel, but for execution. On that field he was a
portentous man, a monster; and, viewing him as such, I am disposed to
concede a few words to what modern slang denominates his "antecedents."

Two brothers and one sister (namely, my mother) composed the household
choir of children gathering round the hearth of my maternal grand-
parents, whose name was Penson. My grandfather at one time held an
office under the king; how named, I once heard, but have forgotten;
only this I remember, that it was an office which conferred the title
of _Esquire;_ so that upon each and all of his several coffins,