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.
The kind friend who presented me to General Smith whispered in my
ear some few words of comment upon the man. He was a remarkable man- a
very remarkable man- indeed one of the most remarkable men of the age.
He was an especial favorite, too, with the ladies- chiefly on
account of his high reputation for courage.
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