This, together with his practice,
which was now declining, furnished a handsome support for him. Age
appeared to effect little change in his _personnel_. At sixty-seven,
he was as erect in person and as elastic in step as at thirty. There
was none of that _embonpoint_ usually the consequence of years and
luxurious living. He was neither slender nor fat; but what is most
agreeable to the eye--between the two, with a most perfectly formed
person. His features were manly, and strikingly beautiful; his blue
eyes beaming with the _hauteur_ of high breeding and ripe
intelligence. These features were too often disfigured with the sneer
of scorn, or the curled lip of expressive contempt. His early hopes,
his manhood's ambition had been disappointed; and, soured and sore, he
sneered at the world, and despised it. He had no confidence in man or
woman, and had truly reached Hamlet's condition, when "Man delighted
him not, nor woman either." He felt the world was his debtor, and was
niggardly in its payments. He grew more and more morose as the things
of time receded. Others, full of youth, talent, and vigor, were
usurping the positions and enjoying the honors of life, which were
slipping away from him unenjoyed.
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