Not a day's interval of grace was allowed. Niobe under the shafts
of Diana was hardly less violently and mortally assailed. The deadliness
of the attack lay in the ridicule of the daily habits of one of the most
sensitive of men, as to his personal appearance, and the opinion of the
world. He might have concealed the sketches, but he could not have
concealed the bruises, and people were perpetually asking the unhappy
General what he was saying, for he spoke to himself as if he were
repeating something to them for the tenth time.
'I say,' said he, 'I say that for a lady, really an educated lady, to
sit, as she must--I was saying, she must have sat in an attic to have the
right view of me. And there you see--this is what she has done. This is
the last, this is the afternoon's delivery. Her ladyship has me correctly
as to costume, but I could not exhibit such a sketch to ladies.'
A back view of the General was displayed in his act of digging.
'I say I could not allow ladies to see it,' he informed the gentlemen,
who were suffered to inspect it freely.
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