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Updated: June 5, 2025
Charlie might easily have said a little more about his looks, had it been in his line, for, so far from being only "not pock-marked," he was something more like a young Apollo: some six feet in height, upstanding like the statue of a Greek athlete; a rich olive skin, through which the pink of youth came and went; and splendid blue-green eyes, fearless, and yet shy as a lad's eyes often are at that moment of development when a good-looking lad, in spite of his height and muscles, has something of the bloom and purity of a girl, without in the least suggesting effeminacy.
What a base and foolish thing is it for any consolidated body of authority to say, or to act as if it said, "I will put my trust, not in my own virtue, but in your patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in indolence, in corruption; I will give way to all my perverse and vicious humors, because you cannot punish me without the hazard of ruining yourselves."
"Compare," he will say, "the fine gentleman of former times, ever on horseback, booted and spurred, and travel-stained, but open, frank, manly, and chivalrous, with the fine gentleman of the present day, full of affectation and effeminacy, rolling along a turnpike in his voluptuous vehicle.
Then, as his sharp eyes noted the flush upon Sergius' face, he added: "Fever, wounds, and death may pardon effeminacy; and, truly, I would beg you to accompany me as you came, were it not that a climb up the Palatine should bring new health to one who could run ten miles with a broken shoulder.
The effeminacy belonged all to the tailor, an artist plying far from Corliss Street, for the coat would have encountered a hundred of its fellows at Trouville or Ostende this very day.
Effeminacy was the chief cause of the ruin of the Roman legions: those formidable soldiers, who had borne the casque, buckler, and cuirass in the times of the Scipios under the burning sun of Africa, found them too heavy in the cool climates of Germany and Gaul; and then the empire was lost.
"It was impossible not to fear these wild people; yet they gave us no reason to complain of them, but used us on all occasions with a kind of clumsy courtesy, accommodating themselves to our wants and our weakness during the journey, even while we heard them grumbling to each other against our effeminacy, like some rude carrier, who, in charge of a package of valuable and fragile ware, takes every precaution for its preservation, while he curses the unwonted trouble which it occasions him.
Warwick, whose stately manliness was disgusted with whatever savoured of effeminacy or debauch, used to declare that he would rather fight fifty battles for Edward IV. than once sup with him! Feasts were prolonged for hours, and the banquets of this king of the Middle Ages almost resembled those of the later Roman emperors.
His features, faultlessly regular, were redeemed from all effeminacy by the ennobling impress of high thought and inward inspiration, his eyes were dark, with a brilliant under-reflection of steel-gray in them, that at times flashed out like the soft glitter of summer- lightning in the dense purple of an August heaven, his olive- tinted complexion was flushed warmly with the glow of health, and he had broad, bold, intellectual brows over which the rich hair clustered in luxuriant waves, hair that was almost black, with here and there a curious fleck of reddish gold brightening its curling masses, as though a stray sunbeam or two had been caught and entangled therein.
His complexion had once been fair almost to effeminacy, his cheeks ruddy with health, and his blue eye bright and full of hope. His hair was light; and all these peculiarities strongly denoted his Saxon origin. It was not so much Anglo-Saxon as Americo-Saxon, that was to be seen in the physical outlines and hues of this nearly self-destroyed being.
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