eBooks Base 2000

I observed two of Franklin, both good and picturesque, one of
them especially so, with its cloud-like white hair. I do not think we
have produced a man so interesting to contemplate, in many points of
view, as he. Most of our great men are of a character that I find it
impossible to warm into life by thought, or by lavishing any amount of
sympathy upon them. Not so Franklin, who had a great deal of common and
uncommon human nature in him.
Much of the time, while my wife was looking at the drawings, I sat
observing the crowd of Sunday visitors. They were generally of a lower
class than those of week-days; private soldiers in a variety of uniforms,
and, for the most part, ugly little men, but decorous and well behaved.
I saw medals on many of their breasts, denoting Crimean service; some
wore the English medal, with Queen Victoria's head upon it. A blue
coat, with red baggy trousers, was the most usual uniform. Some had
short-breasted coats, made in the same style as those of the first
Napoleon, which we had seen in the preceding rooms.


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