I have invariably combated both
these absurd assertions by quoting examples of fat people who were
as mean, vicious, and cruel as the leanest and the worst of their
neighbours. I have asked whether Henry the Eighth was an amiable
character? Whether Pope Alexander the Sixth was a good man?
Whether Mr. Murderer and Mrs. Murderess Manning were not both
unusually stout people? Whether hired nurses, proverbially as
cruel a set of women as are to be found in all England, were not,
for the most part, also as fat a set of women as are to be found
in all England?--and so on, through dozens of other examples,
modern and ancient, native and foreign, high and low. Holding
these strong opinions on the subject with might and main as I do
at this moment, here, nevertheless, is Count Fosco, as fat as
Henry the Eighth himself, established in my favour, at one day's
notice, without let or hindrance from his own odious corpulence.
Marvellous indeed!
Is it his face that has recommended him?
It may be his face. He is a most remarkable likeness, on a large
scale, of the great Napoleon. His features have Napoleon's
magnificent regularity--his expression recalls the grandly calm,
immovable power of the Great Soldier's face.
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