Cyrus Townsend Brady
Published: 2013-11
Total Pages: 156
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His Gracious Majesty, King Charles II. of England, in sportive—and acquisitive—mood, had made him a knight; but, as that merry monarch himself had said of another unworthy subject whom he had ennobled—his son, by the left hand—"God Almighty could not make him a gentleman!"Yet, to the casual inspection, little or nothing appeared to be lacking to entitle him to all the consideration attendant upon that ancient degree. His attire, for instance, might be a year or two behind the fashion of England and still further away from that of France, then, as now, the standard maker in dress, yet it represented the extreme of the mode in His Majesty's fair island of Jamaica. That it was a trifle too vivid in its colors, and too striking in its contrasts for the best taste at home, possibly might be condoned by the richness of the material used and the prodigality of trimming which decorated it. Silk and satin from the Orient, lace from Flanders, leather from Spain, with jewels from everywhere, marked him as a person entitled to some consideration, at least. Even more compulsory of attention, if not of respect, were his haughty, overbearing, satisfied manner, his look of command, the expression of authority in action he bore.