My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS ii 4iusual costume, indicating the transition from the richlycoloured semi-court dress of the earlier Georgianperiod to the plain black of our own day. He isshown as having a ruddy complexion, blue eyes, andcarefully dressed and curled hair, which I think musthave been powdered, or else in the transition fromlight brown to pure white. As I remember him fromthe age of fifty-five onwards, his hair was rather thinand quite white, and he was always clean-shaved asin the miniature.In figure he was somewhat below the middleheight. He was fairly active and fond of gardeningand other country occupations, such as brewing beerand making grape or elder wine whenever he hadthe opportunity ; and during some years at Hertfordhe rented a garden about half a mile away, in orderto grow vegetables and have some wholesome exercise.He was rather precise and regular in his habits,quiet and rather dignified in manners, and whatwould be termed a gentleman of the old school. Ofcourse, he always wore a top-hat—a beaver hat as itwas then called, before silk hats were invented—theonly other headgear being sometimes a straw hat foruse in the garden in summer.In character he was quiet and even-tempered, veryreligious in the orthodox Church-of-England way, andwith such a reliance on Providence as almost toamount to fatalism. He was fond of reading, andthrough reading-clubs or lending-libraries we usuallyhad some of the best books of travel or biography inthe house. Some of these my father would read tous in the evening, and when Bowdler's edition ofShakespeare came out he obtained it, and often reada play to the assembled family.At one time my father wrote a good deal, and we