The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea-Hawk, by Raphael Sabatini

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Title: The Sea-Hawk

Author: Raphael Sabatini

Posting Date: February 25, 2009 [EBook #3294]
Release Date: June, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA-HAWK ***

Produced by John Stuart Middleton

THE SEA-HAWK

By Rafael Sabatini

NOTE

Lord Henry Goade, who had, as we shall see, some personal acquaintance
with Sir Oliver Tressilian, tells us quite bluntly that he was
ill-favoured. But then his lordship is addicted to harsh judgments and
his perceptions are not always normal. He says, for instance, of Anne of
Cleves, that she was the "ugliest woman that ever I saw." As far as we
can glean from his own voluminous writings it would seem to be extremely
doubtful whether he ever saw Anne of Cleves at all, and we suspect him
here of being no more than a slavish echo of the common voice, which
attributed Cromwell's downfall to the ugliness of this bride he procured
for his Bluebeard master. To the common voice from the brush of Holbein,
which permits us to form our own opinions and shows us a lady who
is certainly very far from deserving his lordship's harsh stricture.
Similarly, I like to believe that Lord Henry was wrong in his
pronouncement upon Sir Oliver, and I am encouraged in this belief by the
pen-portrait which he himself appends to it. "He was," he says, "a tall,
powerful fellow of a good shape, if we except that his arms were too
long and that his feet and hands were of an uncomely bigness. In face he
was swarthy, with black hair and a black forked beard; his nose was
big and very high in the bridge, and his eyes sunk deep under beetling
eyebrows were very pale-coloured and very cruel and sinister. He
had--and this I have ever remarked to be the sign of great virility in
a man--a big, deep, rough voice, better suited to, and no doubt oftener
employed in, quarter-deck oaths and foulnesses than the worship of his
Maker."

Thus my Lord Henry Goade, and you observe how he permits his lingering
disapproval of the man to intrude upon his description of him. The
truth is that--as there is ample testimony