d 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. This striking resemblance certainly
impressed me, to begin with; but there is something in him besides the
resemblance, which has impressed me more. I think the influence I am
now trying to find is in his eyes. They are the most unfathomable grey
eyes I ever saw, and they have at times a cold, clear, beautiful,
irresistible glitter in them which forces me to look at him, and yet
causes me sensations, when I do look, which I would rather not feel.
Other parts of his face and head have their strange peculiarities. His
complexion, for instance, has a singular sallow-fairness, so much at
variance with the dark-brown colour of his hair, that I suspect the
hair of being a wig, and his face, closely shaven all over, is smoother
and freer from all marks and wrinkles than mine, though (according to
Sir Percival's account of him) he is close on sixty years of age. But
these are not the prominent personal characteristics which distinguish
him, to my mind, from all the other men I have ever seen. The marked
peculiarity which singles him out from the rank and file of humanity
lies entirely, so far as I can tell at present, in the extraordinary
expression and extraordinary power of his eyes.

His manner and his command of our language may also have assisted him,
in some degree, to establish himself in my good opinion. He has that
quiet deference, that look of pleased, attentive interest in listening
to a woman, and that secret gentleness in his voice in speaking to a
woman, which, say what we may, we