The impresario
was in truth a very small man, weighing perhaps seven stone with his
boots. But Signor Ercole held, and very frequently expressed, an
opinion that dignity and nobility of appearance depended wholly on
bearing, and in no wise on mere corporeal altitude. Men were
measured in his country (Rome), he said, from the eyebrow upwards.
And though Rome is not exactly the place, of all others, where one
might expect to find such an estimate of human value prevailing,--
unless, indeed, smallness of that which a man has above his brow be
deemed the desirable thing,--it was undeniable that little Signor
Ercole carried a mass of forehead which might have been the share of
a much taller man.
Nor were the pretensions put forward by the impresario on this score
altogether vain. He was no fool;--a shrewd as well as a dapper
little man, active and clever at his business, and well liked both
by the artists and by the public, for which he catered, despite of
being one of the vainest of mortals. Vanity makes some men very
odious to their fellows;--in others it is perfectly inoffensive; and
though damaging to a claim to respect, is perfectly compatible with
a considerable amount of liking for the victim of it.
A very dapper little man was Signor Ercole, as he stepped forth,
about eight o'clock, entirely refitted, to wait upon the Marchese at
the Palazzo Castelmare.
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