But though
he was in these ways noble, the dunce scholar of Northiam was to
the end no genius. Upon all points that a man must understand to
be a gentleman, to be upright, gallant, affectionate and dead to
self, Captain Jenkin was more knowing than one among a thousand;
outside of that, his mind was very largely blank. He had indeed a
simplicity that came near to vacancy; and in the first forty years
of his married life, this want grew more accentuated. In both
families imprudent marriages had been the rule; but neither Jenkin
nor Campbell had ever entered into a more unequal union. It was
the captain's good looks, we may suppose, that gained for him this
elevation; and in some ways and for many years of his life, he had
to pay the penalty. His wife, impatient of his incapacity and
surrounded by brilliant friends, used him with a certain contempt.
She was the managing partner; the life was hers, not his; after his
retirement they lived much abroad, where the poor captain, who
could never learn any language but his own, sat in the corner
mumchance; and even his son, carried away by his bright mother, did
not recognise for long the treasures of simple chivalry that lay
buried in the heart of his father.
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