A better man, a greater saint
than Bishop Purcell has never lived, but in 1896 he was eighty-six years
of age and preferred study and the sanctity of his wonderful library at
Carpledon to the publicity and turmoil of a public career; Dean Sampson,
gentle and amiable as he was, was not intended by nature for a moulder of
men. He was, however, one of the best botanists in the County and his
little book on "Glebshire Ferns" is, I believe, an authority in its own
line.
Archdeacon Brandon was, of course, greatly helped by his magnificent
physical presence. "Magnificent" is not, I think, too strong a word. Six
feet two or three in height, he had the figure of an athlete, light blue
eyes, and his hair was still, when he was fifty-eight years of age, thick
and fair and curly like that of a boy. He looked, indeed, marvellously
young, and his energy and grace of movement might indeed have belonged to
a youth still in his teens. It is not difficult to imagine how startling
an effect his first appearance in Polchester created. Many of the
Polchester ladies thought that he was like "a Greek God" (the fact that
they had never seen one gave them the greater confidence), and Miss
Dobell, who was the best read of all the ladies in our town, called him
"the Viking.
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