He began abruptly to pass from the impunity of things to their solemnity, and from their being delightful to their being impossible.

He was splendidly sunburnt; even his multitudinous beard had been burnished by the fire of Asia.

He was dressed in the loose-fitting, heterogeneous garments in which the English traveller in foreign lands is wont to consult his comfort and affirm his nationality; and with his pleasant steady eyes, his bronzed complexion, fresh beneath its seasoning, his manly figure, his minimising manner and his general air of being a gentleman and an explorer, he was such a representative of the British race as need not in any clime have been disavowed by those who have a kindness for it.

Isabel noted these things and was glad she had always liked him.

He had kept, evidently in spite of shocks, every one of his merits--properties these partaking of the essence of great decent houses, as one might put it; resembling their innermost fixtures and ornaments, not subject to vulgar shifting and removable only by some whole break-up.