Although the head and all its organs were small, it had balance and self-consistency. You would not expect such a head to raise out of the azure vault the system of Copernicus. You would not expect such a head to conquer Europe with the raw levies of France. But you would not expect from it the stubborn reticence, which for years declined to give the death-blow to the Ptolemaic system, or the crass stupidity which sought a cerecloth in the snow of Russia for the finest army Europe had ever seen. It was the head of an observer, not a theorist; of a captain, not a chief. Above all, it was the head of a practical man of the world, who would not allow folly of any kind, or vanity or pleasure or indolence, to stand in the way of the business of life.
Mr Parkinson was at luncheon. He had the wing of a fowl and a slice of tongue on his plate. At his elbow stood a tumbler half full of a good, sound, wholesome claret. Opposite him sat a fair, bright-eyed, gay, pretty Englishwoman, thirty-two years of age--his wife. On one side of the table sat a large-featured rosy-faced boy of five, on the other a girl of seven, with delicate finely-cut features--his son and daughter. The four made up the Parkinson family, and it is doubtful if you could find a more wholesome-looking or better-kept family in London.
A neatly-clad maid-servant waited noiselessly. The room was a model of comfort. It was not sombre; it was not gay. It was sober and cool and sweet. The sobriety of the furniture and the paper and the carpet and the pictures made the people look bright, the coolness of the colour made the fire look warmer, and the sweetness of tone soothed the mind insensibly.
Mr Parkinson lived near the Regent's Park. The children often went to the Zoological Gardens, and were now discussing their pet beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes, while the father and mother looked on and listened. At last, the boy, who was getting the worst of the argument, said petulantly,--
'Father, was Noah's Ark as big as the Zoo?'
''Cause Loo said it was; and she thinks, because she got a prize at Christmas for Bible history, that she knows everything.'
'Oh, Fred, I never said I knew everything, or half everything, and I never said the Ark was as big as the Zoo.'