16 MY LIFE 



five Greenells had an average age of seventy-six. Of our own 

 family, my brother John reached seventy-seven, and my sister 

 Fanny eighty-one. My brother William owed his death to a 

 railway journey by night in winter, from London to South 

 Wales in the miserable accommodation then afforded to third- 

 class passengers, which, increased by a damp bed at Bristol, 

 brought on severe congestion of the lungs, from which he 

 never recovered. 



I will now give a short account of my father's appearance 

 and character. In a miniature of himself, painted just before 

 his marriage, when he was thirty-five years old, he is repre- 

 sented in a blue coat with gilt buttons, a white waistcoat, a 

 thick white neck-cloth coming up to the chin and showing no 

 collar, and a frilled shirt-front. This was probably his wed- 

 ding-coat, and his usual costume, indicating the transition 

 from the richly coloured semi-court dress of the earlier 

 Georgian period to the plain black of our own day. He is 

 shown as having a ruddy complexion, blue eyes, and carefully 

 dressed and curled hair, which I think must have been pow- 

 dered, or else in the transition from light brown to pure white. 

 As I remember him from the age of fifty-five onwards, his 

 hair was rather thin and quite white, and he was always clean- 

 shaven as in the miniature. He continued to wear the frilled 

 shirt and thick white neckties, but never wore any outer cloth- 

 ing but black, of the cut we now term a dress-suit, but the coat 

 double-breasted, and the whole rather loose fitting. He also 

 wore large shoes and black cloth gaiters out-of-doors. This 

 dress he nevered altered, having at first one new suit a year, 

 but latterly I think only one every second or third year ; but he 

 always had one for Sundays and visiting, which was kept in 

 perfect order. The second was for everyday wear; and when 

 gardening or doing any other work likely to be injurious to his 

 clothes, I think I remember him wearing a thin home-made hol- 

 land jacket and a gardener's apron. 



In figure he was somewhat below the middle height. He 

 was fairly active and fond of gardening and other country 

 occupations, such as brewing beer and making grape or elder 



