From A London Child Of The 1870s, by M.V. Hughes
I have never been able to decide which brother I liked best, for each had some special attraction for me. All four were absurdly unlike in character and appearance, and yet so close in age and size that no stranger could pick out the eldest.
First came Tom…Tom always took my part through thick and thin, and would take me into partnership when I lost heavily at vingt-et-un.
He told me that he had kissed my head when I was only one night old. I found it hard to believe that I had ever been so young. ‘You couldn’t walk or talk then,’ he would say ‘you couldn’t even sit up.’ ‘Oh, Tom,’ I would protest, ‘I could sit up!’…
My third brother, Charles, was the only clever one among us. He worked hard at music and painting, but at nothing else would he do a stroke that could be avoided.
He was clever enough to make the tiniest bit of information do the work of volumes. He would find some remote fact about Zenobia or Savonarola, or some one like that, and then pretend to be shocked at the ignorance of those around him. Of course the family knew him, but his trick carried him far with outsiders. He was known to boast that he had never failed in an examination, while the family knew that he had never been in for one.
In our continual arguments Charles always seemed to come out top, and his criticisms were merciless. As for me, I was snubbed continually, especially if I fished for a compliment or showed any symptom of self-pity…
But there was rich compensation for all this in the things he would draw for me, the tunes he would play for me to dance, and the long exotic stories he would tell me, in the style of the Arabian Nights, making them up as he went along.
And he was kind in unexpected ways, and when people weren’t looking.