"The former measured six feet and an inch in his stockings, and, without a single pound of cumbrous flesh about him, weighed a hundred and eighty. The latter was an inch shorter than his rival, and ten pounds lighter; but he was much the most active of the two"
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Measurement becomes a kind of moral geometry here: inches, pounds, and the telling aside about “stockings” do more than sketch two bodies. Longstreet is staging a contest of types, the way an old-school lawyer might size up witnesses or rival counsel - with a practiced eye for detail that pretends to be neutral while quietly steering the jury.
The phrase “without a single pound of cumbrous flesh” is the loaded flourish. “Cumbrous” isn’t medical; it’s character judgment dressed as anatomy, smuggling in a Protestant-seeming admiration for leanness, restraint, and purpose. You can feel the culture that prizes discipline and efficiency sharpening its knife on the fat. Yet the neat pivot - the slightly smaller man is “much the most active” - complicates the crude equation of size with superiority. Longstreet sets up the big, clean-lined specimen as an obvious favorite, then undercuts him with the one attribute that matters in a fight, a chase, a frontier scrape: quickness.
That’s the real intent: not to offer a census of bodies, but to prime the reader for action and rivalry. The numbers create an illusion of objectivity, like evidence entered into the record, while the adjectives do the persuasive work. In Longstreet’s period, physical description often doubled as social description - class, temperament, even virtue. The subtext is competitive masculinity, calibrated with courtroom specificity and regional storytelling swagger: you don’t just meet these men; you’re invited to bet on them.
The phrase “without a single pound of cumbrous flesh” is the loaded flourish. “Cumbrous” isn’t medical; it’s character judgment dressed as anatomy, smuggling in a Protestant-seeming admiration for leanness, restraint, and purpose. You can feel the culture that prizes discipline and efficiency sharpening its knife on the fat. Yet the neat pivot - the slightly smaller man is “much the most active” - complicates the crude equation of size with superiority. Longstreet sets up the big, clean-lined specimen as an obvious favorite, then undercuts him with the one attribute that matters in a fight, a chase, a frontier scrape: quickness.
That’s the real intent: not to offer a census of bodies, but to prime the reader for action and rivalry. The numbers create an illusion of objectivity, like evidence entered into the record, while the adjectives do the persuasive work. In Longstreet’s period, physical description often doubled as social description - class, temperament, even virtue. The subtext is competitive masculinity, calibrated with courtroom specificity and regional storytelling swagger: you don’t just meet these men; you’re invited to bet on them.
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| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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