Character
Wolfe was renowned by his troops for being demanding on himself and on them. Although he was prone to illness, Wolfe was an active and restless figure. Amherst reported that Wolfe seemed to be everywhere at once. There was a story that when someone in the British Court branded the young Brigadier mad, King George II retorted, "Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals." Some biographers, including Richard Garrett have suggested Wolfe may have been a repressed homosexual, although his behavioral patterns were fairly typical of the noblemen of the time. He was once reprimanded by his father for an incident involving a very handsome young lieutenant (around early 1750s), after which he seems to have abstained from sexual activity. In a letter to his mother in 1751 he admitted he would probably never marry, and stated that he believed people could easily live without marrying. A cultured man, in 1759 during the Seven Years War, before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham Wolfe is said to have recited Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard to his officers, adding: "Gentlemen, I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec tomorrow". After his death a miniature of Katherine Lowther, daughter of Robert Lowther (1681–1745), was given to Wolfe's mother and later returned to Katherine Lowther Duchess of Bolton.
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Famous quotes containing the word character:
“An actor rides in a bus or railroad train; he sees a movement and applies it to a new role. A woman in agony of spirit might turn her head just so; a man in deep humiliation probably would wring his hands in such a way. From straws like these, drawn from completely different sources, the fabric of a character may be built. The whole garment in which the actor hides himself is made of small externals of observation fitted to his conception of a role.”
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“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
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