With an amazing clarity of perception which, though generally supposed to be inherited from his great-uncle Miles, for fifty-four years Unitarian minister in the Red Lamp district of Honolulu, would undoubtedly in the searching light of twentieth century vision be mainly attributed to prenatal influences and astronomical premonitions, he realised that the atmosphere was exceedingly chilly in the winter.
Later biographists have exposed with somewhat malicious emphasis the one weak point in an otherwise magnificently constructed intelligence—to wit, the peculiar inability to recognise the inner psychology and spiritual determination of his great-grandfather—Bobbie Plinge—who as all the world knows met a tragic death at the hands of Great Brown Spratt, the last but one of the Mohicans, some fifteen years before the birth of Rupert himself. This deficiency in one of the greatest of all American characters was in a measure remedied by his excessive appreciation of his grandfather O'Callaghan Soddle's luxurious house in Boob Street, later on when the abode of stupendous intellect had been completely gutted by fire and soaked in water. The boy Rupert, then aged two years and a fortnight, exercised a fiercely dominant influence upon the ground charts, plans, etc., for the new palatial residence which was soon to rear its mighty pillars and porticos not so very far from the ivy-grown cottage which in the past had on several occasions sheltered the wistful personality of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The inherent passion for beauty thus crystallized in the mellowing virility of the boy's finely wrought temperament went far toward satisfying his deep-rooted and well-nigh insatiable yearning for city splendour.
In the strange juxtaposition to his unequalled comprehension of national political problems was a surprising streak of frank insouciance and happy-hearted boyishness, which frequently expressed itself in the open defiance of authority in the shape of his great-aunt Maud, his slightly dropsical mother (née Sheila Soddle) and his two resident cousins, Alexander Chaffinch and Dorothy Bonk, who at moments were entirely unable even to bend the finely tempered steel of his inflexible will, therefore on the one occasion when his decisive plans were unexpectedly frustrated an impression was photographed with extraordinary bas-relief upon his mind of the omnipotence of his quite infirm Grandfather Soddle—and of power as a concrete argument. The incident being the removal of a half-sucked tin soldier from his hand by the subtle device of striking his knuckles sharply with the fire tongs. Then and always the boy insisted that this method of reprimand justified his apparent submission; the emptiness of his hand and the smarting of his knuckles indubitably marking probably the only occasion in his life when all his strategical points abruptly turned inward. Contrary to the suppositions of impartial psychologists, far from breeding the slightest resentment against old Mr. Soddle, this occurrence inspired an active dislike to great-aunt Maud who had indulged in her ever-irritating laugh at his expense. He expressed his natural anger by filling her handkerchief-case with bacon fat, and other boyish revenges of a like nature.
A child whose soaring entity had been nourished and over tended in such an exotic forcing house of accumulated endeavour and democratic emancipation must indubitably have been the first to realise that the austerity of his massive intellect was within measurable distance of completing that predestined cycle of universal knowledge and aspiring ultimately to the glorious pinnacle of political achievement.
Rupert Plinge's fourth birthday had scarce dawned across the hills of time when the long drawn out shadow of earthly obscurity completely enveloped the brightest flower of nineteenth century America. The almost morbid cultivation of his superluminary brain reached its devastating climax while committing to memory the anatomy of the common grub in order to demonstrate to the Eastern constituency the fundamental principles of fiscal autonomy. Lying in his cot, his large pale eyes fixed grimly on a visionary goal, he realised with an intuitive pang that the hour of dismissal was at hand. Calling his mother to him he asked his last illuminating question, his mind groping still in search of truth's flaming beacon:
"Mother, why am I dying?"
Mrs. Plinge leant over him and whispered impressively, "You are dying of dropsy caused by over-education!" And turning on her heel she went slowly out of the room.
Delirium entered the darkening nursery. Rupert, clasping his hot-water bottle raptly, murmured dreamily as he merged into the Great Unknown, the crystallisation of the subconscious influence which had permeated his whole career—
"Dropsy, Dropsy,
Topsy, Topsy—
Harriet Beecher Stowe."