First Paragraph

 In the middle of the last century, in the lifetime of men and women with whom the author has spoken, there was to be seen, walking or riding the London streets, a most distinguished-looking old man. Wherever he went, everyone stopped and saluted him as though he were a king. As men uncovered, he would lift a stiff forefinger to the brim of a tall grey hat. The gesture was never omitted and never varied. He was always immaculately dressed, in spotless white trousers and a skin-tight, single-breasted blue frock coat. His hair was silvery, his eyes bright and piercing, his figure lithe and upright as a boy's, save for the shoulders which were bent with age, his finely chiseled features and long Roman beak like an eagle's. To the early Victorians he seemed as much a landmark as St. Paul's or his own gigantic statue - cocked-hat, cloak, world-famous charger - riding above the triumphal arch opposite to his house at Hyde Park Corner. Everyone called him The Duke, as though, there was only one. For, so long as Wellington lived, for most Englishmen there was only one.

- From The Great Duke by Arthur Bryant (1972)