Dignity, always dignity.

Finished Part I of Beat to Quarters. Am resisting the temptation to pull out a belaying pin and beat Horatio over the head with it. Must hang in there as I still haven't met Lady B.
However, now I know why the gals at Horatians are so desperate for the BBC to film this one:

Hornblower stripped off his wet shirt and trousers and shaved standing naked before the mirror...There was a pair of melancholy brown eyes, a forehead sufficiently high, a nose sufficiently straight; a good mouth set with all the firmness acquired during twenty years at sea.

See, Ioan Gruffudd was born to play this role. Nobody else could do it, not even Gregory Peck.

The tousled curly brown hair was just begining to recede and leave the forehead a little higher still, which was a source of irritation to Captain Hornblower, because he hated the thought of going bald. Noticing it, he was reminded of his other trouble, and glanced down at his naked body.

At this point I'm thinking, Aw HELL no. I like you Hornblower, but not that much, so let's keep things north of the equator, shall we? I don't need to see that. Let's get back to the bits where shit blows up. That's the fun part.

He was slender and well muscled; quite a prepossessing figure, in fact, when he drew himself to his full six feet.

Aha. See, they all go on about Lady Barbara and action-packed plots, etc, when really what they want is more nekkid Ioan. Not that I begrudge them; I may consider myself practically a six on the Kinsey scale, but if Ioan showed up on my doorstep tomorrow morning, well, I'd totally think about it. He's just so darn pretty.
By the way, and this may be my semester of Queer Theory talking, but is it possible for there to be homoerotic subtext between a narrator and his character? Because, jeez Cecil. That's one loving eye for detail you got there.
Nice to see all the use I'm putting this English major to...::insert eye-rolling smilie here::