His eyebrows were bushy, emphasizing vague, grayish-green eyes, and his hair was short and smooth and nicely parted.

He wore a frock-coat always--it was quite the thing in financial circles in those days--and a high hat.
And he kept his hands and nails immaculately clean.

His manner might have been called severe, though really it was more cultivated than austere.
Being ambitious to get ahead socially and financially, he was very careful of whom or with whom he talked.

He was as much afraid of expressing a rabid or unpopular political or social opinion as he was of being seen with an evil character, though he had really no opinion of great political significance to express.

He was neither anti- nor pro-slavery, though the air was stormy with abolition sentiment and its opposition.