Rhino

Patrick Skene Catling

J. P. Morgan Stanley Jackson (Heinemann £14.95)

when a man's acne rosacea (whose main symptom is reddening of the nose) develops into rhinophyma (nasal bulbous deformity), he really needs the con- solation of a million-dollar income, a 302-foot yacht, a 50 million-dollar art col- lection and an unlimited supply of beautiful and tactful mistresses. Anything less turns a public joke into a private tragedy.

Stanley Jackson has written an admirably thorough biography of one of the world's great, awful noses. J. Pierpont Morgan's nose was in the same class as the noses of Cyrano de Bergerac and W. C. Fields. Morgan's nose was not merely at the centre of his face; it was at the centre of his life. It was a demanding nose, requiring vast resources to support and protect it. He gave it everything a nose could possibly desire plenty of terrapin Maryland, vintage wines and old brandy and a daily unbroken chain of foot-long Havana cigars. In return, with the help of caricaturists, his nose made him an internationally recognised celebrity.

Jackson limns the background of the in- fluential American financier's life (1837-1913) deftly enough, but the colour of his prose is inflamed with something like passion only when he writes about the nose, or as he once formally entitles it, 'the Nose'. Then the author demonstrates his mastery of what Fowler called 'elegant variation'.

In one expression of sympathy, writing of the nose as a burden,'-jackson calls it Morgan's `rhinal affliction'; howeV'er,. the nasal passages are usually more pictures- que, as in this portrait:

Everything about Morgan, including the .high wing collar, flowing ascot cravat, starched cuffs, and heavy watch chain with its large bloodstone, implied wealth and breeding. His hair was already sparser and grizzling, but the well- tended moustache remained thick and trimmed in the walrus style favored by New England patricians. Andrew Carnegie [the steel tycoon] was now too self-confident to quake under the cold' hard stare that intimidated most callers, but he never forgot his first glimpse of the proud young banker's nose.

Making a later, alfresco appearance in' Jackson's pages, Morgan is 'an un- mistakable figure in his long black topcoat with the lamb's wool collar', acknowledg-' ing the cheers of a crowd `by slightly lifting his high-brimmed hat, a unique cross bet- ween a derby [bowler] and a topper, almost

as distinctive as the bulbous, crimson nose'.

Jackson quotes Roger Fry, whom he identifies as 'a snobbish English esthete [sic], painter, and art critic', describing Morgan to Mrs Fry: 'He is most repulsively ugly, with a great strawberry nose....' Ap- parently it is all right for Jackson to say Morgan's nose was like a strawberry, but he does not like other people to say so. Perhaps it should be explained that, although Jackson graduated in law at Ox- ford and London, this Heinemann edition of the biography is really an American book, which was printed — well printed by Book Crafters, Inc., of Chelsea, Michigan. English readers may not feel favou red.

But on with the nose. In the winter of his 70th year, Morgan 'suffered a succession of colds and became very short-tempered after his acne rosacea failed to respond to a series of wax treatments in Europe. If anything, the nose was still more hideously inflamed.'

The increasing impressiveness of the nose is attested to in a Freudian anecdote about Mrs Dwight Morrow, whose husband was to join Morgan's Wall Street firm as a part- ner. Jackson writes that she

incited the great man to tea and suffered agonies of stage fright before he arrived. She was especially apprehensive that her small daughter, Anne (the future wife of Charles Lindbergh), might wreck the par- ty. The tot, something of an enfant terr- ible, was sternly cautioned not to stare at the guest's nose or refer to its size and color. She kept her eyes dutifully averted, curtseyed to perfection, and departed with a polite, 'Good after- noon, sir'. Flushed with relief, Elizabeth Morrow stammered, `Do you like nose in your tea, Mr Morgan?'

After all the emotional wear and tear, there is a happy ending, as Jackson reports. When Morgan was lying in state in his library before his funeral, 'His embalmed face was waxen and relaxed, the hideous nose at last mercifully unblemished.'

In between all the interesting bits about the nose, there are detailed accounts of how J. P. Morgan gained control of America's major railways, General Electric, Interna- tional Harvester, Western Union'

American Telephone and International Mercantile Marine. To establish U.S. Steel' he put together the world's dollar merger. He saved President Cleveland, when the Treasury was running short of gold, and Wall Street, when it was running short of nerve. Morgan made .s° much money that he was able to Pic, millions to the Metropolitan Museum °I Art and the Episcopalian Church. When alit first billion- acquaintance asked him how much it cos to run a yacht, Morgan could afford to make the famous reply: 'Anybody wit° even has to think about the cost had better not get one.'

The nose had a man to be proud