Part 56 (2/2)
Did you ever reflect upon how much you have to be thankful for in the matter of noses? Your nose, in all probability, is your dra's gate--but you would look very queer without it In your uisable, and er, or a little shorter, or a little wider, or not quite so wide
Or perhaps you wish the isthe of the peninsula a little straighter, or the south cape a little more, or less, obtuse Or possibly you wish that the front elevation (elevation is good) did not adrottoes above your moustache, so clear a perspective of the interior of A upon you the conviction that your own early disregard of yourupward, had come home to you at last, and had coe you Your nose is good enough; better, probably, than you deserve; be thankful that you have one of any design at all
This poor boundary man had none to speak of And it seemed such a pity
More beautiful, otherwise, than a , it was (apart fromalion'sinto life,with The upper half of his nose was represented by an irregular scar, running off toward the left eye, which was dull and opaque; the other was splendid, soft, and luht of the lamp, with his elbow on the table, in order to shade with his hand the middle part of his face, the coorous contour of lanced round the hut for the book-shelf
His lithe, graceful movements had at first led ht showed a maze of incipient wrinkles on the sunburnt neck, and a few silver threads in the thick, strong, coalblack hair Moreover, owing to inadvertence or ignorance on the part of people who should have known better, he had been christened in iirl It is well and widely known that this oversight, small as it looks, will free ato burn off the scrub Alf had no scrub to burn off, except a faint moustache, unnoticeable but for its dark colour For the rest, he was slightly abovethe wrong way, if Ithe double-refined reader And, froe july clean for Saturday The so to his being, at least incharacter within the scope of these scranny memoirs
I looked round for the book-shelf It was a bookcase this ti-case, nailed to the wall, fitted with shelves, and curtained on the front I rose and inspected the collection: fifty or sixty voluy, reference, and a few rely represented, science and yellow-back fiction not at all
”You don't find many people of my name in the country?” remarked the boundary man trivially, after a pause
”Notwhether he referred to his nicknaift of his Godfathers and God mistake
”I suppose you hardly know one,” he persisted
”Not that I can think of,” I replied ”Have you any swapping-books?”
”Yes, you'll find 'Elsie Venne ' lying on top of the upper shelf”
”I've read it years ago, but we'll change,” I replied ”When I first got -book, it was by Hannah More; now it's by Zola, and sone about twenty inter--in both senses of the word
Therefore I can recoood to read Zola,” rehtest, Alf--that is, in the works by which he is represented aood to read Holmes?
Zola has several phases; one of them, I admit, blue as heaven's own tinct; but Holmes has only one phase, namely, pharisaism Zola, even as we know hiives you no rest for the sole of your foot--or rather, for the foot of your soul; whilst Holmes serenely seduces you to his own pinchbeck standard Zola is honest; he never calls evil, good; whilst Holenuine literary merit of his own
”But don't you like Holmes's poetry?” asked Alf
”Well, his poems fill a little volume that the world would be sorry to lose; but why did n't he write one verse--just one--for the Abolitionists to quote?”
”Because it's not in his nature to denounce things,” objected Alf
”Neither was it in Longfellow's nature; yet Longfellow's poeed worthy to form a separate section of his works But Hol and Inquisition-persecution, like the chivalrous soul that he is He has achieved the distinction of being the only Anores Slavery, and takes part with the aristocrat, as against the lowly
The sae of about three notes: a flunkeyish koo-tooing to soap-bubble eminence; a tawdry sy conteowns Bo fabric, built of shoddy, and generally used for home-made quilts”----
”No, it's not! ” broke in Alf, with a rippling laugh; ”it's a very good dress-material; silk one way, and wool the other; and it's asp ”Why don't you sit down?”
he continued, in an altered tone ”And that reminds me, my day's work's not done yet”
He cleared the table, and placed upon it his half-dissected turkey, in a milk-dish I had the conversation to myself till he finished his work and took the turkey outside to hang it on the h, with a fork at the top, through which ran a piece of clothes-line I followed hi on literature, whilst he attached one end of the clothes-line to the turkey's legs, hauled it up to the fork, and hitched the fall of the rope to the pole