The impression left on my mind by my visitor is just as though a
grasshopper had leapt upon my window-sill from the garden-bed, and sate
there awhile, with his blank eyes, his long, impassive, horse-like
face, twiddling his whisks and sawing out a whizzing note with his dry
arm. It would please me to observe his dry manners, his unsympathetic
and monotonous cries; but neither visitor nor grasshopper would seem
within the reach of any human emotion, except a mild curiosity, and
even amusement. Indeed, the only difference is that if I had clapped my
hands the grasshopper would have gone off like a skipjack, and after a
sky-high leap would have landed struggling among the laurels; while the
more I clapped my hands at my visitor, the longer he would have been
delighted to stay.
My other visitor, who came a day or two later, was a very different
type of man. He was a young, vigorous, healthy creature, who had lately
gone as a master to a big public school. He came at my invitation,
being the son of an old friend of mine. He, too, spent a day with me,
and left on my mind a very different impression, namely, that I should
grow to respect and like him the more that I saw of him. There was
nothing insincere or lacking in genuineness about him. I felt his
solidity, his loyalty, his uprightness very strongly. But he exhibited
on first acquaintance--due no doubt to a sturdy British shyness--all
the qualities that make us so detested upon the Continent, and that
lead the more expansive foreigner, who only sees the superficial aspect
of the Englishman, to think of us as a brutal nation.
Pages:
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237