Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the HeartJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
General
Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the Heart
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Fiction
That he was a man of station and high breeding one would scarcely
doubt; and in his dress there was that scrupulous neatness which is
one of the distinguishing marks of a gentleman in youth. In older
life, a man may well lose a part of that attention to his apparel
which no young man should be without; but before the grand passage of
forty-five, no one should deem himself old enough to go out in a bad
hat if he can get a good one, or wear ill-blacked boots. The neatness
of his dress did not at all approach to puppyism, but every article of
his clothing was so well adapted to the other, that the whole
harmonized perfectly, and gave that peculiar and undefinable tone to
his appearance which has a vague sort of connexion with the mind
within, a reflection perhaps we might call it, of the habitual
thoughts and feelings influencing the dress without the wearer knowing
it. Man is but a species of chameleon, in general taking all his tints
from the things that surround him; but when these fail--like the stalk
of the balsam plant--his external colouring is affected by that which
passes within; and a man's fondness for particular hues, or sounds, or
scents, is often no bad indication of the character of his mind.
Morley Ernstein felt not a little impressed in favour of the stranger.
He was, indeed, not without strong good sense himself, but still there
was a charm that he could not resist; and never dreaming that he was
doing aught but passing agreeably an hour which might otherwise have
proved tedious, he soon renewed the conversation, but on a different
subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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