The Professor at the Breakfast-TableHolmes, Oliver Wendell
General
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
American fiction -- 19th century; Conversation -- Fiction; Poetry
I told you that I was perfectly sure, beforehand, we should find some
pleasing girlish or womanly shape to fill the blank at our table and
match the dark-haired youth at the upper corner.
There she sits, at the very opposite corner, just as far off as accident
could put her from this handsome fellow, by whose side she ought, of
course, to be sitting. One of the “positive” blondes, as my friend,
you may remember, used to call them. Tawny-haired, amber-eyed,
full-throated, skin as white as a blanched almond. Looks dreamy to me,
not self-conscious, though a black ribbon round her neck sets it off
as a Marie-Antoinette's diamond-necklace could not do. So in her dress,
there is a harmony of tints that looks as if an artist had run his eye
over her and given a hint or two like the finishing touch to a picture.
I can't help being struck with her, for she is at once rounded and fine
in feature, looks calm, as blondes are apt to, and as if she might run
wild, if she were trifled with. It is just as I knew it would be,--and
anybody can see that our young Marylander will be dead in love with her
in a week.
Then if that little man would only turn out immensely rich and have the
good-nature to die and leave them all his money, it would be as nice as
a three-volume novel.
The Little Gentleman is in a flurry, I suspect, with the excitement
of having such a charming neighbor next him. I judge so mainly by his
silence and by a certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if he
were thinking of something that had happened, or that might happen, or
that ought to happen,--or how beautiful her young life looked, or how
hardly Nature had dealt with him, or something which struck him silent,
at any rate. I made several conversational openings for him, but he did
not fire up as he often does. I even went so far as to indulge in, a
fling at the State House, which, as we all know, is in truth a very
imposing structure, covering less ground than St. Peter's, but of
similar general effect. The little man looked up, but did not reply to
my taunt. He said to the young lady, however, that the State House was
the Parthenon of our Acropolis, which seemed to please her, for she
smiled, and he reddened a little,--so I thought. I don't think it right
to watch persons who are the subjects of special infirmity,--but we all
do it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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