The Mill on the Floss — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Mill on the Floss
John Stuart Mill · en
Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip’s face, for he could see
it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeable
face,—very old-looking, Tom thought. He wondered how much older Philip
was than himself. An anatomist—even a mere physiognomist—would have
seen that the deformity of Philip’s spine was not a congenital hump,
but the result of an accident in infancy; but you do not expect from
Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions; to him, Philip was simply
a humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem’s son had
some relation to the lawyer’s rascality, of which he had so often heard
his father talk with hot emphasis; and he felt, too, a half-admitted
fear of him as probably a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight
you, had cunning ways of doing you a mischief by the sly. There was a
humpbacked tailor in the neighbourhood of Mr Jacobs’s academy, who was
considered a very unamiable character, and was much hooted after by
public-spirited boys solely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral
qualities; so that Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon.
Still, no face could be more unlike that ugly tailor’s than this
melancholy boy’s face,—the brown hair round it waved and curled at the
ends like a girl’s: Tom thought that truly pitiable. This Wakem was a
pale, puny fellow, and it was quite clear he would not be able to play
at anything worth speaking of; but he handled his pencil in an enviable
manner, and was apparently making one thing after another without any
trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted
something new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeable to
have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand looking out
of the study window at the rain, and kicking his foot against the
washboard in solitude; something would happen every day,—“a quarrel or
something”; and Tom thought he should rather like to show Philip that
he had better not try his spiteful tricks on _him_. He suddenly walked
across the hearth and looked over Philip’s paper.
“Why, that’s a donkey with panniers, and a spaniel, and partridges in
the corn!” he exclaimed, his tongue being completely loosed by surprise
and admiration. “Oh my buttons! I wish I could draw like that. I’m to
learn drawing this half; I wonder if I shall learn to make dogs and
donkeys!”
“Oh, you can do them without learning,” said Philip; “I never learned
drawing.”
“Never learned?” said Tom, in amazement. “Why, when I make dogs and
horses, and those things, the heads and the legs won’t come right;
though I can see how they ought to be very well. I can make houses, and
all sorts of chimneys,—chimneys going all down the wall,—and windows in
the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs and horses if I
was to try more,” he added, reflecting that Philip might falsely
suppose that he was going to “knock under,” if he were too frank about
the imperfection of his accomplishments.