They are poorer than the gipsy, for their heart can speak
no language under heaven.
*
For my part, I can see few things more desirable, after the
possession of such radical qualities as honour and humour
and pathos, than to have a lively and not a stolid
countenance; to have looks to correspond with every
feeling; to be elegant arid delightful in person, so that
we shall please even in the intervals of active pleasing,
and may never discredit speech with uncouth manners or
become unconsciously our own burlesques. But of all
unfortunates there is one creature (for I will not call him
man) conspicuous in misfortune. This is he who has
forfeited his birthright of expression, who has cultivated
artful intonations, who has taught his face tricks, like a
pet monkey, and on every side perverted or cut off his
means of communication with his fellow-men. The body is a
house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves
and crying on the passersby to come and love us. But this
fellow has filled his windows with opaque glass, elegantly
coloured. His house may be admired for its design, the
crowd may pause before the stained windows, but meanwhile
the poor proprietor must lie languishing within,
uncomforted, unchangeably alone.
*
The lads go forth pricked with the spirit of adventure and
the desire to rise in Life, and leave their homespun elders
grumbling and wondering over the event.
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