CONCERNING A PERSON OF MY ACQUAINTANCE
His body is so constituted that even a bad draughtsman would sketch it better in the dark, and were he able to alter his model he would lend certain parts of it less relief. With his health, though none of the best, the man has always been fairly satisfied; and he has in a high degree the gift of making the most of his best days. His faculty of imagination, his most faithful companion, never leaves him on these occasions. He takes up his post at the window, his head propped between his hands ; and if the passer-by sees nothing but the moping misanthropist about him, to himself he often silently owns to another lapse into pleasure. Of friends he has but few ; as a matter of fact his heart is open to only one on the spot, but to several at a distance. His geniality leads many people to believe him their friend, and he is ready to serve them as well, yet from ambition or philanthropy rather than the impulse that compels him to serve his real friends. He was once or twice in love ; the first time not unhappily, but the second happily.[1] Out of mere lightness and brightness of heart he became good-natured, though in being so he often forgets both these qualities. Still, he will always hold them in honour as qualities of his soul which have procured him the most enjoyable hours of his life ; and were it in his power to choose another life and another soul, I am not sure, if he could have his own over again, whether he would take anybody else’s. On the subject of religion he has had very free opinions ever since he was a boy, but has never plumed himself upon being a free-thinker, any more than he would upon believing everything without exception. It is not beyond him to pray with fervour, and he has never been able to read the 90th Psalm without an
- ↑ Translator’s Note. —Thereby hangs a tale. The Professor of Physics became interested in a poor market-girl, took her without more ado under his protection, and, to make use of an adaptation of his own, lived with her for many years "in the state of unholy matrimony." Being advised, for the sake of his sons, to go through the proper ceremony, he did so shortly before his death. This odd union, reminding one in many ways of Goethe’s mésalliance, proved very happy.
