“Yes, Indeed; gentle even to humility—”
“Humility? Mr. Hastings and humility!”
“Indeed it is true; he is perfectly diffident in the whole of his manner, when engaged in conversation; and so much struck was I, at that very time, by seeing him so simple, so unassuming, when just returned from a government that had accustomed him to a power superior to our monarchs here, that it produced an effect upon my mind in his favour which nothing can erase!”
“Yes, Yes!” cried he, with great energy, “you will give it up! you must lose it, must give it up! it will be plucked away, rooted wholly out of your mind.”
“Indeed, sir,” cried I, steadily, “I believe not!”
“You believe not?” repeated he, with added animation; “then there will be the more glory in making you a convert!”
If “conversion” is the word, thought I, I would rather make than be made.
“But—Mr. Windham,” cried I, “all my amazement now is at your condescension in speaking to me upon this business at all, when I have confessed to you my total ignorance of the subject, and my original prepossession in favour of the object. Why do you not ask me when I was at the play? and how I liked the last opera?”
He laughed; and we talked on a little while in that strain, till again, suddenly fixing his eyes on poor Mr. Hastings, his gaiety once more vanished, and he gravely and severely examined his countenance. “‘Tis surely,” cried he, “an unpleasant one. He does not know, I suppose, ’tis reckoned like his own!”
“How should he,” cried I, “look otherwise than unpleasant here?”