“Is that your favorite? Well, it’s a good specimen of his best manner; individual, you know, and American. Now, there’s his Clytie; she’s no more Greek than I am; as why should she be? Who his model was, I’m sure I don’t know; but Clytie herself is simply a beautiful American girl.”
“You remember Pinkie’s exclamation when she first saw his Endymion,” said the doctor, smiling; “‘Oh! how I should like to kiss him!’”
“Ah! exactly! ‘like Dian’s kiss!’ There’s a softness, a tenderness about his manner that’s very attractive, and intensely American.”
“Do you consider tenderness a prominent feature of the American character?”
“Why, we don’t get the credit of it, because we cover it up with flippancy; but yes, we are tender-hearted to a fault.”
“Father,” said Freddy, “oh! I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Uncle Henry, but Louis has been telling me something so very interesting. Only imagine! a clergyman giving up his pulpit, and a salary of five thousand a year, because he preached Socialism. And so he has come to Prices, and means to turn carpenter there.”
“He must be a fool,” said Mr. Randolph.
“Appearances are against him; he is a clergyman,” observed Dr. Richards.
“Nonsense, Uncle Fred; that’s your agnosticism,” put in Pinkie decidedly. “Who is he, Louis? and isn’t he rather old to learn carpentering?”
“He is a carpenter,” said Louis. “You always see the practical side of a subject, Miss Rose; he worked at his trade, he says, while he was studying.”