The dean’s reception of him did honour to his sensibility and his gratitude to his brother. After the first affectionate gaze, he ran to him, took him in his arms, sat down, drew him to him, held him between his knees, and repeatedly exclaimed, “I will repay to you all I owe to your father.”
The boy, in return, hugged the dean round the neck, kissed him, and exclaimed,
“Oh! you are my father—you have just such eyes, and such a forehead—indeed you would be almost the same as he, if it were not for that great white thing which grows upon your head!”
Let the reader understand, that the dean, fondly attached to every ornament of his dignified function, was never seen (unless caught in bed) without an enormous wig. With this young Henry was enormously struck; having never seen so unbecoming a decoration, either in the savage island from whence he came, or on board the vessel in which he sailed.
“Do you imagine,” cried his uncle, laying his hand gently on the reverend habiliment, “that this grows?”
“What is on my head grows,” said young Henry, “and so does that which is upon my father’s.”
“But now you are come to Europe, Henry, you will see many persons with such things as these, which they put on and take off.”
“Why do you wear such things?”
“As a distinction between us and inferior people: they are worn to give an importance to the wearer.”
“That’s just as the savages do; they hang brass nails, wire, buttons, and entrails of beasts all over them, to give them importance.”