- end_line
- 1764
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1702
- text
- CHAPTER VII.
A GENTLEMAN WITH GOLD SLEEVE-BUTTONS.
At an interesting point of the narration, and at the moment when, with
much curiosity, indeed, urgency, the narrator was being particularly
questioned upon that point, he was, as it happened, altogether diverted
both from it and his story, by just then catching sight of a gentleman
who had been standing in sight from the beginning, but, until now, as it
seemed, without being observed by him.
"Pardon me," said he, rising, "but yonder is one who I know will
contribute, and largely. Don't take it amiss if I quit you."
"Go: duty before all things," was the conscientious reply.
The stranger was a man of more than winsome aspect. There he stood apart
and in repose, and yet, by his mere look, lured the man in gray from his
story, much as, by its graciousness of bearing, some full-leaved elm,
alone in a meadow, lures the noon sickleman to throw down his sheaves,
and come and apply for the alms of its shade.
But, considering that goodness is no such rare thing among men--the
world familiarly know the noun; a common one in every language--it was
curious that what so signalized the stranger, and made him look like a
kind of foreigner, among the crowd (as to some it make him appear more
or less unreal in this portraiture), was but the expression of so
prevalent a quality. Such goodness seemed his, allied with such fortune,
that, so far as his own personal experience could have gone, scarcely
could he have known ill, physical or moral; and as for knowing or
suspecting the latter in any serious degree (supposing such degree of it
to be), by observation or philosophy; for that, probably, his nature, by
its opposition, imperfectly qualified, or from it wholly exempted. For
the rest, he might have been five and fifty, perhaps sixty, but tall,
rosy, between plump and portly, with a primy, palmy air, and for the
time and place, not to hint of his years, dressed with a strangely
festive finish and elegance. The inner-side of his coat-skirts was of
white satin, which might have looked especially inappropriate, had it
not seemed less a bit of mere tailoring than something of an emblem, as
it were; an involuntary emblem, let us say, that what seemed so good
about him was not all outside; no, the fine covering had a still finer
lining. Upon one hand he wore a white kid glove, but the other hand,
which was ungloved, looked hardly less white. Now, as the Fidèle, like
most steamboats, was upon deck a little soot-streaked here and there,
especially about the railings, it was marvel how, under such
circumstances, these hands retained their spotlessness. But, if you
watched them a while, you noticed that they avoided touching anything;
you noticed, in short, that a certain negro body-servant, whose hands
nature had dyed black, perhaps with the same purpose that millers wear
white, this negro servant's hands did most of his master's handling for
him; having to do with dirt on his account, but not to his prejudices.
But if, with the same undefiledness of consequences to himself, a
gentleman could also sin by deputy, how shocking would that be! But it
is not permitted to be; and even if it were, no judicious moralist would
make proclamation of it.
This gentleman, therefore, there is reason to affirm, was one who, like
the Hebrew governor, knew how to keep his hands clean, and who never in
his life happened to be run suddenly against by hurrying house-painter,
or sweep; in a word, one whose very good luck it was to be a very good
man.
- title
- Chunk 1