Adela Cathcart, vol 1 | Page 2

why were they not men at worst,
when at best they ought to be more of men than other men?--And here
lay the difficulty: by no effort could I get the face before me to fit into
the clerical mould which I had all ready in my own mind for it. That
was, at all events, the face of a man, in spite of waistcoat and depilation.
I was not even surprised when, all at once, he sat upright in his seat,
and asked me if I would join him in a cigar. I gladly consented. And
here let me state a fact, which added then to my interest in my

fellow-passenger, and will serve now to excuse the enormity of
smoking in a railway carriage. We were going to the same place--we
must be; and nobody would enter that carriage to-night, but the man
who had to clean it. For, although we were shooting along at a terrible
rate, the train would not stop to set us down, but would cast us loose a
mile from our station; and some minutes after it had shot by like an
infernal comet of darkness, our carriage would trot gently up to the
platform, as if it had come from London all on its own hook--and
thought nothing of it.
We were a long way yet, however, from our destination. The night
grew darker and colder, and after the necessary unmuffling occasioned
by the cigar process, we drew our wraps closer about us, leaned back in
our corners, and smoked away in silence; the red glow of our cigars
serving to light the carriage nearly as well as the red nose of the
neglected and half-extinguished lamp. For we were in a second-class
carriage, a fact for which I leave the clergyman to apologize: it is
nothing to me, for I am nobody.
But, after all, I fear I am unjust to the Railway Company, for there was
light enough for me to see, and in some measure scrutinize, the face of
my fellow-passenger. I could discern a strong chin, and good, useful
jaws; with a firm-lipped mouth, and a nose more remarkable for
quantity than disposition of mass, being rather low, and very thick. It
was surmounted by two brilliant, kindly, black eyes. I lay in wait for
his forehead, as if I had been a hunter, and he some peculiar animal that
wanted killing right in the middle of it. But it was some time before I
was gratified with a sight of it. I did see it, however, and I was gratified.
For when he wanted to throw away the end of his cigar, finding his
window immovable (the frosty wind that bore the snow-flakes blowing
from that side), and seeing that I opened mine to accommodate him, he
moved across, and, in so doing, knocked his hat against the roof. As he
displaced, to replace it, I had my opportunity. It was a splendid
forehead for size every way, but chiefly for breadth. A kind of rugged
calm rested upon it--a suggestion of slumbering power, which it
delighted me to contemplate. I felt that that was the sort of man to
make a friend of, if one had the good luck to be able. But I did not yet

make any advance towards further acquaintance.
My reader may, however, be desirous of knowing what kind of person
is making so much use of the pronoun I. He may have the same
curiosity to know his fellow-traveller over the region of these pages,
that I had to see the forehead of the clergyman. I can at least prevent
any further inconvenience from this possible curiosity, by telling him
enough to destroy his interest in me.
I am an----; well, I suppose I am an old bachelor; not very far from fifty,
in fact; old enough, at all events, to be able to take pleasure in watching
without sharing; yet ready, notwithstanding, when occasion offers, to
take any necessary part in what may be going on, I am able, as it were,
to sit quietly alone, and look down upon life from a second-floor
window, delighting myself with my own speculations, and weaving the
various threads I gather, into webs of varying kind and quality. Yet, as I
have already said in another form, I am not the last to rush down stairs
and into the street, upon occasion of an accident or a row in it, or a
conflagration next door. I may just mention, too, that having many
years ago formed the Swedenborgian resolution of never growing old, I
am as yet able to flatter myself that I am likely to keep it.
In proof of this, if further garrulity about myself can be pardoned, I
may state that every