do whose every-day fare is
extremely frugal: he ate and drank too much. The lively but well-bred
and circumspect Soeren declined into a sort of butt, who made rambling
speeches, and around whom the young whelps of the party would gather
after dinner to make sport for themselves. But what impressed his
friends most painfully of all, was his utter neglect of his personal
appearance.

For he had once been extremely particular in his dress; in his student
days he had been called "the exquisite Soeren." And even after his
marriage he had for some time contrived to wear his modest attire with
a certain air. But after bitter necessity had forced him to keep every
garment in use an unnaturally long time, his vanity had at last given
way. And when once a man's sense of personal neatness is impaired, he is
apt to lose it utterly. When a new coat became absolutely necessary, it
was his wife that had to awaken him to the fact; and when his collars
became quite too ragged at the edges, he trimmed them with a pair of
scissors.

He had other things to think about, poor fellow. But when people came
into the office, or when he was entering another person's house, he had
a purely mechanical habit of moistening his fingers at his lips,
and rubbing the lapels of his coat. This was the sole relic of "the
exquisite Soeren's" exquisiteness--like one of the rudimentary organs,
dwindled through lack of use, which zoologists find in certain
animals.--

Soeren's worst enemy, however, dwelt within him. In his youth he had
dabbled in philosophy, and this baneful passion for thinking would now
attack him from time to time, crushing all resistance, and, in the end,
turning everything topsy-turvy.

It was when he thought about his children that this befell him.

When he regarded these little creatures, who, as he could not conceal
from himself, became more and more neglected as time went on, he found
it impossible to place them under the category of golden-locked angels
had sent him by heaven. He had to admit that heaven does not send us
these gifts without a certain inducement on our side; and then Soeren
asked himself: "Had you any right to do this?" He thought of his own
life, which had begun under fortunate conditions. His family had been in
easy circumstances; his father, a government official, had given him the
best education to be had in the country; he had gone forth to the battle
of life fully equipped--and what had come of it all?

A