garet Harold was to him
insufferable; he could endure easily a narrow mind, if with it there
was a warm heart and unselfish disposition, but a narrow mind combined
with a cold, unmoved nature and impregnable self-conceit--this seemed to
him a combination that made a woman (it was always a woman) simply
odious.

These things all passed through his thoughts again as he rode over the
barrens. He recalled Lanse's handsome face as he used to see it in
childhood. Lanse was five years older than the little Evert, tall,
strong, full of life, a hero to the lad from New England, who was brave
enough in his way but who had not been encouraged in boldness, nor
praised when he had been lawless and daring. Mrs. Rutherford had a
phrase about Lanse--that he was "just like all the Harolds." The
Harolds, in truth, were a handsome race; they all resembled each other,
though some of them were not so handsome as the rest. A good many of
them had married their cousins. They were tall and broad-shouldered,
well made, but inclined to portliness towards middle-age; they had good
features, the kind of very well-cut outline, with short upper lip and
full lower one, whose fault, if it has a fault, is a tendency to
blankness of expression after youth is past. Their hair was very dark,
almost black, and they had thick brown beards of rather a lighter
hue--beards which they kept short; their eyes were beautiful, dark brown
in hue, animated, with yellow lights in them; their complexions had a
rich darkness, with strong ivory tints beneath. They had an appearance
of looking over the heads of everybody else, which, among many
noticeable things about them, was the most noticeable--it was so
entirely natural. Because it was so natural nobody had tried to analyze
it, to find out of what it consisted. The Harolds were tall; but it was
not their height. They were broad-shouldered; but there were men of the
same mould everywhere. It was not that they expanded their chests and
threw their heads back, so that their eyes, when cast down, rested upon
a projecting expanse of shirt front, with the watch-chain far in
advance; the Harolds had no such airs of inflated frog. They stood
straight on their feet, but nothing more; their well-moulded chins were
rather drawn in than thrust out; they never posed; there was never any
trace of attitude. Yet, in any large assemblage, if there were any of
them present, they were sure to have this appearance of looking over
other