him with passages
out of the Bible, which was all my library--and very fresh to me, my
religious duties (I grieve to say it) being always and even to this day
extremely neglected. He tasted the merits of the work like the
connoisseur he was; and would sometimes take it from my hand, turn the
leaves over like a man that knew his way, and give me, with his fine
declamation, a Roland for my Oliver. But it was singular how little he
applied his reading to himself; it passed high above his head like
summer thunder; Lovelace and Clarissa, the tales of David's generosity,
the psalms of his penitence, the solemn questions of the Book of Job,
the touching poetry of Isaiah--they were to him a source of
entertainment only, like the scraping of a fiddle in a change-house.
This outer sensibility and inner toughness set me against him; it seemed
of a piece with that impudent grossness which I knew to underlie the
veneer of his fine manners; and sometimes my gorge rose against him as
though he were deformed--and sometimes I would draw away as though from
something partly spectral. I had moments when I thought of him as of a
man of pasteboard--as though, if one should strike smartly through the
buckram of his countenance, there would be found a mere vacuity within.
This horror (not merely fanciful, I think) vastly increased my
detestation of his neighbourhood; I began to feel something shiver
within me on his drawing near; I had at times a longing to cry out;
there were days when I thought I could have struck him. This frame of
mind was doubtless helped by shame, because I had dropped during our
last days at Durrisdeer into a certain toleration of the man; and if any
one had then told me I should drop into it again, I must have laughed in
his face. It is possible he remained unconscious of this extreme fever
of my resentment; yet I think he was too quick; and rather that he had
fallen, in a long life of idleness, into a positive need of company,
which obliged him to confront and tolerate my unconcealed aversion.
Certain, at least, that he loved the note of his own tongue, as, indeed,
he entirely loved all the parts and properties of himself; a sort of
imbecility which almost necessarily attends on wickedness. I have seen
him driven, when I proved recalcitrant, to long discourses with the
skipper; and this, although the man plainly testified his weariness,
fiddling miserably with both hand and foot, and replying only with a
grunt.

Af