I have known men cease
swearing when he drew near, drop ribaldry, and take up some more innocent
topic, simply through an unconscious impulse of fitness,--feeling that such
things had no business to be repeated in his presence. And they were right;
for a purer spirit than Clarian's I have never encountered in man or woman.
His face most reminded one of the portraits of Raphael at twenty. He had
the same broad, smooth forehead,--the same soft skin, delicate, yet rich as
the inner leaves of a pale rose,--the same finely shaped nose, and ripe,
womanly mouth, which a Persian, in default of a more tangible analogy,
would have likened to the seal of Solomon. But his lower face was somewhat
less full than Raphael's, the chin being shorter and sharper, and the jaw
curving less sensuously. His hair was of the purest chestnut hue, rich and
silken, showing here and there a thread of gold; he wore it long, and
flowing in half-ringlets upon his neck and shoulders. Clarian's eye was
large and dark, tender, rather sad, with now and then a speculative depth,
now and then a hint of the Romeo fore-doom, now and then a warm eloquence,
when meeting yours, that reminded strangely of a woman loving and in
love. Other womanly traits he had, such as the ingenuous blush with which
he asked or did a favor, and a certain not very boyish fondness for
softness and elegance of dress. Not that Clarian was effeminate, or in any
material respect deficient in manly character; but his mother was a widow,
and he her only son, and consequently he had been brought up like a girl,
at home, without any slightest opportunity to acquire those
rough-and-tumble experiences of ordinary boyhood which are so necessary to
fit us for battling in the world; for the world, though not unfeeling at
core, wears yet a sufficiently rough rind, and pretends but little sympathy
with persons of Clarian's stamp.
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