"Yes; don't you, sir? You had so much sense about the beasts I
thought you must be a man that said his prayers."
Lenorme was silent. He was not altogether innocent of saying prayers;
but of late years it had grown a more formal and gradually a rarer
thing. One reason of this was that it had never come into his
head that God cared about pictures, or had the slightest interest
whether he painted well or ill. If a man's earnest calling, to
which of necessity the greater part of his thought is given, is
altogether dissociated in his mind from his religion, it is not
wonderful that his prayers should by degrees wither and die. The
question is whether they ever had much vitality. But one mighty
negative was yet true of Lenorme: he had not got in his head, still
less had he ever cherished in his heart, the thought that there was
anything fine in disbelieving in a God, or anything contemptible
in imagining communication with a being of grander essence than
himself. That in which Socrates rejoiced with exultant humility,
many a youth nowadays thinks himself a fine fellow for casting from
him with ignorant scorn.
A true conception of the conversation above recorded can hardly be
had except my reader will take the trouble to imagine the contrast
between the Scotch accent and inflection, the largeness and
prolongation of vowel sounds, and, above all, the Scotch tone of
Malcolm, and the pure, clear articulation, and decided utterance
of the perfect London speech of Lenorme.
Pages:
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170