She died young - barely three-and-twenty; and even her
remaining sister is far from strong. The world is a grave!'
He said this with deep feeling, and I felt reproached for the
coldness of my manner. Coldness and distrust had been engendered
in me, I knew, by my bad experiences; they were not natural to me;
and I often thought how much I had lost in life, losing
trustfulness, and how little I had gained, gaining hard caution.
This state of mind being habitual to me, I troubled myself more
about this conversation than I might have troubled myself about a
greater matter. I listened to his talk at dinner, and observed how
readily other men responded to it, and with what a graceful
instinct he adapted his subjects to the knowledge and habits of
those he talked with. As, in talking with me, he had easily
started the subject I might be supposed to understand best, and to
be the most interested in, so, in talking with others, he guided
himself by the same rule. The company was of a varied character;
but he was not at fault, that I could discover, with any member of
it. He knew just as much of each man's pursuit as made him
agreeable to that man in reference to it, and just as little as
made it natural in him to seek modestly for information when the
theme was broached.
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