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His countenance was handsome, and would have been rather gay than thoughtful in its expression, but for that vague and abstracted dreaminess of eye which so usually denotes a propensity to revery and contemplation, and betrays that the past or the future is more congenial to the mind than the enjoyment and action of the present hour.
He made no secret of his preference for the homelier virtues of the elder sister, whose irrepressible propensity for picturesque, up-to-date slang and free-and-easy style put them on a more equal social footing. So began an acquaintance which resulted in the young man becoming a frequent and intimate visitor at the Blaine home. Mr.
Sometimes, however, the ancient ferocity, the propensity for devastation, still breaks forth, even in the diminutive descendants of this formidable race, and persecuted Man feels himself driven to the brink of despair. Soon after I had settled at Perth, in a small house, with three quarters of an acre of ground about it, I began to think of improving my little territory.
This propensity of minor or subject peoples to imitate those dominant or more famous, is the greatest prize that rewards the pre-eminent for the fatigue necessary to conquer that place of honour; it is the reason why cultured and civilised nations ought naturally to seek to preserve a certain political, economic, and military supremacy, without which their intellectual superiority would weaken or at least lose a part of its value.
When Jeanie mentioned the old woman having alluded to her foster-son "It is too true," he said; "and the source from which I derived food, when an infant, must have communicated to me the wretched the fated propensity to vices that were strangers in my own family. But go on."
Proceeding from this to public topics, and the certainty of a new convulsion in Europe, he said, that it might prove in the future highly dangerous to the moneyed interests, if the world be persuaded that the holders of great disposable wealth use it to aid despotism, and that the possession of it checks the generous propensity to forward the triumph of freedom.
From early life the bent of his mind was toward politics; a propensity which the state of the times, if it did not create, doubtless very much strengthened.
His gait was shuffling and shambling; he wore knee-breeches and grey homespun stockings, and his shoes, which were ornamented with silver buckles, were far too large for him, and of course, even had he not had the propensity to do so, would have made him shuffle his feet over the ground, his eyes were unusually large, grey, and staring; and his hair, which was already so grey that its original colour could scarcely be perceived, was cut short, and stood up on end, all over his head like the quills of the porcupine; his forehead was somewhat narrow, but his features were neither plain nor coarse; there was, however, a startled, frightened look about them, and an otherwise painful and indescribable expression, which told too plainly that the ruling power of the intellect had been overthrown, and that the living machine could no longer be altogether held responsible for its acts.
He might rise in time to be cashier, manager, even partner; who knew? Who knew indeed? And Clerk Gum congratulated himself, and was more respectable than ever. Better that Willy Gum had remained at Calne! And yet, and again who knew? When the propensity for ill-doing exists it is sure to come out, no matter where.
I do not remember the same thing happening to me again, and this is one instance among a thousand, of the impression every circumstance makes on entering a new country, and of the propensity, so irresistible, to class all things, however accidental, as national and peculiar.
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