washine

Updated: July 29, 2025

You say to yourself, 'There's a man with no concealments, yet who speaks not till he's spoken to; knows when to stop, and stops. You note my pale eyebrows, my slightly prominent and pointed chin, somewhat over-sized mouth; small, well-spread ears, faintly aquiline nose; fine, thin, blonde hair, a depression in the skull where the bump of self-conceit ought to be, and you say, 'A man that knows his talents without being vain of them; who not only minds his own business, but loves it, and who in that business, be it buggy-whips or be it washine, or be it something far nobler, which, let me say modestly, it is, 'simply goes to the head of the class and stays there. Yes, sirs, if I say that reading the human countenance is one of my accomplishments, I am diffidently mindful that in this company, I, myself, am read, perused; no other probably so well read I mean so exhaustively perused.

George Washington Cable - Bonaventure: A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana