onvinced.--He untwisted the paper, and
signed the article.

Chapter 2.XXVI.

--What an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small
estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather.

My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the
mark, than there is upon the back of my hand.

--Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather
twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and
fifty pounds half-yearly--(on Michaelmas and Lady-day,)--during all that
time.

No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my
father.--And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the
table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome,
which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to fling down
money: but as soon as ever he enter'd upon the odd fifty--he generally
gave a loud Hem! rubb'd the side of his nose leisurely with the flat
part of his fore finger--inserted his hand cautiously betwixt his head
and the cawl of his wig--look'd at both sides of every guinea as he
parted with it--and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds,
without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.

Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no
allowances for these workings within us.--Never--O never may I lay down
in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the
force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from
ancestors!

For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had
gradually been taking root in our family.--Tradition was all along on
its side, and Interest was every half-year stepping in to strengthen it;
so that the whimsicality of my father's brain was far from having
the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange
notions.--For in a great measure he might be said to have suck'd this in
with his mother's milk. He did his part however.--If education planted
the mistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it to
perfection.

He would often declare, in speaking his thoughts upon the subject, that
he did not conceive how the greatest family in England could stand
it out against an uninterrupted succession of six or seven short
noses.--And for the contrary reason, he would generally add, That it
must be one of the greatest problems in civil life, where the same