to modern times. Things began to assume a more
familiar aspect. Spinoza, Fichte, Saint Simon,--one heard about them
now. If you could but have heard the schoolmaster deal with these his
enemies! With what tender charity for the man, what relentless vengeance
for the belief, he pounced on them, dragging the soul out of their
systems, holding it up for slow slaughter! As for Humanity, (how Knowles
lingered on that word, with a tenderness curious in so uncouth a mass of
flesh!)--as for Humanity, it was a study to see it stripped and flouted
and thrown out of doors like a filthy rag by this poor old Howth, a man
too child-hearted to kill a spider. It was pleasanter to hear him when
he defended the great Past in which his ideal truth had been faintly
shadowed. How he caught the salient tints of the feudal life! How the
fine womanly nature of the man rose exulting in the free picturesque
glow of the day of crusader and heroic deed! How he crowded in traits of
perfected manhood in the conqueror, simple trust in the serf, to color
and weaken his argument, not seeing that he weakened it! How, when he
thought he had cornered the Doctor, he would color and laugh like a boy,
then suddenly check himself, lest he might wound him! A curious laugh,
genial, cheery,--bubbling out of his weak voice in a way that put you in
mind of some old and rare wine. When he would check himself in one of
these triumphant glows, he would turn to the Doctor with a deprecatory
gravity, and for a few moments be almost submissive in his reply. So
earnest and worn it looked then, the poor old face, in the dim light!
The black clothes he wore were so threadbare and shining at the knees
and elbows, the coarse leather shoes brought to so fine a polish! The
Doctor idly wondered who had blacked them, glancing at Margaret's
fingers.

There was a flower stuck in the buttonhole of the schoolmaster's coat, a
pale tea-rose. If Dr. Knowles had been a man of fine instincts, (which
his opaque shining eyes would seem to deny,) he might have thought it
was not unapt or ill-placed even in the shabby, scuffed coat. A scholar,
a gentleman, though in patched shoes and trousers a world too short. Old
and gaunt, hunger-bitten even it may be, with loose-jointed, bony limbs,
and yellow face; clinging, loyal and brave, to the knightly honor, to
the quaint, delicate fancies of his youth, that were dust and ashes to
other men. In the very haggard face you could find the quiet purity