La Vigne as well."

To which declaration on the part of his wife, that gentleman responded
by laying his hand on his breast, complacently, and bowing profoundly
from his chair, ending the ceremony by a flourish of his delicate
cambric handkerchief, and the exhibition at the same time of a slender,
sickly, and peculiarly-shaped hand, decorated with an onyx seal-ring. He
looked the gentleman, however, unmistakably plain and peculiar as his
appearance was, and pompous and pretentious as was his manner.

If words could do the work of the photographer, I should like to show
him to my readers, as he appeared to me on that first interview; though
later his whole aspect underwent a change in my sight, reflected from
the cavernous depths within, so that, what seemed somewhat ludicrous in
the beginning, came to be solemnly serious and even sophistically
tragical and awful on later acquaintance.

We have all more or less witnessed this phenomenon of transformation in
some familiar aspect, either through love or hatred, respect or
contempt, fear or admiration, until we find ourselves marveling at past
impressions, received, in ignorance of the truth, in the commencement of
our observations.

I remember that Mr. La Vigne struck me on that occasion as a superficial
man in every way, but kindly, courteous, and vivacious, though certainly
eccentric and somewhat absurd. One would have supposed him even a
flippant, whimsical person, seen casually; but, on later examination,
the droop of his eyelids and under lip, and the depressed corners of his
mouth, gave to the close observer a surer indication of his character.

The shape of his narrow, conical, and somewhat elegantly-placed head,
denoted an inclination to fanaticism, which had been skillfully combated
by a perfectly skeptical education, so as to turn this stream of
character into strange channels.

Hobbyism was his infirmity, perhaps, and he was essentially a man of one
idea at a time. The word "odd" applied to him peculiarly, which is in
itself a sort of social ostracism when attached to any one, and raises a
barrier at once between a man and his fellow-bipeds that not even
superiority could surmount.

He was emphatically a tawny man as to coloring--hair, skin, and eyes,
being all pretty much of the same hue of "the ribbed sea-sands." Yet
there were vestiges about him of an originally fair complexion. His
wrists and temples were white as those of a woman. His face was long,