formation and profound thought.

Spotted Tiger was a splendid specimen, physically and mentally, of the
sons of the soil, in the contemplation of whom he could expend whatever
smattering he possessed of ethnological science. Then Quashy--was not
that negro the very soul and embodiment of courage, fidelity, and
good-humour, the changes of whose April face alone might have furnished
rich material for the study of a physiognomist or a Rembrandt.

And as for Manuela--we cannot analyse his thoughts about her. It is
probable that he could not have expounded them himself. Take the
following sample of them, as overheard by us one day when he had strayed
into the wild woods alone, and was seated on the roots of a mighty tree,
pencil in hand, attempting unsuccessfully to make a sketch.

"I do believe," he murmured, with a gesture of impatience--for he had
drawn a small convolvulus, hanging from a tree, with such disregard for
the rules of linear perspective that it was the proportionate size of an
omnibus--"I do believe that that girl has come between me and my wits.
Of course it is not love. That is quite out of the question. A white
man _could_ not fall in love with a black woman."

Yes, he did the poor girl the injustice, in his perplexed indignation
with himself, to call her black, although it must have been obvious to
the most careless observer that she was only reddish-brown, or, to speak
more correctly, brownish-red.

"I can't understand it," he continued to murmur in that low, slow,
absent far-away tone and manner characteristic of artists when at work.
"No doubt her nose is Grecian, and her mouth small, as well as
exquisitely formed, her chin full and rounded, her teeth faultless, her
eyes gorgeous, and her whole contour perfect, but--but--she's black--at
least," (correcting himself with a touch of compunction), "she's brown.
No; I see what it is--it's--(well that's more like a balloon than a
water-lily)--yes, it _must_ be that I am in love with her spirit.
That's it! I've said so before, and--and--I say it again."

He drew back his head at this point, and looked critically--even
sternly--at the sketch. There was room both for criticism and
indignation, for the display, in so small a compass, of bad drawing,
vile composition, ridiculous chiaro-oscuro, and impossible perspective,
could only have been justified by the supposition that his intellect had
been warped through the heart, in consequence of an unheard