never have talked i' that way.—Go back to Antwerp, where you were born and bred, mauvaise tête!"
"Mauvaise tête vous-même; je ne fais que mon devoir; quant à vos lourdauds de paysans, je m'en
moque!"
"En ravanche, mon garçon, nos lourdauds de paysans se moqueront de toi; sois en certain," replied Yorke, speaking with nearly as pure a French accent as Gérard Moore.
"C'est bon! c'est bon! Et puisque cela m'est égal, que mes amis ne s'en inquiètent pas."
"Tes amis! Où sont-ils, tes amis?"
"Je fais écho, où sont-ils? et je suis fort aise que l'écho seul y répond. Au diable les amis! Je me souviens encore du moment où mon père et mes oncles Gérard appellèrent autour d'eux leurs amis, et
Dieu sait si les amis se sont empressés d'accourir à leur secours! Tenez, M. Yorke, ce mot, ami, m'irrite trop; ne m'en parlez plus."
"Comme tu voudras."
And here Mr. Yorke held his peace; and while he sits leaning back in his three-cornered carved oak
chair, I will snatch my opportunity to sketch the portrait of this French-speaking Yorkshire gentleman.
Chapter 4
MR. YORKE (continued).
A Yorkshire gentleman he was, par excellence , in every point; about fifty-five years old, but looking at first sight still older, for his hair was silver white. His forehead was broad, not high; his face fresh and hale; the harshness of the north was seen in his features, as it was heard in his voice; every trait was thoroughly English—not a Norman line anywhere; it was an inelegant, unclassic, unaristocratic
mould of visage. Fine people would perhaps have called it vulgar; sensible people would have termed
it characteristic; shrewd people would have delighted in it for the pith, sagacity, intelligence, the rude yet real originality marked in every lineament, latent in every furrow. But it was an indocile, a scornful, and a sarcastic face—the face of a man difficult to lead, and impossible to drive. His stature was rather tall, and he was well made and wiry, and had a stately integrity of port; there was not a suspicion of the clown about him anywhere.
I did not find it easy to sketch Mr. Yorke's person, but it is more difficult to indicate his mind. If you expect to be treated to a Perfection, reader, or even to a benevolent, philanthropic old gentleman in
him, you are mistaken. He has spoken with some sense and with some good feeling to Mr. Moore, but
you are not thence to conclude that he always spoke and thought justly and kindly.
Mr. Yorke, in the first place, was without the organ of veneration—a great want, and which throws
a man wrong on every point where veneration is required. Secondly, he was without the organ of comparison—a deficiency which strips a man of sympathy; and thirdly, he had too little of the organs
of benevolence and ideality, which took the glory and softness from his nature, and for him diminished those divine qualities throughout the universe.
The want of veneration made him intolerant to those above him—kings and nobles and priests, dynasties and parliaments and establishments, with all their doings, most of their enactments, their forms, their rights, their claims, were to him an abomination, all rubbish; he found no use or pleasure
in them, and believed it would be clear gain, and no damage to the world, if its high places were razed, and their occupants crushed in the fall. The want of veneration, too, made him dead at heart to
the electric delight of admiring what is admirable; it dried up a thousand pure sources of enjoyment;
it withered a thousand vivid pleasures. He was not irreligious, though a member of no sect; but his religion could not be that of one who knows how to venerate. He believed in God and heaven; but his
God and heaven were those of a man in whom awe, imagination, and tenderness lack.
The weakness of his powers of comparison made him inconsistent; while he professed some
excellent general doctrines of mutual toleration and forbearance, he cherished towards
"Mauvaise tête vous-même; je ne fais que mon devoir; quant à vos lourdauds de paysans, je m'en
moque!"
"En ravanche, mon garçon, nos lourdauds de paysans se moqueront de toi; sois en certain," replied Yorke, speaking with nearly as pure a French accent as Gérard Moore.
"C'est bon! c'est bon! Et puisque cela m'est égal, que mes amis ne s'en inquiètent pas."
"Tes amis! Où sont-ils, tes amis?"
"Je fais écho, où sont-ils? et je suis fort aise que l'écho seul y répond. Au diable les amis! Je me souviens encore du moment où mon père et mes oncles Gérard appellèrent autour d'eux leurs amis, et
Dieu sait si les amis se sont empressés d'accourir à leur secours! Tenez, M. Yorke, ce mot, ami, m'irrite trop; ne m'en parlez plus."
"Comme tu voudras."
And here Mr. Yorke held his peace; and while he sits leaning back in his three-cornered carved oak
chair, I will snatch my opportunity to sketch the portrait of this French-speaking Yorkshire gentleman.
Chapter 4
MR. YORKE (continued).
A Yorkshire gentleman he was, par excellence , in every point; about fifty-five years old, but looking at first sight still older, for his hair was silver white. His forehead was broad, not high; his face fresh and hale; the harshness of the north was seen in his features, as it was heard in his voice; every trait was thoroughly English—not a Norman line anywhere; it was an inelegant, unclassic, unaristocratic
mould of visage. Fine people would perhaps have called it vulgar; sensible people would have termed
it characteristic; shrewd people would have delighted in it for the pith, sagacity, intelligence, the rude yet real originality marked in every lineament, latent in every furrow. But it was an indocile, a scornful, and a sarcastic face—the face of a man difficult to lead, and impossible to drive. His stature was rather tall, and he was well made and wiry, and had a stately integrity of port; there was not a suspicion of the clown about him anywhere.
I did not find it easy to sketch Mr. Yorke's person, but it is more difficult to indicate his mind. If you expect to be treated to a Perfection, reader, or even to a benevolent, philanthropic old gentleman in
him, you are mistaken. He has spoken with some sense and with some good feeling to Mr. Moore, but
you are not thence to conclude that he always spoke and thought justly and kindly.
Mr. Yorke, in the first place, was without the organ of veneration—a great want, and which throws
a man wrong on every point where veneration is required. Secondly, he was without the organ of comparison—a deficiency which strips a man of sympathy; and thirdly, he had too little of the organs
of benevolence and ideality, which took the glory and softness from his nature, and for him diminished those divine qualities throughout the universe.
The want of veneration made him intolerant to those above him—kings and nobles and priests, dynasties and parliaments and establishments, with all their doings, most of their enactments, their forms, their rights, their claims, were to him an abomination, all rubbish; he found no use or pleasure
in them, and believed it would be clear gain, and no damage to the world, if its high places were razed, and their occupants crushed in the fall. The want of veneration, too, made him dead at heart to
the electric delight of admiring what is admirable; it dried up a thousand pure sources of enjoyment;
it withered a thousand vivid pleasures. He was not irreligious, though a member of no sect; but his religion could not be that of one who knows how to venerate. He believed in God and heaven; but his
God and heaven were those of a man in whom awe, imagination, and tenderness lack.
The weakness of his powers of comparison made him inconsistent; while he professed some
excellent general doctrines of mutual toleration and forbearance, he cherished towards
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