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Malbone: An Oldport Romance | Thomas Wentworth Higginson | |
VIII. Talking It Over |
Page 6 of 6 |
"Then why stand aside?" persisted the downright Harry. "I have no place in it but a lounging-place," said Malbone. "I do not wish to chop blocks with a razor. I envy those men, born mere Americans, with no ambition in life but to 'swing a railroad' as they say at the West. Every morning I hope to wake up like them in the fear of God and the love of money." "You may as well stop," said Harry, coloring a little. "Malbone, you used to be my ideal man in my boyhood, but"-- "I am glad we have got beyond that," interrupted the other, cheerily, "I am only an idler in the land. Meanwhile, I have my little interests,--read, write, sketch--" "Flirt?" put in Hal, with growing displeasure. "Not now," said Phil, patting his shoulder, with imperturbable good-nature. "Our beloved has cured me of that. He who has won the pearl dives no more." "Do not let us speak of Hope," said Harry. "Everything that you have been asserting Hope's daily life disproves." "That may be," answered Malbone, heartily. "But, Hal, I never flirted; I always despised it. It was always a grande passion with me, or what I took for such. I loved to be loved, I suppose; and there was always something new and fascinating to be explored in a human heart, that is, a woman's." "Some new temple to profane?" asked Hal severely. "Never!" said Philip. "I never profaned it. If I deceived, I shared the deception, at least for a time; and, as for sensuality, I had none in me." "Did you have nothing worse? Rousseau ends where Tom Jones begins." "My temperament saved me," said Philip. "A woman is not a woman to me, without personal refinement." "Just what Rousseau said," replied Harry. |
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Malbone: An Oldport Romance Thomas Wentworth Higginson |
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