I wish, Reader, that I could make you see his face; but at best I
have little faith in pen portraits. It is comparatively easy to write a
graphic description of _a_ face; but when it has been read, has the
reader realised _the_ face? I doubt it, and am inclined to believe that
three different readers will carry away three different impressions even
from a really brilliant portrait. Laborious realism may, at least, I
think, be admitted as hopeless. The only chance is in a Meredithian
lightning-flash, and those fly but from one or two bows. I wonder if an
image will help at all here. Think on a pebbly stream, on a brisk,
bright morning; dwell on the soft, shining lines of its flowing; and
then recall the tonic influence, the sensation of grip, which the
pebbles give it. Dip your hand into it again in fancy; realise how
chaste it is, and then again think how bright and good it is. And if you
realise these impressions as they come to me, you will have gained some
idea of George Muncaster's face--the essential spirit of it, I mean,
ever so much more important than the mere features. Such, at least,
seemed the meaning of his face even in the first moment of our
intercourse that September dusk, and so it has never ceased to come upon
us even until now.
And what a night that was! what a talk! How soon did we find each other
out! Long before the maid knocked at the door, and hinted by the
delicate insinuation of a supposed ring that there was 'a budding
morrow' in the air.
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