India 2001 books

Still, though the horizon was overclouded, no storm for some time
ensued. Mine host had Christian faith with a lodger who had been a
good paymaster as long as he had the means. And from a portrait of our
landlord himself, grouped with his wife and daughters, in the style of
Rubens, which suddenly appeared in the best parlour, it was evident that
Dick had found some mode of bartering art for the necessaries of life.
Nothing, however, is more precarious than resources of this nature. It
was observed that Dick became in his turn the whetstone of mine host's
wit, without venturing either at defence or retaliation; that his easel
was transferred to a garret-room, in which there was scarce space for
it to stand upright; and that he no longer ventured to join the weekly
club, of which he had been once the life and soul. In short, Dick
Tinto's friends feared that he had acted like the animal called the
sloth, which, heaving eaten up the last green leaf upon the tree where
it has established itself, ends by tumbling down from the top, and
dying of inanition.


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