That picture of him, standing there on my
deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he
would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to
me, again to be renewed and confirmed.
And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man
who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so.
Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand,
there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current,
or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel.
I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a
pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize
with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one
in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply
regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine
a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and
coolness, the _nil-admirari_ and _nil-agitari_ atmosphere which
surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that
it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed
by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and
unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the
time.
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