Christmas Eve.
It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve, sinking towards
the night. All day long the wintry light had
been diluted with fog, and now the vanguard of the
darkness coming to aid the mist, the dying day was
well nigh smothered between them. When I looked
through the window, it was into a vague and dim solidification
of space, a mysterious region in which awful things
might be going on, and out of which anything might
come; but out of which nothing came in the meantime,
except small sparkles of snow, or rather ice, which
as we swept rapidly onwards, and the darkness deepened,
struck faster and faster against the weather-windows.
For we, that is, myself and a fellow-passenger, of
whom I knew nothing yet but the waistcoat and neckcloth,
having caught a glimpse of them as he searched for
an obstinate railway-ticket, were in a railway-carriage,
darting along, at an all but frightful rate, northwards
from London.
Being, the sole occupants of the carriage, we had
made the most of it, like Englishmen, by taking seats
diagonally opposite to each other, laying our heads
in the corners, and trying to go to sleep. But
for me it was of no use to try any longer. Not
that I had anything particular on my mind or spirits;
but a man cannot always go to sleep at spare moments.
If anyone can, let him consider it a great gift, and
make good use of it accordingly; that is, by going
to sleep on every such opportunity.
As I, however, could not sleep, much as I should have
enjoyed it, I proceeded to occupy my very spare time
with building, up what I may call a conjectural mould,
into which the face, dress, carriage, &c., of my companion
would fit. I had already discovered that he was
a clergyman; but this added to my difficulties in
constructing the said mould. For, theoretically,
I had a great dislike to clergymen; having, hitherto,
always found that the clergy absorbed the man;
and that the cloth, as they called it even
themselves, would be no bad epithet for the individual,
as well as the class. For all clergymen whom
I had yet met, regarded mankind and their interests
solely from the clerical point of view, seeming far
more desirous that a man should be a good church man,
as they called it, than that he should love God.
Hence, there was always an indescribable and, to me,
unpleasant odour of their profession about them.
If they knew more concerning the life of the
world than other men, why should everything they said
remind one of mustiness and mildew? In a word,
why were they not men at worst, when at best they ought
to be more of men than other men?—And here
lay the difficulty: by no effort could I get
the face before me to fit into the clerical mould which
I had all ready in my own mind for it. That was,
at all events, the face of a man, in spite of waistcoat
and depilation. I was not even surprised when,
