That night I saw my uncle. I pitied him, though I feared him. I was longing
to tell him how anxious I was to help him, if only he could point out the
way. It was in substance what I had already said, but now strongly urged.
He brightened; he sat up perpendicularly in his chair with a countenance,
not weak or fatuous now, but resolute and searching, and which contracted
into dark thought or calculation as I talked.
I dare say I spoke confusedly enough. I was always nervous in his presence;
there was, I fancy, something mesmeric in the odd sort of influence which,
without effort, he exercised over my imagination.
Sometimes this grew into a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas--polished,
mild--seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it was no longer an
accidental fascination of electro-biology. It was something more. His
nature was incomprehensible by me. He was without the nobleness, without
the freshness, without the softness, without the frivolities of such human
nature as I had experienced, either within myself or in other persons. I
instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings could no
more affect him than a marble monument.
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