The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1894-07-05

2etin they wss ''somethint' - each
e pr--that unexplainable "Something"
Vhich has to explain almost every kind Of
attachment.
He had no friends in Petershof and sp-
parently had no friends anywhere. No
one wrote to him except his old mother.
The papers which were sent to him came
from stationer's
He read all during mealtime. But now
and again he spoke few words with Ber-
nardine Holme, whose place was next to
him. It never occurred to him to say
good morning, nor to give greeting OF
any kind, nor to show q courtesy. One
day during lunch, however, he did take
the trouble to stoop and pick up Bernar-
dine Holmes shawl, which had fallen for
the third time to the ground.
II never saw female wear shawl
more carelessly than you" he said. You
don't seem to know anything about It,"
His manner was always gruff. Every
one complained Of him. Every one always
had complained of him. He had never
been heard to laugh. Once or twice he had
been seen to smile on occasions when peo-
pie talk confidently of recovering their
health. 1t was beautiful smile, worthy
of better cause. 1t was a smile which
made one pause to wonder what could have
been the ori -inal disposition of the Disa-
grecable Ma. before i'll health had cut him
off from the affairs of active life. Was he
happy or unhappy 1t was not known.
He gave no sign of either the one state or
the other He always looked very i'll, but
he did not seem to get worse. He had new
er been known to mako the faintest allu-
sion to his own health He never "smok-
ed his thermometer in public and this
was the II re remarkable in a hotel
where peopl~ would even leave off a con-
versation an. say: Excuse me, sir or mad
am, must v take my temperature. W"
will resume topic in few minutes"
He never any papers or books, and
he never borrowed any.
He had a room at the top of the hotel,
and he lived is life among his chemist ,
bottles, his .entific books, his microscope
and his camera. He never sat in any of
the hotel dr. ing rooms. There was notN
ing striking nor eccentric about his appei '-
ance He was neither ugly nor good 10
ing, neither tall nor short, neither fair nor
dark. He was thin and frail and rather
bent But that might be the description
of any one in Petershof. There was moth
ing pathetic about him, no suggest.
even of poetry, which gives a reverence I ,
suffering, whether mental or physical. AS
| there was no expression on his face, SO
also there We no expression in his eyes,
no distant l. lging, no farof f1xedness,
nothing indee to awaken sad sympathy.
The only 'itive thing about him
| his rudeness. Ias 1t natural or cultivated
No one in Petershof could say. He had
always been AS he was, and there was no
reason to suppose that he would ever
different.
He was, in fact, like the glacier of which
he had such fine view from his room
like the glacier, an unchanging feature VI
the neighborlood.
No one loved it better than the Disagree
able Man did. He watched the sunlight
on it, now pale golden, now fiery red. He
loved the sky, the dull gray or the brigf =
blue. He loved the snow forests and the
snow girt streams and the ice cathedrals
and the great frs patient beneath their
snow burden. He loved the frozen water
falls and the costly diamonds in the snow
/ He knew, too, where the flowers nestled in
their white nursery. He was indeed an
authority on Alpine botany. The same
tender hands which plucked the flowers in
the springtime dissected them and laid
| them bare beneath the microscope But he
did not love them the less for that
Were these pursuits comfort to himi
Did they help him to forget that there was
q time when he, too, was burning with
ambition to distinguish himself and be
| one of the marked men of the age?
Who could sayI