oil painting artist

would have answered me as you have just done. But I don't mean to
flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority,
it is no merit of yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go
too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no
better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to
counterbalance your few good points.'
'And so may you,' I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed
my mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import
had been spoken as well as imagined-
'Yes, yes, you are right,' said he; 'I have plenty of faults of
my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you.
God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past
existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within
my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my
neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters,