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STORY OF THE
DOOR
MR.
UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted
by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment;
lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and
when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beacon ed from his
eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke
not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and
loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he
was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre,
had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved
tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high
pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined
to help rather than to reprove.
