As
nothing appeared at the moment more attractive to my eyes, I fixed them
upon him. No great skill in deciphering human character is required to
tell his past or foretell his future history, or even to read the few
poor spent thoughts that flicker in his brain. His father--some city
merchant--died last year, and left him a man of leisure, with a fortune
on his hands to spend in idleness and dissipation. This is the first
anniversary of the old gentleman's decease and departure to another and
better world, and the hopeful heir of his bank-stock and buildings has,
as a matter of etiquette, come out here from the city this morning to
pass an hour of solemn meditation--as he calls the sixty minutes in
which he does not smoke or swear--by the old man's grave. I observe him
every moment forming a firm resolution to fix his feeble thoughts upon
sober things and his latter end, and breaking it the second afterwards:
the effort is too much for the exhausted condition of his mind, and
results in a total failure. He is evidently well pleased that any
attention is directed towards him, and fancies that I regard him as a
very dutiful son, and his appearance here, so early in the morning
and long before breakfast, a remarkable example of posthumous filial
affection. To intensify, if possible, this sentiment in my breast, he
has just now pulled out a white cambric handkerchief and pretends to be
wiping tears from his eyes.
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