Then she viewed with reserve a habit he had of dressing
always in the same manner; it was not apparently that he wore the same
clothes continually, for, on the contrary, his garments had a way of
looking rather too new. But they all seemed of the same piece; the
figure, the stuff, was so drearily usual. She had reminded herself
more than once that this was a frivolous objection to a person of
his importance; and then she had amended the rebuke by saying that
it would be a frivolous objection only if she were in love with him.
She was not in love with him and therefore might criticize his small
defects as well as his great- which latter consisted in the collective
reproach of his being too serious, or, rather, not of his being so,
since one could never be, but certainly of his seeming so. He showed
his appetites and designs too simply and artlessly; when one was alone
with him he talked too much about the same subject, and when other
people were present he talked too little about anything. And yet he
was of supremely strong, clean make- which was so much: she saw the
different fitted parts of him as she had seen, in museums and
portraits, the different fitted parts of armoured warriors- in
plates of steel handsomely inlaid with gold.
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