He had the flat jaw and
sinewy neck which are frequent in the American type; but the traces of
national origin are a matter of expression even more than of feature,
and it was in this respect that our friend's countenance was supremely
eloquent. The discriminating observer we have been supposing might,
however, perfectly have measured its expressiveness, and yet have been
at a loss to describe it. It had that typical vagueness which is not
vacuity, that blankness which is not simplicity, that look of being
committed to nothing in particular, of standing in an attitude of
general hospitality to the chances of life, of being very much at
one's own disposal so characteristic of many American faces. It was our
friend's eye that chiefly told his story; an eye in which innocence
and experience were singularly blended. It was full of contradictory
suggestions, and though it was by no means the glowing orb of a hero of
romance, you could find in it almost anything you looked for. Frigid
and yet friendly, frank yet cautious, shrewd yet credulous, positive
yet skeptical, confident yet shy, extremely intelligent and extremely
good-humored, there was something vaguely defiant in its concessions,
and something profoundly reassuring in its reserve. The cut of this
gentleman's mustache, with the two premature wrinkles in the cheek above
it, and the fashion of his garments, in which an exposed shirt-front
and a cerulean cravat played perhaps an obtrusive part, completed the
conditions of his identity.
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