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154
Hunger

coat to take the manuscript out of my pocket.

"It is only a little character sketch of Correggio," I say; "but perhaps it is, worse luck, not written in such a way that . . ."

He takes the papers out of my hand, and commences to go through them. His face is turned towards me.

And so it is thus he looks at close quarters, this man, whose name I had already heard in my earliest youth, and whose paper had exercised the greatest influence upon me as the years advanced? His hair is curly, and his beautiful brown eyes are a little restless. He has a habit of tweaking his nose now and then. No Scotch minister could look milder than this truculent writer, whose pen always left bleeding scars wherever it attacked. A peculiar feeling of awe and admiration comes over me in the presence of this man. The tears are on the point of coming to my eyes, and I advanced a step to tell him how heartily I appreciated him, for all he had taught me, and to beg him not to hurt me; I was only a poor bungling wretch, who had had a sorry enough time of it as it was. . . .

He looked up, and placed my manuscript