Days of Your Fathers
“That was reasonable enough. The obvious and most valuable way to befriend a newcomer was to give him an active interest in the community.
Mr Melman was not a recluse but lived quietly. When he first arrived his manner at once attracted the pious and perplexed, for he was very ready with words of comfort. Tolerance, melancholy, a sort of watchful kindliness – all those were stamped into his worn, dark face. The Major wondered if he had not in the past been affected by some oriental creed of renunciation. He kept this surmise to himself. Long experience had taught him that the play of imagination, unless one had a more than military command of words, was usually misunderstood.
The village naturally was curious. A passive curiosity. Mr Melman was known to have lived abroad as some minor official in the Colonial Service, and that was enough. So many of the little houses of main street and square had been purchased by unknown Londoners: schoolmasters, journalists, small businessmen who had... made sufficient money to retire.MoreLess
Mr Melman was not a recluse but lived quietly. When he first arrived his manner at once attracted the pious and perplexed, for he was very ready with words of comfort. Tolerance, melancholy, a sort of watchful kindliness – all those were stamped into his worn, dark face. The Major wondered if he had not in the past been affected by some oriental creed of renunciation. He kept this surmise to himself. Long experience had taught him that the play of imagination, unless one had a more than military command of words, was usually misunderstood.
The village naturally was curious. A passive curiosity. Mr Melman was known to have lived abroad as some minor official in the Colonial Service, and that was enough. So many of the little houses of main street and square had been purchased by unknown Londoners: schoolmasters, journalists, small businessmen who had... made sufficient money to retire.MoreLess
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