⸺What an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather.
My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the mark, than there is upon the back of my hand.
—Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and fifty pounds half-yearly—(on Michaelmas and Lady-day ),—during all that time.
No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my father.⸻And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter’d upon the odd fifty—he generally gave a loud Hem! rubb’d the side of his nose leisurely with the flat part of his fore finger⸺inserted his hand cautiously betwixt his head and the cawl of his wig—look’d at both sides of every guinea as he parted with it⸺and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples.
Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no allowances for these workings within us.—Never—O never may I lay down in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from ancestors!
For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had gradually been taking root in our family.⸻ Tradition was all along