"
"Very well," said my friend, "I will show you that there is emotion even
in that unpromising place. I will just go to that man and I will just
mention in the most casual way an incident in his life. That man is
getting along toward ninety years old. He is past eighty. I will
mention an incident of fifty or sixty years ago. Now, just watch the
effect, and it will be so casual that if you don't watch you won't know
when I do say that thing--but you just watch the effect."
He went on down there and accosted this antiquity, and made a remark or
two. I could not catch up. They were so casual I could not recognize
which one it was that touched that bottom, for in an instant that old man
was literally in eruption and was filling the whole place with profanity
of the most exquisite kind. You never heard such accomplished profanity.
I never heard it also delivered with such eloquence.
I never enjoyed profanity as I enjoyed it then--more than if I had been
uttering it myself. There is nothing like listening to an artist--all
his passions passing away in lava, smoke, thunder, lightning, and
earthquake.
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