Given a crisis, and
the Vicar's view was interesting, because it was, as a rule,
exactly the view which the average man would be likely to take,
melodramatic, sentimental, commonplace, with this difference, that
whereas the average man is tongue-tied and has no faculty of
expression, the Vicar had an extraordinarily rich and emphatic
vocabulary; and it was thus an artistic presentment of the ordinary
standpoint. But in daily life the Vicar talked with impregnable
continuity about any subject in which he happened to be interested.
He listened to no comment; he demanded no criticism. If he
conversed about his parishioners or his fellow-parsons or his
country neighbours, it was not uninteresting; but when it was
genealogy or folklore or prehistoric remains, it was merely a
tissue of scraps, clawed out of books and imperfectly remembered.
Howard found himself respecting the Vicar more and more; he was so
kindly, so unworldly, so full of perfectly guileless satisfaction:
he was conscious too of his own irrepressibility. He said to Howard
one day, as they were walking together, "Do you know, Howard, I
often think how many blessings you have brought us--I assure you,
quiet and modest as you are, you are felt, your influence permeates
to the very ends of the parish; I cannot exactly say what it is,
but there's a sense of something that has to be dealt with, to be
reckoned with, a mind of force and energy in the background; your
approval is valued, your disapproval is feared.
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