A little passing attention, a hint now and
then from his head, was sufficient to keep his hands right, for they
were so used to their work, and had been so well taught by his head,
that they could pretty nearly have made a pair of shoes of themselves;
so that the shoemaking trade is one that admits of a great deal of
thought going on in the head that hangs over the work, like a sun over
the earth ripening its harvest. Shoemakers have distinguished themselves
both in poetry and in prose; and if Hector Macallaster had done so in
neither, he could yet think, and that is what some people who write both
poetry and prose cannot do. But it is of infinitely more importance to
be able to think well than merely to write ever so well; and, besides,
to think well is what everybody ought to be or to become able to do.
Hector had odd ways of looking at things, but I need not say more about
that, for it will soon be plain enough. Ever since the illness from
which he had risen with a weak spine, and ever-working brain, and a
quiet heart, he had shown himself not merely a good sort of man, for
such he had always been, but a religious man; not by saying much, for he
was modest even to shyness with grown people, but by the solemnity of
his look when a great word was spoken, by his unblamable behaviour, and
by the readiness with which he would lend or give of his small earnings
to his poor neighbours.
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