Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/101

 how she does talk! She talks without movement, without expression; her voice never varies, it flows on, and on, and on, like a great resistless river. Four young artisans come clamping along in their hob-nailed boots, and seating themselves at one of the rude wooden tables, call for beer. With their arms round the waist of the utterly indifferent Fraulein, they shout and laugh and sing. Nearly all the young folks here are laughing—looking forward to life. All the old folks are talking, remembering it.

What grand pictures some of these old, seared faces round us would make, if a man could only paint them—paint all that is in them, all the tragedy and comedy that the great playright, Life, has written upon the withered skins! Joys and sorrows, sordid hopes and fears, child-like strivings to be good, mean selfishness and grand unselfishness, have helped to fashion these old wrinkled faces. The curves of cunning and kindliness lurk round these fading eyes. The lines of greed hover about these bloodless lips, that have so often been tight-pressed in patient heroism.