Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/109

 It has too often already been said that the face is the mirror of the soul, for us to speak well of an immovable face that has nothing to reflect, because there is no soul reflected in it. Well, she had a noble soul, and certainly he must be blind who did not think her face very beautiful, when that soul could be read in it.

Havelaar was a man of about thirty-five years. He was slender and active in his movements; except his very short and expressive upper lip, and his large pale blue eyes—which, if he was in a calm humour, had something dreamlike, but which flashed fire if he was animated with a grand idea—there was nothing particular in his appearance. His light hair hung flat round his temples, and I can believe very well, that if you saw him for the first time, you would not arrive at the conclusion, that there was a person before you possessing rare qualities both of head and heart. He was full of contradictions: sharp as a lancet, and tender-hearted as a girl, he always was the first himself to feel the wound which his bitter words had inflicted; and he suffered more than the wounded. He was quick of comprehension, grasped immediately the highest and the most intricate matters, liked to amuse himself with the solution of difficult questions, and to such pursuits would devote all pains, study, and exertion. Yet often he did not understand the most simple thing, which a child could have explained to him. Full of love for truth and justice, he often neglected his most simple