[The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.]@TWC D-Link bookThe Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. CHAPTER VII 33/37
Here is a delicate young man now, with an intellectual countenance, a slight figure, a sub-pallid complexion, a most unassuming deportment, a mild adolescent in fact, that any Hiram or Jonathan from between the ploughtails would of course expect to handle with perfect ease. Oh, he is taking off his gold-bowed spectacles! Ah, he is divesting himself of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his coat! Well, here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, and with two things that look like batter puddings in the place of his fists.
Now see that other fellow with another pair of batter puddings,--the big one with the broad shoulders; he will certainly knock the little man's head off, if he strikes him.
Feinting, dodging, stopping, hitting, countering,--little man's head not off yet.
You might as well try to jump upon your own shadow as to hit the little man's intellectual features.
He needn't have taken off the gold-bowed spectacles at all.
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