He was a small, slight man, interesting-looking rather than regularly handsome, of about five-and-twenty, who had devoted himself to the cultivation of his intellect and the suppression of his soul.

Because his mother had been a religious woman, he reasoned that faith was merely an amiable feminine weakness, and because he himself was clever enough to make passable Latin verses, he argued that no Supernatural Being could have been clever enough to make him.
"Have you seen the new man who has come to the Moat House ?" asked Elisabeth of Christopher.

The latter had now settled down permanently at the Osierfield, and was qualifying himself to take his uncle's place as general manager of the works, when that uncle should retire from the post.

He was also qualifying himself to be Elisabeth's friend instead of her lover--a far more difficult task.
"Yes; I have seen him." "What is he like?
I am dying to know." "When I saw him he was exactly like a man riding on horseback; but as he was obviously too well-dressed to be a beggar, I have no reason to believe that the direction in which he was riding was the one which beggars on horseback are proverbially expected to take." "How silly you are! You know what I mean." "Perfectly.

You mean that if you had seen a man riding by, at the rate of twelve miles an hour, it would at once have formed an opinion as to all the workings of his mind and the meditations of his heart.