The Strangers' Friend
SOBER, honest, steady and kindly men have too little place in our short-story literature. They are not "romantic" enough—not humorous enough—they are not "pituresque." Yet the grandest of them all has lived for ages in one of the best short stories ever written, for longer than we know—in old Chinese Bibles perhaps—and he'll live till the end of human troubles. We do not know his station and condition; we do not know his religion, except it be the religion of mateship.
He was not a "Christian" as the name is understood by us, for Christ had not been born. We don't even know his name; I can't think of him as a fat or stout man, or a rich man; not even as a man who was moderately well off. Dickens thinks that he was lank and lean, and found it hard to live. I picture him as a silent, grave, earnest man, with very, very sad eyes. Perhaps he had dealt in myrrh and spicery from Gilead, and, being honest and unworldly, had fallen amongst thieves himself, and lost all he had. No doubt he had his troubles too. It is certain he was a sober and honest man, and it is equally certain that he was well known on the roads to
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