He committed himself to no precipitate elation at
the idea of his daughter's being taken up by a patroness of movements
who happened to have money; he looked at his child only from the point
of view of the service she might render to humanity. To keep her ideal
pointing in the right direction, to guide and animate her moral
life--this was a duty more imperative for a parent so closely identified
with revelations and panaceas than seeing that she formed profitable
worldly connexions. He was "off," moreover, so much of the time that he
could keep little account of her comings and goings, and he had an air
of being but vaguely aware of whom Miss Chancellor, the object now of
his wife's perpetual reference, might be. Verena's initial appearance in
Boston, as he called her performance at Miss Birdseye's, had been a
great success; and this reflexion added, as I say, to his habitually
sacerdotal expression. He looked like the priest of a religion that was
passing through the stage of miracles; he carried his responsibility in
the general elongation of his person, of his gestures (his hands were
now always in the air, as if he were being photographed in postures), of
his words and sentences, as well as in his smile, as noiseless as a
patent hinge, and in the folds of his eternal waterproof.
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