Download or read book Joyce (Classic Reprint) written by Mrs. Oliphant and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Joyce This combination is one which was not at all unusual in Scot land a generation since, and produced a kind of character full of attraction, the most piquant mixture of experience and ignorance, of simplicity and knowledge, that can be conceived. A man who had an eye as keen as lightning for the wiles of an Eastern, were he prince or slave, but could be taken in with the most delightful ease by the first cab-driver in the streets; who could hold his own before a durbar of astute oriental politicians, but was at the mercy of the first flower-girl who offered him a rosebud for his button hole, or gamin who held his horse. He had the defects as well as the virtues common to a dominant race, and probably was im pericus and exacting in the sphere which he knew best; but this tendency was completely neutralised by the confusion which arose in his mind from the fact of finding himself suddenly among a population entirely made up of this dominant race, to whom he could be nothing but polite, whatever their condition might be. He was very polite and friendly to the railway porters, to all the people he encountered on the journey home, and reluctant to give trouble to the pretty fair chambermaids at the hotels, or to pass, without inquiring into their story, the women who begged or sold trifles on the streets. A respectable-looking woman, and English by her accent, ' he would say. We must stop and inquire into it. There must be a reason, you know.' Oh yes; probably there's a reason. Come along, or you'll have all the vagrants at your heels, ' his more experienced companion would reply. They had thus a little difficulty in getting him safely through the streets at his first arrival Home was strange to him; it was a place where all the men were honest and all the women true. He was ready to believe everything that was said to him in the new England which some how was so unlike the old which he had seen only in passing so long ago. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.