"
I was sorry for the poor girl, for I believe she really cared for
the youngster; and as for her looks, they were quite up to the
average. But some evil sprite seemed to have got into Begglely's
camera. It seized upon defects with the unerring instinct of a
born critic, and dilated upon them to the obscuration of all
virtues. A man with a pimple became a pimple with a man as
background. People with strongly marked features became merely
adjuncts to their own noses. One man in the neighbourhood had,
undetected, worn a wig for fourteen years. Begglely's camera
discovered the fraud in an instant, and so completely exposed it
that the man's friends wondered afterwards how the fact ever could
have escaped them. The thing seemed to take a pleasure in showing
humanity at its very worst. Babies usually came out with an
expression of low cunning. Most young girls had to take their
choice of appearing either as simpering idiots or embryo vixens.
To mild old ladies it generally gave a look of aggressive cynicism.
Our vicar, as excellent an old gentleman as ever breathed, Begglely
presented to us as a beetle-browed savage of a peculiarly low type
of intellect; while upon the leading solicitor of the town he
bestowed an expression of such thinly-veiled hypocrisy that few who
saw the photograph cared ever again to trust him with their
affairs.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228