Fascination

I know a man, and one whom people generally call a very clever one, who,

when his eye catches mine, if I meet him at an at home or an evening

party, beams upon me from afar with the expression of an intellectual

rattlesnake on having espied an intellectual rabbit. Through any crowd

that man will come sidling towards me, ruthless and irresistible as fate;

while I, foreknowing my doom, sidle also him-wards, and flatter myself

that no sign of my inward apprehension has escaped me.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler · 第 461 / 602 题