It was not the way to get on in your world ; but there are other worlds where getting on is estimated by different standards , and Abel Armstrong lived in one of these -- a world far beyond the ken of the thrifty Stillwater farmers and fishers . Something of this I had sensed , even before I saw him ; and that night in his garden , under a sky of smoky red , blossoming into stars above the harbour , I found a friend whose personality and philosophy were to calm and harmonize and enrich my whole existence . This sketch is my grateful tribute to one of the rarest and finest souls God ever clothed with clay . He was a tall man , somewhat ungainly of figure and homely of face . But his large , deep eyes of velvety nut-brown were very beautiful and marvellously bright and clear for a man of his age . He wore a little pointed , well-cared-for beard , innocent of gray ; but his hair was grizzled , and altogether he had the appearance of a man who had passed through many sorrows which had marked his body as well as his soul . Looking at him , I doubted Mrs. Campbell 's conclusion that he had not `` minded '' giving up college . This man had given up much and felt it deeply ; but he had outlived the pain and the blessing of sacrifice had come to him . His voice was very melodious and beautiful , and the brown hand he held out to me was peculiarly long and shapely and flexible . We went out to the garden in the scented moist air of a maritime spring evening . Behind the garden was a cloudy pine wood ; the house closed it in on the left , while in front and on the right a row of tall Lombardy poplars stood out in stately purple silhouette against the sunset sky . `` Always liked Lombardies , '' said Abel , waving a long arm at them . `` They are the trees of princesses . When I was a boy they were fashionable . Anyone who had any pretensions to gentility had a row of Lombardies at the foot of his lawn or up his lane , or at any rate one on either side of his front door . They 're out of fashion now . Folks complain they die at the top and get ragged-looking . So they do -- so they do , if you do n't risk your neck every spring climbing up a light ladder to trim them out as I do . My neck is n't worth much to anyone , which , I suppose , is why I 've never broken it ; and my Lombardies never look out-at-elbows . My mother was especially fond of them .
She XXXXX their dignity and their stand-offishness .
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