terrible hour of the delivery of the Address. It was no small task
moreover to be compelled to listen right through to the end of the
Address, before the very gentlest word of criticism was allowed. She did
not exactly complain of the renewal of the rehearsal: a fatigue can be
endured when it is a joy. What vexed her was her failing memory for the
points of objection, as in her imagined High Seat she conceived them;
for, in painful truth, the instant her brother had finished she entirely
lost her acuteness of ear, and with that her recollection: so there was
nothing to do but to say: "Excellent! Quite unobjectionable, dear
Martin, quite:" so she said, and emphatically; but the addition of the
word "only" was printed on her contracted brow, and every faculty of
Tinman's mind and nature being at strain just then, he asked her testily:
"What now? what's the fault now?" She assured him with languor that
there was not a fault. "It's not your way of talking," said he, and what
he said was true. His discernment was extraordinary; generally he
noticed nothing.

Not only were his perceptions quickened by the preparations for the day
of great splendour: day of a great furnace to be passed through likewise!
--he, was learning English at an astonishing rate into the bargain. A
pronouncing Dictionary lay open on his table. To this he flew at a hint
of a contrary method, and disputes, verifications and triumphs on one
side and the other ensued between brother and sister. In his heart the
agitated man believed his sister to be a misleading guide. He dared not
say it, he thought it, and previous to his African travel through the
Dictionary he had thought his sister infallible on these points. He
dared not say it, because he knew no one else before whom he could
practice, and as it was confidence that he chiefly wanted--above all
things, confidence and confidence comes of practice, he preferred the
going on with his practice to an absolute certainty as to correctness.