Chapter 16 Mr. Smith’s Chatter 
UCH, though by no means all, that 
I have told about old Farnborough 
was gathered in talk with John Smith 
in the cottage after he had left his 
farm. Sometimes he spoke of old acquaintances ; 
sometimes of obsolete customs. His well-stored 
memory, turned over and over, has left me with 
an impression of whimsical good-temper, of 
sober and quiet laughter, slightly boyish in the 
love of oddity, yet always well poised like a self- 
possessed man’s. My uncle had experienced 
the taste of life and squared it with his religious 
convictions. He knew too much, and he was 
too kindly, to be anything but tolerant. Sorrow, 
of which he had had his share, had not soured 
him; of hourly aches and pains he had taken the 
measure ; death and change came into the scheme 
of things he held it a duty to think about at bed- 
time and on Sundays. He could afford to be 
amused at life; for at the back of it he was 
conversant with and revered its greatness. After 
his death a curate he had liked well related how 
the rector of the parish once advised, as a sovereign 
remedy against down-heartedness, going to have 
a chat with Mr. John Smith. And I think 
that fairly Stamps his quality. You needed not 
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