The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was
never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse;
backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow
lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste,
something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which
never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these
silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in
the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he
was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the
theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had
an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with
envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and
in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I incline to
Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the
devil in his own way.” In this character, it was frequently his fortune
to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in
the lives of downgoing men. And to such as these, so long as they came
about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.