Explore "My Distant Relative" by John Galsworthy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Though I had not seen my distant relative for years -- not, in fact, since he was obliged to give Vancouver Island up as a bad job -- I knew him at once, when, with head a little on one side, and tea-cup held high, as if, to confer a blessing, he said: "Hallo! " across the Club smoking-room.
Thin as a lath -- not one ounce heavier -- tall, and very upright, with his pale forehead, and pale eyes, and pale beard, he had the air of a ghost of a man. He had always had that air. And his voice -- that matter-of-fact and slightly nasal voice, with its thin, pragmatical tone -- was like a wraith of optimism, issuing between pale lips. I noticed; too, that his town habiliments still had their unspeakable pale neatness, as if, poor things, they were trying to stare the daylight out of countenance.