A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was difficult to guess--from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh, something like an old ivory carving--was seated on a stool against some bookshelves that projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more remarkable than reading yesterday's _Times_; but when he let the paper rest on his lap and looked at the incoming customer, the thought glanced through Deronda that precisely such a physiognomy as that might possibly have been seen in a prophet of the Exile, or in some New Hebrew poet of the medival time. 
A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was difficult to guess, his skin being yellow like an old ivory carving, was seated on a stool by the counter, reading yesterday's Times; but when he looked up, the thought glanced through Deronda that such a face might have been seen in a prophet of the Exile, or in some New Hebrew poet of the mediaeval time. 