He is sour and morose in disposition. He is a hater of his species. Whether he was born thus, or whether he has gradually acquired it through contact with mankind, will best be ascertained from himself. I think, however, that he too frequently and too readily inclines in his nature to run against the angles and rough edges of men's ways and tempers, by which he is made sore and irritable, until he loses patience with everybody, and thinks everybody is gone to the bad. He is happy with no one, and no one is happy with him.
His talk agrees with his temper. He says nothing good of anybody or anything. Society is rotten in every part. He cares for no one's thanks. He bows to no one's person. He courts no one's smiles. There is neither happiness nor worth anywhere or in any one. He says,--
"Only this is sure: In this world nought save misery can endure."
If you try to throw a more cheerful aspect upon things and breathe a more genial soul into his nature, he says to you,--
"Have I not suffered things to be forgiven? Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, Hopes sapped, name blighted, life's life lied away? And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into the souls of those whom I survey."
He is hard to cure, but worse to endure. Sunshine has no brightness for him. Love has no charms. Beauty has no smiles. Flowers have no fragrance. All is desert to him; and alas! he is desert to all.
II. THE STORY-TELLER.--He is ever and anon telling his anecdotes and stories, until they become as dull as an old newspaper handled for days together. He seldom enters your house or forms one of a company but you hear from him the same oft-repeated tales. He may sometimes begin on a new track, but he soon merges into the old. You are inclined to say, "You have told me that before;" but respect to the person who speaks, or a sense of good manners, restrains, so you are under the necessity of enduring the unwelcome repetition.
I have known this talker, again and again, rise from his seat with an intention of going because of a "pressing engagement," and yet he has stood, with hat in hand, for a further half-hour, telling the same stories which on similar occasions he had told before. I knew what was coming, and wished that he had left when he rose at first to do so, rather than afflict me with the same worn-out threadbare tales of three-times-three repetition in my ears.