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.
I have thought, Whence this failing? Whether from loss of memory or from
the fact that these things have been so often repeated that, when once
begun, they instinctively and in the very order in which they are laid
in the mind find an irresistible outlet from the mouth: like a
musical-box, when wound up and set a-going, goes on and on, playing the
same old tunes which one has heard a hundred times, and which it has
played ever since a musical-box it has been.
I am inclined to think, however uncharitable my thinking may seem, that
this is the chief cause of his fault. I think so because I have
frequently noticed him saying as soon as he has begun, "Have not I told
you this before?" and I have answered, "Yes, you have;" still he has
gone on with the old yarn, telling it precisely in the same way as
before; as the aforesaid instrument plays its old tunes without
variation right through to the end.
The affliction would not be so bad to bear if he cut his stories short;
but, unfortunately, he does not, and I verily believe cannot, any more
than the parson who has repeated his sermons a hundred times can
curtail, or leave out some of the old to substitute new. Not only so;
another addition to the burden one has to endure is, that he always
repeats his stories with such apparent self-satisfaction--a smile here,
a laugh there, a "ha-ha-ha" in another place; at the same time you feel
he is a bore, and wish his old saws were a hundred miles away.
One has been reminded, in hearing him talk, of what Menander says about
the Dodonian brass, that if a man touched it only once it would continue
ringing the whole day in the same monotonous tone. Thus this talker,
touch him on the story-key, and he plays away until you are jaded in
listening.
"His copious stories, oftentimes begun,
End without audience, and are never done."
Is there a remedy for this talker? I fear not. He has practised so
long--for he generally is sixty or seventy years old--that little hope
can be entertained of his cure. He will have to _wear_ out. This,
however, you can do for yourself; only go into his company _once_, and
you will not be afflicted with his repetition; and if he would go into
the same company only once, it would secure to him a more enduring
reputation.
Cowper, in his day, it would seem, met with such a talker as I have been
describing. He thus refers to him:--
"Sedentary weavers of long tales
Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.
'Tis the most asinine employ on earth,
To hear them tell of parentage and birth,
And echo conversation dull and dry,
Embellished, with, _He said and so said I_.
At every interview their route the same,
The repetition makes attention lame;
We bustle up with unsuccessful speed,
And in the saddest part cry, _Droll indeed!_"
After thus expressing his own experience under the rod of this talker,
he suggests the way in which he should exercise himself in his
vocation:--
"A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct;
The language plain, and incidents well linked;
Tell not as new what everybody knows,
And new or old still hasten to a close;
There centring in a focus round and neat,
Let all your rays of information meet.
What neither yields us profit nor delight
Is like a nurse's lullaby at night;
Guy Earl of Warwick and fair Elenore,
Or giant-killing Jack would please me more."
III. THE CARELESS.--This talker is heedless of what, and how, and to
whom he talks. He consults no propriety of speech; he has no respect of
persons. He never asks, "Will it be wise to speak thus at this time? Is
this the proper person to whom I should say it? Shall I give offence or
deceive by speaking in this way? What will be the consequence to the
absent of my making this statement concerning them? Is Tittle-Tattle, or
Rumour, or Mischief Maker, or Slanderer, or Blabber in this company, who
will make capital out of what I say?"
I do not mean that one should be always so precise in speaking, that
what he says should be as nicely measured and formed as a new-made pin.
This, however, is one thing, and to speak without thought or
consideration is another.
The careless talker would save others as well as himself from frequent
difficulties if he would get into the way of pondering, at least
somewhat, the things which he has to say, so as to be sure that what he
says will not injure another more than he would like to be injured
himself.
I will give one illustration of this careless and thoughtless way of
talking.
In a gathering of friends belonging to a certain church in N---- the
minister's name came up as the subject of conversation. Many eulogiums
were passed upon his character, among others one expressive of his high
temperance principles, and the service he was rendering to the
temperance cause in the town.
There happened to be present in the company a young gentleman of rather
convivial habits, who assented to their compliments of the minister. He
thought he was a very excellent man and a pleasant companion. "In fact,"
he said, "it was only the other day when he and I drank brandy and water
together."
What a compliment this to give to a minister and a teetotaller! Of
course the particulars were not inquired into there and then; but Miss
Rumour, who was present, made a note of it in her mind, and as soon as
she left the company she spread it abroad until the statement of the
thoughtless young gentleman came to the ears of the deacons of the
church, who solemnly arraigned the minister before them, and summoned
the accuser into their presence.
He declared that what he had said was positively true, but had
evidently been misunderstood. "Your excellent minister," he said, "and I
_have_ drunk brandy and water together; but then _I_ drank the brandy,
and _he_ drank the _water_."
IV. THE EQUIVOCATOR.--He speaks in such a way as to convey the
impression that he means what he says and at the same time leaves
himself in his own mind at liberty to go contrary to what he says,
without considering himself guilty of breach of truth should he do so.
He speaks so as to give you reason for believing him; and then, if he
fail to verify your faith, he tells you he did not say so positively.
Hence his chief phrases of speech are, "May be so;" "It is more than
likely I shall;" "There is little doubt upon the question;" "It is more
than probable it will be so." He means these phrases to have the same
effect upon you as the positive or imperative mood; and yet if you take
them in this sense, and he does not act up to them, he says, "O, I did
not say I would."
Much evil has been done by this way of talking in business, in families,
in the social circle. How many a tradesman has lost valuable hours in
waiting and expecting some one who has promised him by, "It is more than
probable," that he would meet him at such an hour. And when reminded of
his failure, he said, "I did not promise."
With a similar understanding based on a promise of the same kind, how
frequently has the housewife made ready her person, her children, her
rooms, and her larder, to receive guests on a day's visit!
Disappointment has been the result; perhaps hard thoughts, if not harder
feelings, have been felt, and it has been a long time ere any
preparation has been made for the same guests again.
A mother in a family says to her little son, "Now, John, you be a very
good boy, and give your sister Betsy no trouble while I am gone to see
your Aunt Charlotte, and may be I will bring you back a Noah's ark."
The mother goes to see Aunt Charlotte; meanwhile John is trying in all
his strength to be a "good boy, and to give his sister Betsy no
trouble."
Little Johnny is wishing his mother would return. The hour is getting
late. He is becoming heavy with sleep. He says to his sister,--
"I am so tired. I do want mother to come home and bring me the nice
present she promised. O how glad I shall be to have a Noah's ark!"
At last mother enters the house, and her little boy rushes to meet her,
asking as the first thing,--
"Mother, have you brought the present you promised?"
"What present, my boy?" the mother asks.
"Noah's ark, mother."
"Did I promise to buy you Noah's ark? Are you not mistaken?"
"You said _may be_ you would do it; and I expected you would."
"But _may be_, my dear, is not a promise."
With these words the little boy set on crying at his great
disappointment, and could not be comforted.
Now this way of talking to children is calculated to give them wrong
views of truthfulness, and to cherish within them a similar way of
equivocation. It creates hopes and blights them. It gives ground for
expectation, and then destroys it. "Let your communication be, Yea, yea;
Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil." "The
promises of God are all YEA."
V. THE ABSENT-MINDED.--It is far from being pleasant to meet in
conversation a talker of this class. To ask a question of importance or
to give a reply to one whose mind is wandering in an opposite direction
is anything but complimentary and assuring. How mortifying to be
speaking to a person who you think is sweetly taking in all you say, and
when finished you find you have been talking to one whose mind was as
absent from what you said as a man living in America or New Zealand! He
wakes up, perhaps, to consciousness, some time after you have done
speaking, with the provoking interrogatory, "I beg pardon, sir; but pray
what were you speaking about just now?"
He has been known at the dinner-table to ask a blessing at least three
times.
He has been seen in company to make one of his best bows in reply to
what he supposed was a compliment paid him, when it was intended for
some other person.
He has been heard try to give a narrative of great interest; but before
he had got half-way through he lost his mind in the story, and ran two
or three into one.
He has been known almost to rave with self-indignation while calling
back some one to whom he had forgotten to state the object of meeting,
although they had been together some time in promiscuous talk.
He has been seen at the tea-table in a heated discussion, thinking of
his brightest idea just as he was in the act of swallowing his tea, and
by the time the tea was gone his idea was gone, and of course he lost
the day.
One has heard of an eminent minister so absent-minded in talk at the
tea-table that he has taken about twenty cups of tea, and has not only
exhausted the supply of tea, but after using the teaspoon in each cup
has thrown it behind him on the sofa, until all the spoons have been
gone as well as all the tea; and only when he has been told that there
was no more of either has he woke up to know how much tea he had drunk,
and what had become of the spoons.
One of these talkers, in the midst of conversation in a large circle of
friends, tried to quote the lines following:--
"I never had a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die."
But, instead of repeating them correctly, his mind became absent, and
thought of a parody on the lines, which ran as follows:--
"I never had a piece of bread,
Particularly long and wide,
But fell upon the sanded floor,
And always on the buttered side."
So in his attempt to render the first correctly he mingled the beauties
of both as follows:--
"I never had a dear gazelle,
Particularly long and wide,
But when it came to know me well,
And always on the buttered side."
A story is told of a clergyman who went a walk into the country. Coming
to a toll-bar, he stopped, and shouted to the man, "Here! what's to
pay?"
"Pay for what?" asked the man.
"For my horse."
"What horse? You have no horse, sir!"
"Bless me!" exclaimed the clergyman, looking between his legs. "I
thought I was on horseback."
He had fallen into a thoughtful mood in his walk, and being more
accustomed to riding than walking, in his absence of mind he made the
blunder.
VI. THE BUSTLING.--This talker you will generally find to be a man
rather small in stature, with quick eye, sharp nose, nervous expression
of face, and limbs ever ready for prompt action. He has little patience
with other people's slowness, and wastes more time and temper in
repeating his own love of despatch than would be required to do a great
deal of work.
His tongue is as restless as his hands and feet, both of which are in
unceasing motion. He asks questions in such rapidity that it is
difficult for the ear to catch them. He is always in a hurly-burly. He
has more business to attend to than he knows how. His engagements are so
numerous that many of them must be broken. If he call to see you, he is
always in a hurry; he cannot sit down; he must be off in a minute. He
often rushes into your room so suddenly that you wonder what is the
matter, throws down his hat and gloves as though he had no time to place
them anywhere, and, taking out his watch, he regrets that he can only
spare you two minutes; and you would not have been sorry if it had been
only one. He leaves you much in the same manner as he came, with a slam
of the door which goes through you, and steps back two or three times to
say something which he had forgotten.
"If you go to see him," says one, "on business, he places you a chair
with ostentatious haste; begs you will excuse him while he despatches
two or three messengers on most urgent business; calls each of them back
once or twice to give fresh instalments of his defective instructions;
and having at last dismissed them, regrets as usual that he has only
five minutes to spare, whereof he spends half in telling you the
distracting number and importance of his engagements. If he have to
consult a ledger, the book is thrown on the desk with a thump as if he
wished to break its back, and the leaves rustle to and fro like a wood
in a storm. Meanwhile he overlooks, while he gabbles on, the very
entries he wants to find, and spends twice the time he would if he had
proceeded more leisurely. In a word, everything is done with a bounce,
and a thump, and an air, and a flourish, and sharp and eager motions,
and perpetual volubility of tongue. His image is that of a blind beetle
in the twilight, which, with incessant hum and drone and buzz, flies
blundering into the face of every one it chances to meet."
VII. THE CONTRADICTORY.--The contradictory talker is one who steps into
the arena of conversation with an attitude which says in effect, "It
matters not what you say, good or bad, wise or foolish, of my opinion or
against my opinion, I am here to contradict. It is my mind, my habit, my
nature to do it, and do it I will."
And so he does. His tongue, like the point of a weathercock, veers round
to face the sentiment or fact from whatever quarter it may come. You
express your views upon some eminent minister of the Gospel. He says, "I
do not think with you." Your friend gives his views upon some theory in
science. He says, "I am altogether of another opinion." Some one else
gives his views of a political scheme in contemplation. He says, "I
think the very opposite." A fourth states his views on some doctrine of
theology. He says, "They are far from orthodox." A fifth ventures to
give his opinion on a late experiment in natural philosophy. He says, "I
think it was entirely a blunder."
Thus he stands in hostile, pugilistic attitude to every one, as though
he had made up his mind to it long ago. He acts upon the principle,
"Whatever you say now, I will contradict it, and if you agree with me, I
will contradict myself. You shall not say anything that I will not
contradict." Except you should tell him he was a wise man, which of
course would be a questionable truth, there is indeed no opinion or
proposition in which he would agree with you.
He reminds one of the Irishman who, despairing of a _shindy_ at a fair,
everything being so quiet and peaceful, took off his coat, and, trailing
it in the mud, said, "And, by St. Patrick, wouldn't I like to see the
boy that would tread on that same!"
You are thus challenged to combat; and you must either be mute or stand
the chance of being cudgelled at every position you take. The best way
is to be mute rather than be in a constant (for the time being) ferment
of strife and conflict.
This quibbling or contradictory talk may sometimes be met with in the
family as existing between brothers or sisters. They are continually
opposing and contradicting each other in things trifling and
indifferent, differing in opinion for no other reason, apparently, than
that they have got in the habit of doing so.
"It is not so, Fanny; you know it is not, and why do you say so?" said
Fred, warmly.
"I say it is," replied Fanny; "and I am surprised that you should
contradict me."
"It is just like you, Fanny, to be always opposed to me, and I wonder
you should be so."
This habit of contradiction in a family is anything but pleasant and
happy, and should be checked by parents, as well as guarded against by
the children themselves.
VIII. THE TECHNICALIST.--He is a talker who indulges much in the slang
of his calling. The naval cadet, for instance, poetically describes his
home as "the mooring where he casts anchor," or "makes sail down the
street," hails his friend to "heave to," and makes things as plain as a
"pikestaff," and "as taut as a hawser." The articled law clerk "shifts
the venue" of the passing topic to the other end of the room, and "begs
to differ from his learned friend." The new bachelor from college snuffs
the candle at an "angle of forty-five." The student of surgery descants
upon the comparative anatomy of the joint he is carving, and asks
whether "a slice of adipose tissue will be acceptable." The trade
apprentice "takes stock" of a dinner party, and endorses the observation
of "ditto." The young chemist gives a "prescription" for the way you
should go to town. The student of logic "syllogizes" his statement, and
before he draws a conclusion he always lays down his "premise." The
architect gives you a "plan" of his meaning, and "builds" you an
argument of thought.
Thus, you may generally infer the profession or occupation of this
talker from the technical terms he employs in conversation.
IX. THE LILIPUTIAN.--I give this designation to him, not because of his
physical stature, for he may be of more than ordinary proportions in
flesh and blood; and in fact he often is. His talk is _small_; what some
would call "chit-chat." He deals in pins and needles, buttons and tapes,
nutmegs and spices: things of course, in their places, necessary, but
out of place when you have plenty of them, and they are being ever and
anon pressed on your notice. He has no power of conception or utterance
beyond the commonplace currency of the time of day, state of the
weather, changes of the moon, who was last married, who is going to be,
when dog days begin, what he had for dinner, when he bought his new hat,
when he last went to see his mother, when he was last sick, and how he
recovered, etc.