--They are to
common folks what repeaters are to ordinary watches. They carry music in
their inside arrangements, but they want to be handled carefully or you
put them out of order. And perhaps you must n't expect them to be quite
as good timekeepers as the professional chronometer watches that make a
specialty of being exact within a few seconds a month. They think too
much of themselves. So does everybody that considers himself as having a
right to fall back on what he calls his idiosyncrasy. Yet a man has such
a right, and it is no easy thing to adjust the private claim to the fair
public demand on him. Suppose you are subject to tic douloureux, for
instance. Every now and then a tiger that nobody can see catches one
side of your face between his jaws and holds on till he is tired and lets
go. Some concession must be made to you on that score, as everybody can
see. It is fair to give you a seat that is not in the draught, and your
friends ought not to find fault with you if you do not care to join a
party that is going on a sleigh-ride. Now take a poet like Cowper. He
had a mental neuralgia, a great deal worse in many respects than tic
douloureux confined to the face. It was well that he was sheltered and
relieved, by the cares of kind friends, especially those good women, from
as many of the burdens of life as they could lift off from him.
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