In my
private opinion every mother's son of them will lie at any time rather
than confess ignorance.
--I have a kind of dread, rather than hatred, of persons with a large
excess of vitality; great feeders, great laughers, great story-tellers,
who come sweeping over their company with a huge tidal wave of animal
spirits and boisterous merriment. I have pretty good spirits myself, and
enjoy a little mild pleasantry, but I am oppressed and extinguished by
these great lusty, noisy creatures,--and feel as if I were a mute at a
funeral when they get into full blast.
--I cannot get along much better with those drooping, languid people,
whose vitality falls short as much as that of the others is in excess. I
have not life enough for two; I wish I had. It is not very enlivening to
meet a fellow-creature whose expression and accents say, "You are the
hair that breaks the camel's back of my endurance, you are the last drop
that makes my cup of woe run over"; persons whose heads drop on one side
like those of toothless infants, whose voices recall the tones in which
our old snuffling choir used to wail out the verses of:
"Life is the time to serve the Lord."
--There is another style which does not captivate me. I recognize an
attempt at the grand manner now and then, in persons who are well enough
in their way, but of no particular importance, socially or otherwise.
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