Next to the talker, we have the man who gives an account of his dogs, horses, lands, books, and pictures. Whatever is his, must, he thinks, interest others; and listen they must, however resolutely they may attempt to change the current of his discourse.
Women of this class are sometimes too fond of praising their children. It is no doubt an amiable weakness; but I would still advise them to indulge as little as possible in the practice; for however dear the rosy-cheeked, curly-headed prattlers may be to them, the chances are, that others will vote the darlings to be great bores; you that have children, never speak of them in company. You must not even praise your near relations; for the subject deprives the hearer of all power to dissent, and is therefore clearly objectionable.
In the same line is the clever bore, who takes up every idle speech, to show his wisdom at a cheap rate. If you say, "Hang the weather!" before such a man, he immediately proves, by logical demonstrations, that the weather has no neck by which it can be suspended. The grave expounder of truisms belongs to this class. He cannot allow the simplest conversation to go on, without entering into proofs and details familiar to every child nine years of age; and the tenor of his discourse, however courteous in terms and manner, pays you the very indifferent compliment, of supposing that you have fallen from some other planet, in total and absolute ignorance of the most ordinary and every-day things connected with this little world of ours. All foreigners are particularly great at this style of boring.
Then you have the indifferent and apathetic bore, who hardly condescends to pay the least attention to what you say; and who, if he refrains from the direct and absolute rudeness of yawning in your face, shows, by short and drawling answers, given at fits and starts, and completely at variance with the object of the conversation, that he affects at least a total indifference to the party present, and to the subject of discourse. In society, the absent man is uncivil; he who affects to be so, is rude and vulgar. All persons who speak of their ailings, diseases, or bodily infirmities, are offensive bores. Subjects of this sort should be addressed to doctors, who are paid for listening to them, and to no one else. Bad taste is the failing of these bores. Then we have the ladies and gentlemen who pay long visits, and who, meeting you at the door prepared to sally forth, keep you talking near the fire till the beauty of the day is passed; and then take their leave, "hoping they have not detained you." Bad feeling or want of tact here predominates.
"Hobby-riders," who constantly speak on the same eternal subject,—who bore you at all times and at all hours,—whether you are in health or in sickness, in spirits or in sorrow, with the same endless topic, must not be overlooked in our list; though it is sufficient to denounce them. Their failing is occasioned by a total want of judgment.
The Malaprops are also a numerous and unhappy family, for they are constantly addressing the most unsuitable speeches to individuals or parties. To the blind they will speak of fine pictures and scenery; and will entertain a person in deep mourning with the anticipated pleasures of to-morrow's ball. A total want of ordinary thought and observation, is the general cause of the Malaprop failing.
Let us add to this very imperfect list the picture of a bore described by Swift. "Nothing," he says, "is more generally exploded than the folly of talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five people together, where some one among them hath not been predominant in that kind, to the great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But among such as deal in multitudes of words, none are comparable to the sober, deliberate talker, who proceedeth with much thought and caution, maketh his preface, brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hint that putteth him in mind of another story, which he promises to tell you when this is done, cometh back regularly to his subject, cannot readily call to mind some person's name, holdeth his head, complaineth of his memory; the whole company all this while in suspense; at last says, it is no matter, and so goes on. And to crown the business, it perhaps proveth at last a story the company has heard fifty times before, or at best some insipid adventure of the relater."
To this we may add, that your cool, steady talkers, who speak with the care and attention of professors demonstrating mathematical problems,—who weigh, measure and balance every word they utter,—are all decided objectionables in society. It is needless to say, that such persons never blunder, and never "stumble over a potato;" a matter of little recommendation. In conversation there must be, as in love and in war, some hazarding, some rattling on; nor need twenty falls affect you, so long as you take cheerfulness and good humor for your guides; but the careful and measured conversation just described is always, though perfectly correct, extremely dull and tedious—a vast blunder from first to last.
There are also many persons who commence speaking before they know what they are going to say. The ill-natured world, who never miss an opportunity of being severe, declare them to be foolish and destitute of brains. I shall not go so far; but hardly know what we should think of a sportsman who would attempt to bring down a bird before he had loaded his gun.
I have purposely reserved the egotistical bore for the last on this short and imperfect list. It is truly revolting, indeed, to approach the very Boa-constrictor of good society; the snake who comes upon us, not in the natural form of a huge, coarse, slow reptile, but Proteus-like, in a thousand different forms; though all displaying at the first sight the boa-bore, ready to slime over every subject of discourse with the vile saliva of selfish vanity. Pah! it is repulsive even to speak of the species, numerous, too, as the sands along the shore.