XXXI.
A GROUP OF TALKERS.
I. The Misanthrope.
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.”