Others without affectation are only arrant cowards. They are afraid to stand exposed on their painful pre-eminence. Some from pure good-nature make themselves ridiculous; imagining that they are nine feet high at the least, shrink and distort themselves continually in condescension to our inferiority; or lest we should be blasted with excess of light, come into company shading their farthing candle—burning blue, pale, and faint.
It should be noticed that the bore condescending is peculiarly obnoxious to the proud man.
Besides the bore condescending, who, whether good-natured or ill-natured, is a most provoking animal—there is the bore facetious, an insufferable creature, always laughing, but with whom you can never laugh. And there is another exotic variety—the vive la bagatelle bore of the ape kind—who imitate men of genius. Having early been taught that there is nothing more delightful than the unbending of a great mind, they set about continually to unbend the bow in company.
Of the spring and fall, the ebb and tide of genius, we have heard much from Milton, Dryden, and others. At ebb time—a time which must come to all, pretty or rich, treasures are discovered upon some shores; or golden sands are seen when the waters run low. In others bare rocks, slime, or reptiles. May I never be at low tide with a bore! Despising the Bagatelle, there is the serious regular conversation bore, who listens to himself, talks from notes, and is witty by rule. All rules for conversation were no doubt invented by bores, and if followed would make all men and women bores, either in straining to be witty, or striving to be easy. There is no more certain method, even for him who may possess the talent in the highest degree, to lose the power of conversing, than by talking to support his character. One eye to your reputation, one on the company, would never do, were it with the best of eyes. Few people are of Descartes’ mind, that squinting is pretty. It has been said, that pleasure never comes, if you send her a formal card of invitation; to a conversazione certainly never; whatever she might to a dinner-party. Ease cannot stay, wit flies away, and humour grows dull, if people try for them.
Well-bred persons, abhorring the pedantry of the blues, are usually anti-blues, or ultra-antis. But though there exists in a certain circle a natural honest aversion to every thing like wit or learning, is it absolutely certain that if taking thought won’t do it, taking none will do? They are determined, they declare, to have easy conversation, or none.
But let the ease be high-bred and silent as possible—let it be the repose of the Transcendental—the death-like silence of the Exclusive in the perfumed atmosphere of the Exquisite; then begins the danger of going to sleep—desperate danger. In these high circles are to be found, apparently, the most sleepy of all animated beings. Apparently, I say, because, on close observation, it will usually be found that, like the spider, who, from fear, counterfeits death, these, from pride, counterfeit sleep. They will sometimes pretend to be asleep for hours together, when any person or persons are near whom they do not choose to notice. They lie stretched on sofas, rolled up in shawls most part of the day, quite empty. At certain hours of the night, found congregated, sitting up dressed, on beds of roses, back to back, with eyes scarce open. They are observed to give sign of animation only on the approach of a blue—their antipathy. They then look at each other, and shrink. That the sham-sleeping bore is a delicate creature, I shall not dispute, but they are intolerably tiresome. For my own part, I would rather give up the honour and the elegance, and go to the antipodes at once, and live with their antagonists, the lion-hunters—yea, the lion-loving bores.
Their antipodes, did I say? that was going too far: even the most exaggerated ultra-anti-blues, upon occasion, forget themselves strangely, and have been seen to join the common herd in running after lions. But they differ from the blue-lion-loving-bore proper, by never treating the lion as if he were one of themselves. They follow and feed and fall down and worship the lion of the season; still, unless he be a nobleman, which but rarely occurs, he is never treated as a gentleman quite; there is always a difference made, better understood than described. I have heard lions of my acquaintance complain of showing themselves off to these ultra-antis, and have asked why they let themselves be made lions, if they disliked it so much, as no lion can well be led about, I should have conceived, quite against his will? I never could obtain any answer, but that indeed they could not help it; they were very sorry, but indeed they could not help being lions. And the polite lion-loving bore always echoed this, and addressed them with some such speech as the following:—“My dearest, sir, madam, or miss (as the case may be), I know, that of all things you detest being made a lion, and that you can’t bear to be worshipped; yet, my dear sir, madam, or miss, you must let me kneel down and worship you, and then you must stand on your hind legs a little for me, only for one minute, my dear sir, and I really would not ask you to do it, only you are such a lion.”
But I have not yet regularly described the genus and species of which I am treating. The great lion-hunting bore, and the little lion-loving bore, male and female of both kinds; the male as eager as the female to fasten on the lion, and as expert in making the most of him, alive or dead, as seen in the finest example extant, Bozzy and Piozzi, fairly pitted; but the male beat the female hollow.
The common lion-hunting bore is too well known to need particular description; but some notice of their habitudes may not be useless for avoidance. The whole class male subsists by fetching and carrying bays, grasping at notes and scraps, if any great name be to them; run wild after verses in MS.; fond of autographs. The females carry albums; some learn bon mots by rote, and repeat them like parrots; others do not know a good thing when they meet with it, unless they are told the name of the cook. Some relish them really, but eat till they burst; others, after cramming to stupidity, would cram you from their pouch, as the monkey served Gulliver on the house-top. The whole tribe are foul feeders, at best love trash and fatten upon scraps; the worst absolutely rake the kennels, and prey on garbage. They stick with amazing tenacity, almost resembling canine fidelity and gratitude, to the remains of the dead lion. But in fact, their love is like that of the ghowl; worse than ghowls, they sell all which they do not destroy; every scrap of the dead lion may turn to account. It is wonderful what curious saleable articles they make of the parings of his claws, and hairs of his mane. The bear has been said to live at need by sucking his own paws. The bore lives by sucking the paws of the lion, on which he thrives apace, and, in some instances, has grown to an amazing size. The dead paws are as good for his purpose as the living, and better—there being no fear of the claws. How he escapes those claws when the lion is alive, is the wonder. The winged lion, however, is above touching these creatures; and the real gentleman lion of the true blood, in whose nature there is nothing of the bear, will never let his paws be touched by a bore. His hair stands on end at the approach or distant sight of any of the kind, lesser or greater; but very difficult he often finds it to avoid them. Any other may, more easily than a lion, shirk a bore. It is often attempted, but seldom or never successfully. He hides in his den, but not at home will not always do. The lion is too civil to shut the door in the bore’s very face, though he mightily wishes to do so. It is pleasant sport to see a great bore and lion opposed to each other; how he stands or sits upon his guard; how cunningly the bore tries to fasten upon him, and how the lion tries to shake him off!—if the bore persists beyond endurance, the lion roars, and he flies; or the lion springs, and he dies.
A more extraordinary circumstance than any I have yet noted, respecting the natural history of lions and bores, remains to be told; that the lion himself, the greater kind as well as the lesser of him, are apt, sooner or later, to turn into bores; but the metamorphosis, though the same in the result, takes place in different circumstances, and from quite different causes: with the lesser lion and lioness often from being shown, or showing themselves too frequently; with the greater, from very fear of being like the animal he detests.