ble, but cannot muster up sufficient energy and
resolution. He cannot prevail upon himself to quit his bed, or his easy
chair, or his fire-side, or the employment by which he chances to be
occupied, till the time fixed on has passed away. His friends are kept
waiting; those who have business to transact with him lose their temper;
they, again, are perhaps disappointing others, and all because he had
not sufficient decision of character, sufficient command of himself, to
be punctual.

You may remember seeing at my house my friend Mr. M.[78:1] He was at
Oxford a very good-humoured fellow, and every body liked him; but he
never could contrive to be in time for any thing. He got imposition upon
imposition for being too late for chapel; he came to dine in hall when
other men were going away; and his friends were almost afraid of making
an appointment with him, either for business or for amusement, because
they knew beforehand that he would not keep it. When, after leaving
Oxford, he established himself as a country gentleman in his paternal
mansion, the same habit still clung to him. No time was fixed for any
thing, or if it was fixed, it was never kept. Neither his guests nor his
servants knew at what hour either breakfast, or dinner, or any other
domestic arrangement, would take place. Consequently, their time and
their spirits were wasted in uncertainty. When engaged to dine at a
neighbour's, perhaps he would forget the engagement altogether; or, if
he chanced to remember it, would not arrive till the master of the feast
had given him up in despair, after allowing possibly an extra half hour,
during which, the solemn pause which sometimes takes place before
dinner, had become more solemn, from the annoyance of seeing a whole
party kept waiting by the unpunctuality of one person. The servants,
meanwhile, were yawning and fidgetting backwards and forwards in the
listlessness of expectation; the cook perplexed with the sore dilemma of
seeing all the productions of her skill, either chilled with cold from
being kept back, or burnt to a cinder; and the temper even of the lady
of the house a little out of tune, from the certainty that the dinner
would be spoiled. Of all these various vexations, the sole cause was to
be found in Mr. M.'s want of energy. He could not bring himself,
perhaps, either to shorten a pleasant ride, or to lay down a book which
interested him, or to quit his own chair by the fire-side, in order to
dress.