t so often as at first sight might appear, for these blunt and honest
words are, both, kindly coy in scenes of agony.

"There are occasions--and those the most terrible in life--when the lips
are fairly absolved from using them, and when, if the eye cannot express
what the muffled tongue refuses to tell, the tongue seeks any stammering
compassionate circumlocution rather than utter the dreaded syllable. 'Is
there no hope?' says the mother, hanging over her dying child, to the
physician, in whose looks are life and death. He dare not say 'yes;' but
to such a question silence and dejection can alone say 'no.'"

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."

He is hard to cure, but worse to endure. Sunshine has no brightness for
him. Love has no charms. Beauty has no smiles. Flowers have no
fragrance. All is desert to him; and alas! he is desert to all.

II. THE STORY-TELLER.--He is ever and anon telling his anecdotes and
stories, until they become as dull as an old newspaper handled for days
together. He seldom enters your house or forms one of a company but you
hear from him the same oft-repeated tales. He may so