by habit uncomfortably
sensitive or irritable. Who has not lived at one time or other in his life
in daily contact with people of this sort,--persons whose outbreaks of
temper, or of wounded feeling still worse than temper, were as
incalculable as meteoric showers? The suppressed atmosphere, the chronic
state of alarm and misgiving, in which the victims of this species of
tyranny live are withering and exhausting to the stoutest hearts. They are
also hardening; perpetually having to wonder and watch how people will
"take" things is apt sooner or later to result in indifference as to
whether they take them well or ill.

But to define all the shapes of private tyranny would require whole
histories; it is safe, however, to say that so far as any human being
attempts to set up his own individual need or preference as law to
determine the action of any other human being, in small matters or great,
so far forth he is a tyrant. The limit of his tyranny may be narrowed by
lack of power on his part, or of response on the part of his fellows; but
its essence is as purely tyrannous as if he sat on a throne with an
executioner within call.

_Thirdly._ Longevity of private tyrants. We have not room under this head
to do more--nor, if we had all room, could we do better--than to quote a
short paragraph from George Eliot's immortal Mrs. Poyser: "It seems as if
them as aren't wanted here are th' only folks as aren't wanted i' th'
other world."

Margin.

Wide-margined pages please us at first sight. We do not stop to ask why.
It has passed into an accepted rule that all elegant books must have
broad, clear margins to their pages. We as much recognize such margins
among the indications of promise in a book, as we do fineness of paper,
clearness of type, and beauty of binding. All three of these last, even in
perfection, could not make any book beautiful, or sightly, whose pages had
been left narrow-margined and crowded. This is no arbitrary decree of
custom, no chance preference of an accredited authority. It would be
dangerous to set limit to the power of fashion in any thing; and yet it
seems almost safe to say that not even fashion itself can ever make a
narrow-margined page look other than shabby and mean. This inalienable
right of the broad margin to our esteem is significant. It lies deep. The
broad margin means something which is not measured by inches, has nothing
to do with fashions of shape. It means room for note