che in the throes of misanthropy.

Jim is slight and not very tall, and he does not look especially
strong. They tell me that he has worked very hard, and that he has won
his way purely by his own energy and talent. He does not smoke, which
rather prejudiced me against him, in spite of the fact that I believe
we should all be the healthier if we did not use tobacco. This, as
Josephine would say, only shows what an inconsistent creature I am.
And I a philosopher, too! But I said at the outset that I was not a
real philosopher. Josie met James--I beg his pardon, Jim--at her
coming-out party, and it seems that he fell in love with her at first
sight. If, now, somebody had fallen in love at first sight with my
sister-in-law, Julia, how much more satisfactory it would have been all
round. But that is the way of the world; Julia was overlooked and my
girl taken, to my miserable discomfiture. Jim was one of the youths
without fathers and mothers whom you see at every large entertainment.
That is to say, my wife had never heard of his father and mother at the
time she invited him, though they prove to have been very respectable
people. Indeed, we were all of us struck by the dignified appearance
which his family as a whole presented at the wedding. Alas! I realize
already that when I have got used to the idea that anybody is to have
her, I shall be thoroughly happy in the thought that I have given her
away to such a decent fellow, a man with self-respect and principles, a
man of industry and capacity, and one, too, who is ready to drink his
glass of champagne like the rest of the world--although he does not
smoke. I have let my grudge have free scope, and all I have been able
to rake up against him is that he shakes his head when I offer him a
pipe or a cigar. In my secret soul I am egregiously proud of him
already, and but for my wounded sensibilities I could dance with joy
over the reflection that he is likely to make her perfectly happy. And
yet all this talk of marrying and giving in marriage has broken my
spirit.

"Since it had to be someone," I said by way of consolation to Josephine
when we awoke this morning, "it's extremely fortunate that she did not
fall in love with a dashing soldier, who would carry her off to a
barracks on the frontier of a Sioux reservation, or a swashing sailor,
who would leave her at home while he went on long cruises, or a
splendid-looking creature, with a sonorous voice, who wou