of discourse into which they get and are set down
when they please, without any pain or trouble to themselves. Neither is
it professional pedantry or trading quackery: it has no excuse. The man
has no more to do with the question which he saddles on all his hearers
than you have. This is what makes the matter hopeless. If a farmer talks
to you about his pigs or his poultry, or a physician about his patients,
or a lawyer about his briefs, or a merchant about stock, or an author
about himself, you know how to account for this, it is a common
infirmity, you have a laugh at his expense and there is no more to be
said. But here is a man who goes out of his way to be absurd, and is
troublesome by a romantic effort of generosity. You cannot say to him,
'All this may be interesting to you, but I have no concern in it':
you cannot put him off in that way. He retorts the Latin adage upon
you-_Nihil humani a me alienum puto._ He has got possession of a subject
which is of universal and paramount interest (not 'a fee-grief, due to
some single breast'), and on that plea may hold you by the button as
long as he chooses. His delight is to harangue on what nowise regards
himself: how then can you refuse to listen to what as little amuses you?
Time and tide wait for no man. The business of the state admits of no
delay. The question of Universal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments stands
first on the order of the day--takes precedence in its own right of
every other question. Any other topic, grave or gay, is looked upon
in the light of impertinence, and sent _to Coventry._ Business is an
interruption; pleasure a digression from it. It is the question before
every company where the Major comes, which immediately resolves itself
into a committee of the whole upon it, is carried on by means of a
perpetual virtual adjournment, and it is presumed that no other is
entertained while this is pending--a determination which gives its
persevering advocate a fair prospect of expatiating on it to his dying
day. As Cicero says of study, it follows him into the country, it stays
with him at home: it sits with him at breakfast, and goes out with him
to dinner. It is like a part of his dress, of the costume of his person,
without which he would be at a loss what to do. If he meets you in the
street, he accosts you with it as a form of salutation: if you see him
at his own house, it is supposed you come upon that. If you happen to
remark, 'It is a fine day,' o