Characters and characteristics in literature; English literature
Is one that has nothing to do with his business, and yet no man busier
than he, and his business is most in his face. He is one thrusts himself
violently into all employments, unsent for, unfeed, and many times
unthanked; and his part in it is only an eager bustling, that rather
keeps ado than does any thing. He will take you aside, and question you
of your affair, and listen with both ears, and look earnestly, and then
it is nothing so much yours as his. He snatches what you are doing out
of your hands, and cries "give it me," and does it worse, and lays an
engagement upon you too, and you must thank him for this pains. He lays
you down an hundred wild plots, all impossible things, which you must be
ruled by perforce, and he delivers them with a serious and counselling
forehead; and there is a great deal more wisdom in this forehead than
his head. He will woo for you, solicit for you, and woo you to suffer
him; and scarce any thing done, wherein his letter, or his journey, or
at least himself is not seen: if he have no task in it else, he will
rail yet on some side, and is often beaten when he need not. Such men
never thoroughly weigh any business, but are forward only to shew their
zeal, when many times this forwardness spoils it, and then they cry they
have done what they can, that is, as much hurt. Wise men still deprecate
these men's kindnesses, and are beholden to them rather to let them
alone; as being one trouble more in all business, and which a man shall
be hardest rid of.
A GOOD OLD MAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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