Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
General
Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
has proved herself a noble foe--quick in expedient, firm in
determination, valorous in war. We know each other the better for the
contest; we shall, when peace returns, respect each other the more; and
although the cost of that peace, whenever it comes, will be the
sacrifice of many local prejudices and sectional privileges, what, oh,
what are such sacrifices to the inestimable blessings of national
salvation?
THE COMPLAINING BORE.
About the most disagreeable people one meets with in life are those who
make a business of complaining. They ask for sympathy when they merit
censure. There is no excuse for man or woman making known their private
griefs except to intimate friends or those who stand in the nearest
relation to them. I have no patience with the man who wishes to catch
the public ear with the sound of his repining. Be it that he complain of
the world generally, or specify the particular occasion of his
dumpishness, he is in either aspect equally contemptible. What a
serio-comic spectacle a man presents who imagines that everybody is in a
leagued conspiracy against him to disappoint his hopes and thwart his
plans for success! He thinks he is kept from rising by some untoward
fate that is bent on crushing him into the ground, feels that he is the
victim of persecution, the sport of angry gods. Not having the spirit of
a martyr, he frets and fumes about his condition, and finds a selfish
relief in counting over his grievances in the presence of all who are
good-natured enough to listen. Such a fellow is a social nuisance--away
with him! The fact usually is that the world has more reason to complain
of him than he of the world. For instance, I know a man who has become
misanthropic, but who should hate himself instead of the whole race.
Mr. Jordan Algrieve has become disgusted with life, and confesses than
his experiment with existence has thus far proved a failure. He has
combated with the world, and the world has proved too much for him, and
he acknowledges the defeat. Mr. Algrieve is on the shady side of fifty,
and his hair getting to be of an iron gray. His features are prominent,
with a face wrinkled and shrivelled by discontent and acidity of temper.
His tall figure is bent, not so much by cares and weight of years, as in
a kind of typical submission to the stern decree of an evil destiny.
Strange to say, he is well educated, and graduated with honor at one of
our Eastern colleges. With a knowledge of this fact, it is pitiable to
see him standing at the corner of the street in his busy town in a suit
of seedy black and a shockingly bad hat, chafing his hands together and
pretending to wait for somebody who never comes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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