The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-06-03
OYOU EVER BORE PEOPLE?
THE OPINIONS OF SOME GREAT MEN.
Carlyle's Disrespectful Remark About
George Neutrality-suspicious. of the English
Men OF Letters Bored One Another
We Are All Borss, Sometimes.

division of bores and bored Is the more
correct one. Sir Waiter Scott said: 81
have rarely, if ever, found any one out of
whom / could not extract amusement or
edification" Longfellow excuses his toll
Grafton of bores with the quaint apology
"Who would be kind to them if L were
not?"
Whether Carlyle was a dead failure or
not is moot point; but he certainly did
not know how to put ND with bores. "The
art of being savage to those people" or
'such things, as he would have desiG-
mated them-which Scott so signally
lacked, was possessed by him in its perfec-
ton. What he could "least endure" We
are told, was being bored ''Tbe anathe-
mas which he heaped on unfortunate
bores exceed Ernulphus's in exquisite
variety"
whole museum might be filed with
Carlyle's bores alone. He obtained access
to the immortals, and they bored him. To
his acrid humor Charles Lamb was some
thing less, almost, than bore. Coleridge,
whom he had not been disinclined to re-
we're, was a bore of the most oppressive
kind. HE hobbled about with US" writes
the irreverent Thomas, talking with a
kind of solemn emphasis on matters which
were OF no interest. Nothing came from
bin that was Of use TO me that day, or In
fact any day."
Mrs. CARLYLE, in a letter to her husband,
affords hint as to why Carlyle suffered
so much more from bores than any other
L npOnln
chow themselves greater bores before him
than they naturally were. Il fancy you
would find our talking amusing If you
could assist at it in cloak OF darkness,
for one of the penalties of being the wisest
man and profOundest thinker OF the age"
(ah. Jeanne Welsh Carlyle! we knew you
could "shrew" your guild man, but it was
too bad to aim your little mockeries at
him from under the cloak of f1attery) lis
the royal one of never hearing the plain
'unoruamented' truth spoken; every one
striving to be wise and profound inUitG
natlTd In the presence Of such one, and
making himself as much as possible into
his likeness" Ia very neat backhander
this > "and this is the reason" she goes
on, chat Arthur Helps and so many
others talk very nicely to me, and bore
you to distraction"
Charles Lamb broke in once on a con-
versation in which his honored friend
Wordsworth was allowing himself to be
drawn out for the entertainment of a GER
tain very foolish but pretentious gentle
man" (another capital synonym for the
other word with the quelling chant of
"Hey diddle diddle W-pursuing these
original tactics with increasing energy till
lured away by the attraction of pot of
porter.
Carlyle, indeed Git seems that in an arti-
Gle on bOres, Carlyle must be to the fore, }
lays down the startling proposition that
the Americans had done nothing besides
producing 100000 of the greatest bores
on the surface of this earth. And il Dick
ems encountered. as he averred, $50 first
rate samples at one party, Carlyle's appar-
emily mOnstrOus calculation comes within
the bounds of probability.
1t is worth noting that Carlyle In his
sweeping assertion made no exception on
behalf of Emerson, who, perhaps, bored
him more than he dared acknowledge with
his transcendentalism and effusions of the
'over soul" But one might have thought
he would have spared Washington. Far
from that, we find him pleasantly remark
ing at some grand dinner to Mr. Fields "a
gentleman who, both by his writings and,
from all accounts, by the charm of his per-
sonal presence, must have done much to
remove the imputed Odium from his coun-
trymen): THAT CRETE mon OF yours
George" (''did any one under the sun ever
dream of calling Washington George be-
foreP exclaims Miss Milford, who re-
counts the stOry)-"your CRETE mon,
George, was a monstrous bore and wants
taking down few hundred pegs"
you call So-and-so bore What is a
'boreP" asks Bishop Selwyn. 1T is a
rr-k,r r.aN 4ofl- Il
himself when you want to talk about your
self" or, we may add, in telling stories
when you want to be telling them. Col
eridge says he used to be much amused
with Tobin and Goodwin: "Tobin would
poster me with stories of Godwin's dull
ness, and upon his departure Goodwin
would drop in just to say that Tobin was
more dull than ever"
The redoubtable Samuel Parr proved as
great bore TO De Quincy a. the diplo-
matist did to COleridge. The opium
eater, sensitive little spirit that he was,
did not often put himself in the way OF
being bored. He was completely taken
by surprise, on his first meeting with the
scholar of prodiRious lame, to find him no
better than slander-mOngering "old bab-
bier"
Byron's method of dealing with the
SCOTS, who himself assumed the arduOus
task of boring his bore. Byron used to
set Monk Lewis whom he found as great
bore as Scott did, on to some "vivacious
person." who peculiarly abhorred the
tribe-as for example, he says, Nine. de
Stael or Hobhouse-and leave the pair to
fight 1t out together, while he quietly en-
joyed his revenge.
But even this was more humane than
the conduct of those who, like Douglas
Jerrold. leave their bore in the lurch.
swell, what's going today?" asked the
bore, full primed for a siege. 81 am" re-
turned the wit, huTying remorsely past.
do not dull people bore you" one of
his companions OF the breakfast-table
asked OF the autocrat Madame" was
DR.. Holmes suggestive reply, Sall men are
bores except when we want them"
1t may be worth recalling in connection
with this subject, on authority of one who,
according to 5. G.. Hall, knew him init
mately, that Lord Beaconsfield would ex-
ercise the charm of his conversation no
more willingly for a statesman or a man
OF letters than for "a stupid bore"
Mrs. Richie, in her charming ESSAY on
that charming subject, Jane Austen" re-
marks that her Every bores are enchant-
Ing" This was only a reflection Of the
sweet-natured novelist's treatment of them
IN roaI life MfObfv IN, tho daI;1aa+,o~ of