The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-05-16
ARE you A FOREf
Read What Great Men Rave said
About the Tribe


of the human species into borrowers and
lenders. Perhaps, however. Lord Byron's
division Of bores and bored is the more cor.
rect one. Sir Walter Scott said: 81 have
rarely. II ever, found any one ont Of whom
/ could not extract amusement or edif1ca-
ton" Longfellow excuses his tolsrAuon Of
bores with the quaint apology: "Kho would
be kind to them il were notgo
Whether Carlyle was dead failure or
not is a moot point; but he certainty did nor
know how 10 put up with bores. aThe art
of being savage to those people, or ''snch
things AS he would have designated them
which Scott SO signally lacked, was possessed
by him in its perfection. What be could
least endure, we are told, was being bored
THE anathemas which he heapei on m
fortunate bores exceed Ernulphus' ia ex-
quisite variety
A whole museum might be filled with
Cariyles 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 revere
was a bore Of the most oppressive kind.
He hobbled about with usn writes the
irreverent Thomas, stalking with kind of
solemn emphasis on matters which were OF
no interest. Nothing came from him that
was OF use to me- that day, or in fact any
day."
Mrs. Carlyle, in letter to her husband.
affords hint as to why Carlyle suffered so
much more from bores than any other man.
IL was because people were apt to show
themselves greater bores before him than
they naturally were. 81 fancy you would
find our talk amusing If you could assist at
IL in a cloak OF darkness, for one of the
penalties of being the wisest man and pro-
foundest thinker of the age" (ah, Jeanne
Welsh Carlyle! we knew you could ''shreyvn
your guild man, but il was too bad to
aim your Intermediates az him from under
the cloak of flAttery) ''is the royal one of
never hearing the plain, 'unornamented'
truth spoken; every one striving to be wise
and profound inettd naturG in the presepcs
of such one, and making himself as much
as possible into his likeness IA very neat
back-hander, this land this is the reason
she goes on, that Arthur Helps and so
many Others talk very nicely to me, and
bore you TO distraction"
Charles Lamb broke in once on a CONVEX
sation in which his honored friend Words
worth was allowing himself to be drawn out
for the entertainment of a certain every
foolish but pretentious gentleman another
capital synonym for the other world with
the quelling chant of "Hey diddle diddlem
pursuing these original tactics with in
creasing energy till lured away by the at
traction Of a pot Of porter.
Carlyle, indeed Qt seems that in an article
on bores, Carlyle must be TO the forel, laws
down the startling proposition that the
Americans had done nothing besides pro-
ducing 100000 Of the greatest bores on
the surface OF this earth. And If Dickens
encountered, as he averred, $50 first-rate
samples at one party, Carlyle's apparently
monstrous calculation comes within tho
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 trancendentalism and illusions of the
lover soul" But one might have thought
he would have spared Washington. Far
from that, we find him pleasantly
remarking at some grand dinner,
to Mr.. Fieleds Ia gentleman who
both by his writings and, from all accounts.
by the charm of his personal presence, must
have done much TO remove the imputed
odium from his countrymen): "That CRETE
mon of yours-George" c'did any one under
the sun ever dream of calling Washington
George before~ exclaimed Miss Milford.
who recounts the story)-''your CRETE mon,
George, was monstrous bore and wants
taking down few hundred yards"
"You call So~and-so a bore What is a
'boreP asks Bishop Selwyn. at is man
who will persist in talking about himself
when you want to talk about yourself "--or
we may add, in telling stories when you
want to be telling them. Coleridge says he
used to be much amused with Tobin and
Goodwin: "Tobin would poster me with
stories of Godwin's dullness; and upon his
departure Goodwin would drop in lust to say
that Tobin was more dull than ever.n
The redoubtable Samuel Parr proved as
great bore to De Quincy as the diplomat
ist did to Coleridge. The opium eater,
sensitive little spirit that be was, did not
often put himself in the way of being
bored He was completely taken by sur
prise, on his first meeting with the scholar
of prodigous fame, to find him 70 better
than aslander-mongering' 'old babbler.n
Byron's method of dealing with the gem
try was even more ingenious than SCOTS,
who himself assumed the arduous task of
boring his bore Byron used TO set Monk
Lewis, whom be 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 OF Hob
house-and leave the pair to fight it out to-
gether, while he quietly enjoyed his re-
venge.
But even this was more humane than the
conduct of those who, like Douglas Jerrold,
leave their bore in the lurch. "Well, what's
going to>dayp asked the bore, full primed
for siege. 81 am" returned the wit, hur-
rying renorselessly past.
Oo HOb uulL peOple pore yout one OF MS
companions of the breakfast table asked of
the autocrat MADAME" was DIR. Holmes
suggestive reply: "All men are bores ex-
cept when we want them"
1t may be worth recalling in connection
with this subject, on authority OF ore who,
according to s. c. Hall. knew him in
umately, that Lord Beaconsfield would
exercise 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 very bores are enchant-
ing" This was only a reflection Of the
sweet-natured novelist's treatment Of them
~ rea! life. Mighty in the delineation of
cores is Shakespeare, though Miss Edge
WORTH In her essay on bores, oddly enough
remarks that in all has works she
could find no trace Of one, except
IL were that thing, that popinjay who so
pestered Hotspur" after the battle. And of
tnis specimen she says: at must have been
OF o. foreign breed, not the good downright
English bore" But surely many a scene
can De recalled in which one of that ilk is
made to serve as foil to the masters more
serious situations
Meanwhile. when we Consider against
"nom and by whom the term has been APP
phed-that Carlyle was bored by Lamb,
Goat goldsmith was sometimes voted a bore
uy his most intimate acquaintauce-we
must be chary of aDnlvino IL At tina xyorst