Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-12-17
AN EVERYDAY CHARACTER.

New York Sun.
AN EVERYDAY CHARACTER.
Most men unblushingly affirm.
In words less f1attering than express
sive,
That he's a social pachyderm.
At once conceited and aggressive;
But let us give this verdict pause.
And with more philanthropic charity
Attempt to penetrate the cause
Of his extreme unpOpularity.
think that when the fairies stood
And watched his earliest infant
slumber,
They gave him qualities of good
With virtues in the usual number:
Till some malefic witch arose,
Whose motives are an open question,
And stroked her cat from tail to nose
With somewhat sinister suggestion.
Then said, His failings shall be few,
Nor shall his worth be moderated,
But all who have with him to do
Shall feel intensely initiated;
Unconsciously their backs shall rise,
They shall be furious and shall show
it,
Yet he shall smile them bland replies,
And never notice it or know it,
Wherefore he figures in my verse
AS one of great and varied merits,
Yet one who still the witch's curse
With fatal consequence inherits;
So that no critics look beneath
To see if he be we'll mentioned,
They simply scowl and grind their
teeth
When his unlucky name is men
toned.
For ladies, seated at his side,
The most appalling nuisance dub him,
And all through dinner take pride
in palpable attempts to snub him;
But their sarcastic shafts are thrown
Without effect against his armor,
In his FOOLS paradise alone
He walks and thinks himself a
Gharmer.
He is, 1 own, distinctly vain,
For through his every word and &C
ton
There runs, or seems to run, a strain
OF fatuous dissatisfaction;
Nay, more than this, must confess
He sets that mandate at defiance
Which bids you teach your ancestress
A certain unconventional science.
His years are barely twenty three,
His knowledge scant; yet he has
taken,
Based upon slenderer claims, may be,
The motto Of omniscient Bacon;
He gives advice before you ask,
And with a calmness philosophlc
The expert he will take to task
Upon his own especial topic.
With hansen he would talk all night
And cavil at his expedition,
Would set Sir William Harcourt right
About the radical position;
To Herkomer he would dilate
On Rembrandt etchings rare and
dingy;
Would give some hints on golf to TAFT,
Or forward play to Ranjitsinghi
Old Admiral Tompion down his pipe
Blows gusts of audible profanity
At hearing on the Barfuer type
Long lectures teeming with inanity
The while our colonel huns and haws,
Dazed with a hailstorm of didactics
On Faubans system and the laws
That govern strategy and tactics.
Sometimes this shallow insolence,
Displayed so recklessly and blindly,
He sets aside, and issues thence
A pleasant youth, polite and kindly;
Yet even thus he cannot doff
His heritage of hate malignant,
For people still revile and scott,
When he is courteous and benignant.
Leave him in peace; the fates that
made
Him food for laughter and derision,
Have, with a generous forethought,
laid
Scales on his eyes to blind his vision
And it were cruel in good sooth
From those fond faIlacies to free him
And in an hour of dismal truth
Show himself as OTHERS see MIN.
London World.