precisely the same results as is wrought in others by high abilities and morbid sympathies.

In contradistinction to this specimen, we have the argumentative pessimist, or the man whose chronic depression is the fruit of influences alien to his character, and who with a powerful bias to gloomy contemplations is not unwilling to reason with others in favour of his pessimism. This class is well typified by Molière, in the unfortunate "Alceste," better known as the "Misanthrope," and its creed is embodied in the principle that everything is bad because it is capable of improvement. If Molière was expressing his own sentiments as is supposed when he makes "Alceste "exclaim,

"Je ne trouve partout que lâche flatterie,
Qu' injustice, interêt, trahison, fourberie;

Je n'y puis plus tenir, j'enrage, et mon dessein,
Est de rompre en visière á tout le genre humain,

we have a forcible instance of the dangerous state of pessimism to which the greatest intellects are prone under peculiar conditions of mind. The misanthropy of Alceste has its raison d'être in the principle we have recited, but the grand mistake made by these pessimists is in arguing themselves into their state of despondency, and in refraining from striving for the amelioration of what is bad, simply because its badness is so offensive to their eyes. If they believe as they do that improvement is possible, there is a far higher office than that of cynical censor reserved for them, for the constant condemnation of what is bad is but an initial step of reform. Selfish isolation is not the way to influence others for good, and the expressive lines of Pope forcibly suggests themselves

"God loves from whole to parts; but human soul

Must rise from individual to the whole.

Self love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,

As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
The centre moved, a circle still succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads:
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next, and next all human race;

Wide and more wide, through o'erflowings of the mind
Take ev'ry creature in of ev'ry kind;

Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest,

And heav'n beholds its image in his breast."

To prove man is bad is after all not the most difficult of tasks, and the pessimist who devotes himself to the proof is absolute master of the situation, but the gain of arguing such a matter is equivocal, whilst it is certain that small benefit can accrue from the dismal ratiocinations of irredeemable pessimism.

The most painful contemplation of them all is to witness the struggles of genius against a prolapse into pessimism under the influence of the common infirmity for extremes to which we have adverted. Such a mind as Byron's was no more proof against the ultimate despondency which is the growth of calumny, misconception, domestic affliction and isolated affections than that of the weakest of the race; yet he never abandoned that conflict with his pessimist inclinations which is so repeatedly evidenced in those more genial stories that embellish and sweeten his incomparably majestic song. His pessimism, however, was unconquerable, and like Bolingbroke's optimism was a part of his very being. He was born a pessimist and he died one. Perhaps, after all, the bitterness of his verse was but intensified by the rare and brief outbursts of geniality.

As the head of a state or a party, the pessimist can never be other than a failure, and, compared with his antithesis, is at an immense disadvantage. He who hopes much from everything is possessed at least of the confidence which is the element of success, and with which it is essential that he should inspire those who he is appointed to direct and lead; but he who lacks faith either in the present or in the future is little better than a clog upon the springs of action. Such men are to be found amongst the most gifted of mankind, but they are, if we may express it, gifted only for themselves; they may even minister to the mental instruction of others, but they cannot lead them, for as resolution and progress are essential to good government, so hesitancy and disbelief in the attainment of good are fatal to it.

In society the pessimist is an intolerable bore, and never fails to

exercise a depressing influence upon those who surround him. To the old he is obnoxious as deficient in the gaiety of spirit which is the great stimulant of age, and to the young he presents himself as a constant restraint upon adolescent mirth. The pessimist is always prepared to discount the ills of futurity, and is a ready purveyor of evil intelligence. His plain cynicism mingles with the flow of conversation and paralyses the most timid and least self-reliant. An illassorted dinner party is not a more effectual curb upon the intellectual faculties than are the croaks of the pessimist in the social circle, and there is nothing more contagious than his utterances amongst weak and morbid minds. In these days of exalted ambition, when every man aims at being thought greater than his neighbour, and when so many pretentious claims to superiority of wisdom are groundlessly advanced, there is a fascination in that easy assumption of superiority of which the form of pessimism we have been treating is the evidence, and it is consequently a noteworthy fact that a prodigious number of "superior people" are to be found in the pessimist ranks. Whatever, however, may be the influences which develop this form of existence, and we have admitted that intellect is not excluded, it must be owned that there is a higher sphere of duty reserved for every man than that of idle criticism and unmeasured depreciation, and that he who contributes, no matter how small the degree, to the contentment of others is a benefit to the whole human race.

FRANK RHYL THOMAS.

Miscellanea.

CONSIDERATION OF OTHERS.-Servants have so much the upper hand now-a-days that we have rather to plead for consideration from them than to give it, and perhaps it is only in lodging-houses that we see them still victims. Here, for the season, they think it worth while to endure trials of temper and unreasonable demands on their physical strength which must be educating them for communists when their time comes. The notion that they have a right to consideration used to be regarded as an impertinence. Steele in his day represents the fine lady disgusted with the dawn of such pretensions.

"The English

are so saucy with their liberty, I'll have all my lower servants French; there cannot be a good footman born out of an absolute monarchy." The modern way of showing inconsiderateness to this class is by ignoring their presence in the choice of subjects of conversation. A sense of immeasurable distance between themselves and their attendants can alone account for the carelessness with which some people utter sentiments and repeat gossip before them. It would surprise as much as it would disgust them to find their paradoxical opinions and random comments repeated verbatim an hour after in the servants' hall; they have spoken under the impression that the topics of the master and his guests are altogether above menial intelligence. But of course, choice of topics is at all times one of the great tests of this quality. Most people can be quickened into cousiderateness by selfinterest. To be treated with consideration is the privilege of wealth and greatness, while it is the lot of some never to have their existence recognised by regard for their feelings, preferences, dislikes. It does

not do to complain, as some do, of people riding rough-shod over their sensibilities, but the thing sometimes happens through mere pre-occupation with the principal figures in a group. The considerate temper ever bears in mind, not only the prominent members of a company, but the supernumereries. Nobody is insignificant enough to be left out of the reckoning. This deliberation and suspended action of thought and tongue is, it must be granted, much easier to some persons than others. The more pronounced the character the more is consideration of this subtle kind difficult, and a thing requiring a conscious effort; it is a mild virtue, meritorious in proportion to the wit and fine impulse it has to contend with. By reformers and ascetics it is discarded along with the other minor domestic virtues. It is their business to disturb every comfortable state of things. Every founder of a rule enforces his rule upon all constitutions and tempers alike; consideration would be weakness. But also it is the too common fault of family life to fail in considerateness. It is supposed that natural affection dispenses with it, as being a quality so innate that nothing can weaken it. And no doubt it does pull through some very rough encounters; but nothing can in the long run stand disregard or forgetfulness of the idiosyncracies which constitute self. The families that hold on to one another through life have always considered one another in small things as well as great. Want of tact is so like inconsiderateness in its effects that it may he regarded as a branch of our subject. We cannot, for example, say whether it is a want of tact or want of consideration that sometimes stumbles in the way of the most critical occasions of life-those touch-and-go states of feeling between man and woman which must be caught at the crisis; when, if a proposal is interrupted, a declaration strangled in the opening sentence, no after opportunity is of any avail. To judge from novels and from some actual experiences, blunderers of our present type have a great deal to answer for. Many a blighted life owes its sorrows to an inopportune intrusion or blindness to the obvious duty of keeping out of the way, or to a joke mistimed, or some other obtuseness of the moral sense. There is this difference to be observed between want of consider