DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE.

Grey River Argus, Issue 125, 30 October 1866, Page 3

DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE.

(From the London Jiei'ww.) Good breeding has boon aptly defined as tip culture of surface-Christianity, and, in truth, there i>- a mojuil element in good manners quite independent of conventional etiquette. For example, a true, gentleman will carefully avoid all occasions of olfence to others in his conversation, and although lie may utterly dissent from them in opinion, he will express that fact iii a way which will leave- none of his heavers uneasy or mortiticd. That this may bo done is apparent from the fact that staunch friendships have existed, and arc constantly mainlainet]., between people of thoroughly opposite views and aims in life. Puit with disagreeable people, to differ from a man is first to offend and then to dislike him. Their opinions are bigoted, and while they flatter themselves on their singorijiy, they are simply insolent. Sometimes the" affront comos in such a form that to take open notice of it, would be apparently ungracious. A friendly rebuke is not pleasant, but it is nothing to the humiliation one experiences in receiving a favor from uncotirteons hands. There are some men whose civilities are intolerable, who comply with you? request in a manner which makes you wish you had .bitten your tongue before making it, and who contrive to turn that which should be a sense of honest gratitude into one of painful obligation. It is the misfortune of many well-intentioned and respectable members of society to bo clis: agreeable without knowing it. These are clumsy, shambling, awkward creatures, for over treading on the moral sensibilities of their fellow men, just saying quite the wrong tiling at the most exactly wrong time, and not leaving undone those things which they ought to have done, but doing on every occasion, ;md on every variety of circumstance, precisely what they should have avoided — all with the best wishes in the world, and if anybody is offended, who can say it is their fault / Tho same kind of obtuscuess which allows a man to go on dropping h's along tlie path of life, shoveling peas into his mouth with a steel blade, and committing a thousand and one practical improprieties, which if he only used his eyes and ears, he would find slv^vhed by those around him — this iderj>|p/sfciipidity and want of tact prevent him from feeling that his manner is a disagreeable one. Another fruitful source of the same evil is vanity. Stuclc-up people, whatever their pretensions may bo, whether moral, intellectual, or social, are sure to bo disagreeable. The modern Pharisee, who, with an assumed contempt of the world, yet lives in it, and by it ; the pedant whose life has been so completely given up to study that ho ha 3 never had time 1o cultivate the affections; the parvenu whom fate and a long purse have suddenly raised to prosperity ; all these are more or Jess likely to be ranked as "disagreeable" people. Vulgar patronage, cringing deference, freezing reserve, and insolent familiarity — who has not suffered from these various types of an evil whose effect on ourselves we tamely describe as "disagreeable?" There is another class of persons who, without absolutely deserving this epithet, are what one might call (if there Avas such a word in the English language) " unagreeable" people. The unagreeable man is apathetic on all subjects, has no opinion of, his own, and doesn't care to know that of any one else. He hears criticisms passed on the last new novel and is silent ; the merits of a popular picture are discussed, and he yawns ; the coversation turns to the drama, and he goes to sleep. He doesn't quarrel with you, lie doesn't agree with you ; he is simply a nonentity, and. his great object in life is to.be laft alone. Our unagreeable friend may be — indeed frequently is— a very amiable follow, but from not interesting liimself about anybody or anything in particular he fails to interest us himself. There is an old Italian proverb, "Tanto buon che val niente," and lie is just good enough to be go .id for nothing. To i - e vert, however, to the "disagreeables," it Ayould seem astonishing °that they should'be sp numerous when it is. to the manifest interest of ever\' individual member of society to be civil to those around him. Men are neither physically nor mentally constituted alike, and just as, from the days of Adam, no two faces have ever been perfectly similar, so we may be sure that no two hearts were ever cast precisely in the same mould. We might illustrate our inference by a mathematical' simile.. The majority of characters "will always present a diversified aspect, but, of oach moral polygon, one side alone will correspond Avith another particular sido : of the multilateral .figure Avhich lies next it. It often takes endless changes before this concidencc can be ascertained, and sometimes life itself is too short for the experiment. But occasionally success attends an early trial, and the result is called — friendship.