BORES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9369, 11 February 1909, Page 7

BORES.

A bore has been happily defined as “a man who will talk about himself when you want to talk about “yourself, ” In New York it has lately become the fashion to call bores “bromides,” and people who are not bores “sulphites.” It would be a good thing if the use of the second term were to be generally adopted, for the language is without a name for the person that is not a bore. The Spectator, in discussing the various types of bores, wonders if bores can improve. Oan they shake off their deadly power; oan a ‘ ‘ bromide” become a “sulphite.” With characteristic optimism the Spec* tator thinks that the disease is perhaps curable in its earlier stages oy the will-power of the patienjb. But how many bores ever realise that they are bores? Sometimes a person says, laughingly, of a visit: “What a long time w« stayed. I’m sure we must have bored them,” but this kind of person is not the true bore. A Londoner who had the reputation of being the greatest bore in Clubland, spent a holiday at a house close to the residence of Ruskin. When he returned to London he reported that Ruskin was in a melancholy state. “I was walking one day in the lane which separated Ruskin’s house from mine, andjj £ saw him coming down >the lane towards me. The moment be oangbt sight of me he darted into a wood which was close by, and hid behind a tree till I had passed. Oh, very sad indeed.” No doubt every man to whom this experience was related wished that there was a wood in which he could take refuge when A appeared. Few of us have the readiness and courage of Browning, who, a after submitting to a long interrogation about his poetry from a fellow-guest at a friend’s house, put an end to his ordeal by rising and saying, in a delightfully sincere tone: “My dear sir, this will never ao. I am monopolising you.” Someone said that man’s realisation of his littleness was proof of hia greatness. Similarly if we Wish to be classed as “sulphites,” wc must first realise that there comes a time, or times, in everybody’s life,, when he is a bore.