STUPID REPORT.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 281, 16 February 1878, Page 4

STUPID REPORT.

A stupid man can generally do some one thing fairly well. He can often save money, and is sometimes gifted with a talent for slnoting, fishing, rowing, sketching, yachting, preaching, turning a lathe, or playing the cornopean. The misfortune of this is thnfc ho imagines from his success in one particular that ho is equally capable in all. But, except in his own peculiar likes and dislikes, he is not fastidious. If he does not care for good wine, he despises the man who cannot drink marsala. If he is not musical, he professes to enjoy a street organ, fees the grinder, sneers at people who dislike the noise, and openly announces his belief that Beethoven is dull and Wagner a humbug. If he is fond of town he rails at the country. If ho likes the country, he wonders how a man can be such a fool as to live in town. He makes no allowance for other people's tastes, but measureseverything by himself. The man who is taller than he must be a giant; the man who is shorter, a dwarf. His house, his furniture, his religion, his wife, his children his pursuits, his prejudices are the standards by which everyone else's are mensured. In dress he is likely to adopt some costume and wear it always, at home or abroad. To stupid people, indeed, we are indebted for all our permanent institutions, and it was one of the class who invented the widow's cap. He associates doubtful morals with doubtful ways of dressing the hair, and would rather see his,daughter in her coffin than wearing high heeled shoes. He reads little, and on the whole prefers dull books, Thackeray being his great literary enemy. It is to attract him that novels are written without character, story, or plot. . He reads his newspaper aloud after dinner, and believes everything in it if it is of his own political creed ; but if it is of a different party, he does not even believe the announcements of deaths. He is often very kind to the ( sick, but makes a bad nurse, always arguing with the patient, although he considers him, like all sick people, insane and wandering in his mind. He therefore consults the patient's wishes as little as the doctor's, and constantly hints that the one is giving interested advice, and that the other is feigning illness. He never gives medicine more than one trial, but sometimes takes two or three rival bottles at the same time, and is curious in patent pills and digestive lozenges. He is often very careful about measuring doses, and is a famous hand at dropping, but never remembers how many spoonfuls to give, and whether to shake the bottle. He loses his presence of mind before danger, has never forethought to smooth things likely to go wrong, and is always ready to takerefuge in a kind of fatalism, which sometimes relies on Providence, and sometimes asserts the immutability of Impossible. ....

When he is in love he affords a pleasing spectacle to the student of character. It is a matter of religion with him that a man falls in love but once, and that it is a duty, moral and social, to marry the supposed object of his sole passion. How ho identifies her is unknown, or how he knows when fate has so irrevocably marked him down; but when the hour and the woman are, he straightway submits with an air of touching resignation. To suppose he had any choice in the matter would to him be little short of blasphemy. Yet fate has overtaken him with a good fortune, and frequently marks him down to an heiress. Impressed perhaps by the thought that he is about to give hostages, and, so to speak, to invest on the security of his country, he goes about his love-making seriously, and as if for the lime being he became a public character. Although he seldom takes you into his confidence for fear of being laughed at, he marks the progress of his suit towards success or failure by a visible change of demeanour, and expects you to share in his elation or depression. When letters do not come, or come and are unfavorable, the whole house suffers. He is gloomy, silent, looks fixedly before him at meals, kicks the chair because he has tumbled over it, stirs the fire savagely, and mutters audible curses at any trifling annoynnce. By such means doe's lie betray his emotion, and testify to the depth of his affection. He makes you take an interest in the progress of his suit against your will; but you must not in any way allude to the existence of an engagement, nor hint at the cause of his visible uneasiness. When things go well it is even worse; he is almost less agreeable than when they go badly. He is in a kind of trance, during which he performs his vital functions, as it were, unconsciously nnd mechanically. He

never hears a question till it has been repeated, sometimes twice, and answers with a vncanl simile, us if nothing you say can be of tho slightest, importance compared to the fiict iliat Mtttiklu still is true. His love-letters nro slowly composed and written in public, and ho looks daggers at everyone who cornea into the room while he is engaged in their compilation. When the envelope is at last closed, ) fou may recognise tiie letter by its being placed among the o hers with the address down, ns if everyone in the. house did not know it perfectly, and had not suffered until it was added. Yet such men turn into excellent husbands and lathers. Their idea of duty is limited, but they act up to ifc to the best of their moderate ability. As they grow older, they do not learn anything from experience, but rather confirm themselves in small peculiarities, and will boast that for thirty years they have eaten a boiled egg at breakfast, though they dislike boiled eggs; or have dealt with the same shoemaker, though it is evident he never fitted them ; or have attended the magistrates' meetings, though they have never spoken in that august assembly; or have subscribed to the hounds, though they never hunt. Thus they are admirable alike in all the relations of life, and die universally lamented by all who did not know them. If stupid men, in short, were not so positive, they would rank among the benefactors of mankind, even if only because they form the social padding without which the world would soon cease to move. —Saturday Ueview.