- “Under every changing influence of time and climate, of institutions, and opinions, and manners, Mind, with all its shades of difference, is the same”
I. The Dissembler §
- Every word, and every action of the Dissembler is an artifice by which he labors to conceal some evil intention.
- He professes not to have observed what passed before his eyes.
- A man in whose manners there is no simplicity, and whose every word seems to have been studied, is more to be shunned than a viper.
II. The Adulator §
- Adulation is the base converse of an inferior with one from whom he seeks some sordid advantage.
- Stooping forward, he whispers in his patron’s ear; or while, speaking to others, he rolls his eyes on his patron.
- You will find such a fellow willing to say or to do anything by which he may hope to curry favor.
III. The Garrulous §
- Garrulity is an effusion of prolix and unpremeditated discourse.
- If you will bear with him, he will never let you go.
- It is hard to consort with those who have no perception of what is proper either to moments of relaxation, or to hours of business.
IV. The Rustic §
- Rusticity is the unconsciousness of things indecorous.
- He admires nothing that is beautiful; he is affected by nothing that is sublime.
V. The Plausible §
- He who would fain please all the world is one who habitually sacrifices virtues to blandishments.
- All that he does, that when he enters the hall, one of the spectators may say to another, “That is the master of the house.”
VI. The Ruffian §
- The Ruffian is distinguished by the recklessness with which he perpetrates or witnesses atrocities.
- He delights to make the full display of his mad insolence
- Men of this sort, whose throats are sewers, flowing with scurrility, and who make taverns and markets resound with their brawling, are the most troublesome of all public nuisances.
VII. The Loquacious §
- Loquacity is an incontinence of the tongue.
- He seizes on every opportunity of talking so that one who would confer with him knows not when to take breath.
- A man of this sort puts a stop alike to business and to pleasure. He will frankly confess that it is hard for a talker to hold his peace.
VIII. The Fabricator of News §
- It is to gratify his love of the marvelous, that this man spends his life in the invention and propagation of falsehoods.
- They not only lie, but they lie most unprofitably to themselves. They have no other business than to promulgate idle tales, by which to afflict the ears of all they meet.
IX. The Sordid §
- That man is justly called a lover of filthy lucre to whom the relish and value of a gain is enhanced by the baseness of the means that have been employed in its acquisition.
- He exacts discount from a servant.
- He is ever borrowing those petty articles from his friends which no one would choose to ask or again; and for which, if payment were offered, it would hardly be received.
X. The Shameless §
- The union of avarice and audacity produces a total disregard of decency and reputation.
- A man of this temper is not ashamed to ask a loan of one whom he has just defrauded.
XI. The Parsimonious §
- Parsimony is an excessive and unreasonable sparing of expense.
- You may see the coffers of such a fellow covered with mold.
XII. The Impure §
- This man is everywhere to be known by the open and scandalous grossness of his manners — he willfully offends the eye of modesty.
XIII. The Blunderer §
- He whose words and actions, though they may be well-intended, are never well timed.
- The Blunderer, having some affair on which he wishes to confer with his friend, calls at the very hour when he is most busily engaged.
- Should he be chosen to arbitrate between parties who wish to be reconciled, he will, by his bungling interference, set them at variance again.
XIV. The Busybody §
- In the proffered services of the Busybody, there is much of the affectation of kind-heartedness, and little efficient aid.
- He undertakes a part that greatly exceeds his ability.
XV. The Stupid §
- There is a sluggishness of mind in some persons which occasions them perpetually to stumble into absurdities of language or behavior.
- He is unable to find what he himself has hid. Instead of a serious reply, he will give you an absurd jest.
XVI. The Morose §
- A malignant temper sometimes vents itself chiefly in the ferocity of language.
- The man whose tongue is thus at war with all the world cannot reply to the simplest inquiry except by some rejoinder as “Trouble not me with your questions” nor will he return a civil salutation.
- It is a man of this spirit who dares to live without offering supplications to heaven.
XVII. The Superstitious §
- Superstition is a desponding fear of divinities.
- As often as he has a dream, he runs to the interpreter, the soothsayer, or the augur, to inquire what god or goddess he ought to propitiate.
XVIII. The Petulant §
- A petulant temper will make occasion, where it cannot find reason, for murmurings and rebukes.
- He quarrels with heaven, not because it rains, but because it came too late.
- “How can I be joyful, seeing that all this money must be repaid: and that ever I must owe each of you a debt of gratitude”.
XIX. The Suspicious §
- The suspicious man imputes a fraudulent intention to every one whom he has to do.
XX. The Filthy §
- This fellow neglects his person until he becomes a nuisance to all about him.
- He is altogether an unapproachable, and most unsavory personage. His manners are like his appearance.
XXI. The Disagreeable §
- It is perhaps easier to bear with a neighbor, from whom we occasionally receive some serious injury, than with a constant companion whose conversation is tedious, and whose manners are unpleasing.
XXII. The Vain §
- When ambition is the ruling passion of a vulgar mind, it shows itself in the eager pursuit of frivolous distinctions.
- The vain and vulgar man strives always to gain a place at table next to the master of the feast.
- Clad in the robes of ceremony, he walks about in this form.
XXIII. The Penurious §
- He who would rather expose himself to contempt than incur a trifling expense deserves not to be called frugal but penurious.
- The penurious man will save a paltry sum on occasions which bring his sordid temper under general observation.
XXIX. The Ostentatious §
- The absurd vanity of the purse-proud man leads him to make as many false pretensions to wealth as the veriest knave who lives by seeming to be what he is not.
- He talks of the rich cargos which he pretends to have on the seas
XXV. The Proud §
- The proud man regards the whole human race with contempt; himself excepted.
- He is never the first to accept any man.
XXVI. The Fearful §
- There is in some men a constitutional dejection of the spirits, which renders them liable to the constant tyranny of fear. The diseased imagination of the fearful man seems to obscure his perceptions.
- In truth, he will do anything rather than face the enemy.
XXVII. The Old Trifler §
- This foolish fellow, although he is tiresome, would fain distinguish himself in accomplishments and exercises proper only to youth.
- He undertakes to fiddle and dance to his own tune.
XXVIII. The Detractor §
- The Detractor utters not a word that does not betray the malignancy of his soul.
- The moment any one leaves the company, the Detractor fails not to introduce some tale to his advantage. He will even speak ill of the dead.
XXIX. The Oligarch §
- An arrogant desire to dominate over his fellows appears in the opinions, the conduct, and the manners of this partisan of despotism.
- He heartily hates demagogues. He could not think the city habitable until the mass of the people should be expelled from it.
- “One is enough. Think not here allow’d that worst of tyrants, an usurping crowd”.
XXX. The Malignant §
- Some men love and pursue evil, purely for its own sake, with an eager relish. A man of this temper seeks his element amid the turbulences of public life.
- He thinks to become at once thoroughly practiced in mischief. The good he defames and persecutes, the bad alone he applauds.
- “So goes the world, there is no such thing as an honest man; that all are knaves alike.”
- He is the true demagogue, ever ready to head a licentious mob.
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