WHAT

ONLY TEMPER.

HAT is temper? Its primary meaning, the proportion and mode in which qualities are mingled, is much neglected in popular speech, yet even here the word often carries a reference to an habitual state or general tendency of the organism, in distinction from what are held to be specific virtues and vices. As people confess to bad memory without expecting to sink in mental reputation, so we hear a man declared to have a bad temper, and yet glorified as the possessor of every high quality. When he errs, or in any way commits himself, his temper is accused, not his character; and it is understood that, but for a brutal, bearish mood, he is kindness itself. If he kicks small animals, swears violently at a servant who mistakes orders, or is grossly rude to his wife, it is remarked apologetically that these things mean nothing they are all temper.

Certainly there is a limit to this form of apology, and the forgery of a bill, or the ordering of goods without any prospect of paying for them, has never been set down to an unfortunate habit of sulkiness or of irascibility. But, on the whole, there is a peculiar exercise of indulgence toward the manifestations of bad temper, which tends to encourage them, so that we are in danger of having among us a number of virtuous persons who conduct themselves detestably, just as we have hysterical patients who, with sound organs, are apparently laboring under many sorts of organic disease. Let it be admitted, however, that a man may be "a good fellow" and yet have a bad temper, so bad that we recog nize his merits with reluctance, and are inclined to resent

his occasionally amiable behavior as an unfair demand on our admiration.

Touchwood is that kind of good fellow. He is by turns insolent, quarrelsome, repulsively haughty to innocent people who approach him with respect, neglectful of his friends, angry in face of legitimate demands, procrastinating in the fulfilment of such demands, prompted to rude words and harsh looks by a moody disgust with his fellow-men in general and yet, as everybody will assure you, the soul of honor, a steadfast friend, a defender of the oppressed, an affectionate-hearted creature. Pity that, after a certain experience of his moods, his intimacy becomes insupportable! A man who uses his balmorals to tread on your toes with much frequency, and an unmistakable emphasis, may prove a fast friend in adversity; but meanwhile your adversity has not arrived, and your toes are tender. The daily sneer or growl at your remarks is not to be made amends for by a possible eulogy, or defence of your understanding against depreciators who may not present themselves, and on an occasion which may never arise. I cannot submit to a chronic state of blue and green bruise as a form of insurance against an accident.

Touchwood's bad temper is of the contradicting, pugnacious sort. He is the honorable gentleman in opposition, whatever proposal or proposition may be broached; and when others join him, he secretly damns their superfluous agreement, quickly discovering that his way of stating the case is not exactly theirs. An invitation, or any sign of expectation, throws him into an attitude of refusal. Ask his concurrence in a benevolent measure; he will not decline to give it, be.. cause he has a real sympathy with good aims, but he complies resentfully; though where he is let alone, he will do much more than any one would have thought of asking for. No man would shrink with greater sensitiveness from the imputation of not paying his debts; yet when a bill is sent in with any promptitude, he is inclined to make the tradesman wait for the money he is in such a hurry to get. One sees

that this antagonistic temper must be much relieved by finding a particular object, and that its worst moments must be those where the mood is that of vague resistance, there being nothing specific to oppose. Touchwood is never so little engaging as when he comes down to breakfast with a cloud on his brow, after parting from you the night before with an affectionate effusiveness, at the end of a confidential conversation, which has assured you of mutual understanding. Im possible that you can have committed any offence! If mice have disturbed him, that is not your fault; but, nevertheless, your cheerful greeting had better not convey any reference to the weather; else it will be met by a sneer which, taking you unawares, may give you a crushing sense that you make a poor figure with your cheerfulness, which was not asked for. Some daring person perhaps introduces another topic, and uses the delicate flattery of appealing to Touchwood for his opinion, the topic being included in his favorite studies. An indistinct muttering, with a look at the carving-knife, in reply, teaches that daring person how ill he has chosen a market for his deference. If Touchwood's behavior affects you very closely, you had better break your leg in the course of the day his bad temper will then vanish at once; he will take a painful journey on your behalf; he will sit up with you night after night; he will do all the work of your department, so as to save you from any loss in consequence of your accident; he will be even uniformly tender to you till you are well on your legs again, when he will some fine morning insult you without provocation, and make you wish that his generous goodness to you had not closed your lips against

retort.

It is not always necessary that a friend should break his leg for Touchwood to feel compunction, and endeavor to make amends for his bearishness or insolence. He becomes spontaneously conscious that he has misbehaved, and he is not only ashamed of himself, but has the better prompting to try and heal any wound he has inflicted. Unhappily, the habit of being offensive "without meaning it" leads usually to a

way of making amends which the injured person cannot but regard as a being amiable without meaning it. The kindnesses, the complimentary indications or assurances, are apt to appear in the light of a penance adjusted to the foregoing lapses, and, by the very contrast they offer, call up a keener memory of the wrong they atone for. They are not a spontaneous prompting of good-will, but an elaborate compensation. And, in fact, Dion's atoning friendliness has a ring of artificiality. Because he formerly disguised his good feeling toward you, he now expresses more than he quite feels. It is in vain. Having made you extremely uncomfortable last week, he has absolutely diminished his power of making you happy to-day. He struggles against the result by excessive effort; but he has taught you to observe his fitfulness, rather than to be warmed by his episodic show of regard.

I suspect that many persons who have an uncertain, incalculable temper, flatter themselves that it enhances their fascination; but perhaps they are under the prior mistake of exaggerating the charm which they suppose to be thus strengthened; in any case, they will do well not to trust in the attractions of caprice and moodiness for a long continuance or for close intercourse. A pretty woman may fan the flame of distant adorers by harassing them; but if she lets one of them make her his wife, the point of view from which he will look at her poutings and tossings, and mysterious inability to be pleased, will be seriously altered. And if slavery to a pretty woman, which seems among the least conditional forms of abject service, will not bear too great a strain from her bad temper, even though her beauty remain the same, it is clear that a man whose claims lie in his high character, or high performances, had need impress us very constantly with his peculiar value and indispensableness, if he is to test our patience by an uncertainty of temper which leaves us absolutely without grounds for guessing how he will receive our persons or humbly advanced opinions, or what line he will take on any but the most momentous occasions.

For it is among the repulsive effects of this bad temper,

which is supposed to be compatible with shining virtues, that it is apt to determine a man's sudden adhesion to an opinion, whether on a personal or impersonal matter, without leaving him time to consider his grounds. The adhesion is sudden and momentary, but it either forms a precedent for his line of thought and action, or it is presently seen to have been inconsistent with his true mind. This determination of partisanship by temper has its worst effects in the career of the public man, who is always in danger of getting so enthralled by his own words that he looks into facts and questions, not to get rectifying knowledge, but to get evidence that will justify his actual attitude, which was assumed under an impulse dependent on something else than knowledge. There has been plenty of insistence on the evil of swearing by the words of a master, and having the judgment uniformly controlled by a "He said it;" but a much worse woe to befall a man is to have every judgment controlled by an "I said it"

to make a divinity of his own short-sightedness or passionled aberration, and explain the world in its honor. There is hardly a more pitiable degradation than this, for a man of high gifts. Hence I cannot join with those who wish that Touchwood, being young enough to enter on public life, should get elected for Parliament, and use his excellent abilities to serve his country in that conspicuous manner. For hitherto, in the less momentous incidents of private life, his capricious temper has only produced the minor evil of inconsistency, and he is even greatly at ease in contradicting himself, provided he can contradict you, and disappoint any smiling expectation you may have shown that the impressions you are uttering are likely to meet with his sympathy, considering that the day before he himself gave you the example which your mind is following. He is at least free from those fetters of self-justification which are the curse of parliamentary speaking; and what I rather desire for him is that he should produce the great book which he is generally pronounced capable of writing, and put his best self imperturbably on record for the advantage of society; because I should then have steady ground