“. . . . . Most men play the fool in some way or other, and no man takes more delight in playing it than I do, in my own way. I do it well with children, and not at all with women, towards whom, like John Bunyan, ‘I cannot carry myself pleasantly,’ unless I have a great liking for them. Most men, I suspect, have different characters even among their friends,—appearing in different circles in different lights, or rather showing only parts of themselves. One’s character being teres atque rotundus, is not to be seen all at once. You must know a man all round—in all moods and all weathers—to know him well; but in the common intercourse of the world, men see each other in only one mood—see only their manners in society, and hear nothing that comes from any part lying deeper than the larynx. Many people think they are well acquainted with me who know little more of me than the cut of my jib and the sound of my voice.
“The probabilities, I think, are much against the
Durham scheme. It will not appear to them worth their
while to make it worth mine; they will consider
what, according to common prudence, they might be expected to afford; as I must
what, upon the same ground, I ought to accept. The two prudentials are
| 186 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 58. |
