Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/331

 really has, and gives him something else in the room of it which he knows he has not. He leaves it to the world to find out his deficiency in that point; if he can but hide from men's eyes whatever it is he envies him for, he is satisfied. "The next character I am to give you is that of a man who has such strong sensations of everything that he is, as Mr. Pope finely says, 'Tremblingly alive all o'er.' His inclinations hurry him away, and his resolution is too weak ever to resist them. When he is with any one he loves, and tenderness is uppermost, he is melted into a softness equal to that of a fond mother with her smiling infant at her breast. On the other hand, if he either has, or fancies he has, the least cause for anger, he is, for the present, perfectly furious, and values not what he says or does to the person he imagines his enemy; but the moment this passion subsides, the least submission entirely blots the offence from his memory. "He is of a very forgiving temper; but the worst is, he forgives himself with full as much ease as he does another, and this makes him have too little guard over his actions. He designs no ill, and wishes to be virtuous; but if any virtue interferes with his inclinations, he is overborne by the torrent, and does not deliberate a moment which to choose. "Confer an obligation on him, and he is over' whelmed with thankfulness and gratitude; and this not at all owing to dissimulation, for he does not express half he feels. But this idea soon gives place to others; and then do anything which is in the least disagreeable to him, and he immediately sets his buaginationimagination [sic] (which is very strong) to work to lessen all you have done for him, and his whole mind is possessed by what he thinks your present ill-behaviour. "He has often put me in mind of a story I once heard of a fellow who, accidentally falling into the