of melancholy to
increase its tendency towards inaction. It is often easy to discern in
a group of children the leading characteristics of these temperaments,
the phlegmatic or lymphatic, hard or soft, not easily stirred, one
stubborn and the other yielding, both somewhat immobile, generally
straightforward and reliable, law abiding, accessible to reason, not
exposed to great dangers nor likely to reach unusual heights. Next the
sanguine, hard or soft, as hope or enjoyment have the upper hand in
them; this is the richest group in attractive power. If hope is the
stronger factor there is a fund of energy which, allied with the power
of charm and persuasion, with trustfulness in good, and optimistic
outlook on the world, wins its way and succeeds in its undertakings,
making its appeal to the will rather than to the mind. On the softer
side of this type are found the disappointing people who ought to do
well, and always fail, for whom the _joie de vivre_ carries everything
before it, who are always good natured, always obliging, always
sweet-tempered, who cannot say no, especially to themselves, whose
energy is exhausted in a very short burst of effort, though ever ready
to direct itself into some new channel for as brief a trial. The
characters which remain "characters of great promise" to the end of
their days, great promise doomed to be always unfulfilled. Of all
characters, these are perhaps the most disappointing; they have so
much in their favour, and the one thing wanting, steadiness of
purpose, renders useless their most beautiful gifts. These two groups
seem to be the most common among the Teutons and Celts of Northern
Europe with fair colouring and tall build; perhaps the other two types
are correspondingly more numerous among the Latin races. They are
choleric, ambitious, or self-isolated, as the cast of their mind is
eager or scornful and generally capable of dissimulation; the world is
not large enough for their Bonapartes. But if bitterness and sadness
predominate, they are carried on an ebbing tide towards pessimism and
contemptuous weariness of life; their soft type, in so far as they
have one, has the softness of powder, dry and crushed, rather than
that of a living organism. In children, this type, fortunately rare,
has not the charm or joy of childhood, but shows a restless straining
after some self-centred excellence, and a coldness of affection which
indicates the isolation towards which it is carried i