condition,
called by moral physicians--"CONTENTMENT."

"Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content--
The quiet mind is richer than a crown;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent--
The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown.
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy when princes oft do miss.

The homely house that harbours quiet rest,
The cottage that affords no pride nor care,
The mean that 'grees with country music best,
That sweet consort of Mirth's and Music's fare.
Obscured life sits down a type of bliss;
A mind content both crown and kingdom is."

XIX.

_THE EGOTIST._

"What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?"
SHAKESPEARE.

"For none more likes to hear himself converse."
BYRON.

This is a talker whose chief aim is the exhibition of himself in terms
and phrases too fulsome and frequent for the pleasure of his hearers.
_I_ was, _I_ am, _I_ shall be, _I_ have, etc., are the pronouns and
verbs which he chiefly employs. He is all _I_. I is the representative
letter of his name, his person, his speech, and his actions. There is
nothing greater in the universe to him than that of which _I_ is the
type. There is not a more essential letter in the English alphabet to
him than the letter _I_. Destroy this, and he would be disabled in his
conversation; he would lose the only emblem which he has to set himself
off before the eyes of people. He is nothing and can do nothing without
_I_. This stands out in an embossed form, which may be felt by the blind
man, as well as be seen by those who have eyesight. If you tell him of
an interesting circumstance in which a friend of yours was placed,
"_I_" is sure to be the beginning of a similar story concerning himself.
Speak of some success which your friend has made in trade or commerce,
and "_I_" will be the commencement of something similar, in which he has
been more successful. You can inform him of nothing, but "_I_" is
associated with what is equal or far superior. Were one required to give
an etymology of the egotist, it would be in the words of the Rev. J. B.
Owen: "One of those gluttonous parts of speech that gulp down every
substantive in social grammar into its personal pronoun, condensing all
the tenses and moods of othe