he
had some knowledge of drawing, to afford from memory a tolerable
sketch of such a familiar object as his curtain, his carpet, or his
dressing-gown, if the pattern of either be at all various or irregular;
yet he will instantly tell, with precision, either if his snuff or his
wine has not the same character it had yesterday, though both these are
compounds.

'Beyond all this I may observe, that a draper who is in the daily habit
of such comparisons cannot carry in his mind the particular shade of
a colour during a second of time; and has no certainty of tolerably
matching two simple colours, except by placing the patterns in
contact.'(2)

I will conclude the subject of this Essay with observing that (as it
appears to me) a nearer and more familiar acquaintance with persons has
a different and more favourable effect than that with places or things.
The latter improve (as an almost universal rule) by being removed to a
distance: the former, generally at least, gain by being brought nearer
and more home to us. Report or imagination seldom raises any individual
so high in our estimation as to disappoint us greatly when we are
introduced to him: prejudice and malice constantly exaggerate defects
beyond the reality. Ignorance alone makes monsters or bugbears: our
actual acquaintances are all very commonplace people. The thing is, that
as a matter of hearsay or conjecture, we make abstractions of particular
vices, and irritate ourselves against some particular quality or action
of the person we dislike: whereas individuals are concrete existences,
not arbitrary denominations or nicknames; and have innumerable other
qualities, good, bad, and indifferent, besides the damning feature with
which we fill up the portrait or caricature in our previous fancies. We
can scarcely hate any one that we know. An acute observer complained,
that if there was any one to whom he had a particular spite, and a wish
to let him see it, the moment he came to sit down with him his enmity
was disarmed by some unforeseen circumstance. If it was a Quarterly
Reviewer, he was in other respects like any other man. Suppose, again,
your adversary turns out a very ugly man, or wants an eye, you are
baulked in that way: he is not what you expected, the object of your
abstract hatred and implacable disgust. He may be a very disagreeable
person, but he is no longer the same. If you come into a room where a
man is, you find, in general, that he has a nose u