ly had
the pain. Otherwise, they are to me as if they had never existed; nor
should I know that I had ever thought at all, but that I am reminded of
it by the strangeness of my appearance, and my unfitness for everything
else. Look in Coleridge's face while he is talking. His words are such
as might 'create a soul under the ribs of death.' His face is a blank.
Which are we to consider as the true index of his mind? Pain, languor,
shadowy remembrances, are the uneasy inmates there: his lips move
mechanically!

There are people that we do not like, though we may have known them
long, and have no fault to find with them, 'their appearance, as we
say, is so much against them.' That is not all, if we could find it out.
There is, generally, a reason for this prejudice; for nature is true
to itself. They may be very good sort of people too, in their way, but
still something is the matter. There is a coldness, a selfishness, a
levity, an insincerity, which we cannot fix upon any particular phrase
or action, but we see it in their whole persons and deportment. One
reason that we do not see it in any other way may be, that they are all
the time trying to conceal this defect by every means in their power.
There is, luckily, a sort of _second sight_ in morals: we discern
the lurking indications of temper and habit a long while before their
palpable effects appear. I once used to meet with a person at an
ordinary, a very civil, good-looking man in other respects, but with
an odd look about his eyes, which I could not explain, as if he saw you
under their fringed lids, and you could not see him again: this man
was a common sharper. The greatest hypocrite I ever knew was a little,
demure, pretty, modest-looking girl, with eyes timidly cast upon the
ground, and an air soft as enchantment; the only circumstance that could
lead to a suspicion of her true character was a cold, sullen, watery,
glazed look about the eyes, which she bent on vacancy, as if determined
to avoid all explanation with yours. I might have spied in their
glittering, motionless surface the rocks and quicksands that awaited
me below! We do not feel quite at ease in the company or friendship
of those who have any natural obliquity or imperfection of person.
The reason is, they are not on the best terms with themselves, and are
sometimes apt to play off on others the tricks that nature has played
them. This, however, is a remark that, perhaps, ought not to have been
ma