To the same class may be referred
the persona who lay themselves out for saying disagreeable things, the
"candid friends" of Canning, the "people who speak their mind," who form
such pests of society. To find fault is to right-feeling men a very
painful thing; but some take to the work with avidity and delight. And
while people of cultivation shrink, with a delicate intuition, from
saying any thing which may give pain or cause uneasiness to others,
there are others who are ever painfully treading upon the moral corns of
all around them. Sometimes this is done designedly: as by Mr. Snarling,
who by long practice has attained the power of hinting and insinuating,
in the course of a forenoon call, as many unpleasant things as may
germinate into a crop of ill-tempers and worries which shall make the
house at which he called uncomfortable all that day. Sometimes it
is done unawares, as by Mr. Boor, who, through pure ignorance and
coarseness, is always bellowing out things which it is disagreeable
to some one, or to several, to hear. Which was it, I wonder, Boor or
Snarling, who once reached the dignity of the mitre, and who at prayers
in his house uttered this supplication on behalf of a lady visitor who
was kneeling beside him: "Bless our friend, Mrs.
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