not,” said a man who knew human nature well, “the sins of my youth.”  But there are men whose nature has a peculiar affinity for anything petty, mean, and bad.  They fly upon it as a vulture on carrion.  Their memory is of that cast, that you have only to make inquiry of them concerning any of their friends, to hear of something not at all to the friends’ advantage.  There are individuals, after listening to whom you think it would be a refreshing novelty, almost startling from its strangeness, to hear them say a word in favor of any human being whatsoever.

It is not a thing peculiar to immaturity; yet it may be remarked, that, though it is an unpleasant thing to look back and see that you have said or done something very foolish, it is a still more unpleasant thing to be well aware at the time that you are saying or doing something very foolish.  If a man be a fool at all, it is much to be desired that he should be a very great fool; for then he will not know when he is making a fool of himself.  But it is painful not to have sense enough to know what you should do in order to be right, but to have sense enough to know that you are doing wrong.  To know that you are talking like an ass, yet to feel that you cannot help it,—­that you must say something, and can think of nothing better to say,—­this is a suffering that comes with advanced civilization.  This is a phenomenon frequently to be seen at public dinners in country towns, also at the entertainment which succeeds a wedding.  Men at other times rational seem to be stricken into idiocy when they rise to their feet on such occasions; and the painful fact is, that it is conscious idiocy.  The man’s words are asinine, and he knows they are asinine.  His wits have entirely abandoned him:  he is an idiot for the time.  Have you sat next a man unused to speaking at a public dinner? have you seen him nervously rise and utter an incoherent, ungrammatical, and unintelligible sentence or two, and then sit down with a ghastly smile?  Have you heard him say to his friend on the other side, in bitterness, “I have made a fool of myself”?  And have you seen him sit moodily through the remainder of the feast, evidently ruminating on what he said, seeing now what he ought to have said, and trying to persuade himself that what he said was not so bad after all?  Would you do a kindness to that miserable man?  You have just heard his friend on the other side cordially agreeing with what he had said as to the badness of the appearance made by him.  Enter into conversation with him; talk of his speech; congratulate him upon it; tell him you were extremely struck by the freshness and naturalness of what he said,—­that there is something delightful in hearing an unhackneyed speaker,—­that to speak with entire fluency looks professional,—­it is like a barrister or a clergyman.  Thus you may lighten the mortification of a disappointed man; and what you say will receive considerable credence.  It is wonderful how readily people believe anything they would like to be true.