The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 531 pages of information about The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant.

The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 531 pages of information about The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant.

Tempting, or Wheedling, expresses itself much in the same way, only carrying the fawning part to excess.

Promising is expressed with benevolent looks, the nod of consent, and the open hands gently moved towards the person to whom the promise is made, the palms upwards.  The sincerity of the promiser may be expressed by laying the right hand gently on the breast.

Affectation displays itself in a thousand different gestures, motions, airs and looks, according to the character which the person affects.  Affectation of learning gives a stiff formality to the whole person.  The words come stalking out with the pace of a funeral procession, and every sentence has the solemnity of an oracle.  Affectation of piety turns up the goggling whites of the eyes to heaven, as if the person were in a trance, and fixes them in that posture so long that the brain of the beholder grows giddy.  Then comes up, deep grumbling, a holy groan from the lower parts of the thorax; but so tremendous in sound, and so long protracted, that you expect to see a goblin rise, like an exhalation through the solid earth.  Then he begins to rock from side to side, or backward and forward, like an aged pine on the side of a hill, when a brisk wind blows.  The hands are clasped together, and often lifted, and the head often shaken with foolish vehemence.  The tone of the voice is canting, or sing-song lullaby, not much distant from an Irish howl, and the words godly doggrell.  Affectation of beauty, and killing, puts a fine woman by turns into all sorts of forms, appearances and attitudes, but amiable ones.  She undoes by art, or rather by aukwardness, (for true art conceals itself) all that nature had done for her.  Nature formed her almost an angel, and she, with infinite pains, makes herself a monkey.  Therefore, this species of affectation is easily imitated, or taken off.  Make as many and as ugly grimaces, motions and gestures as can be made, and take care that nature never peep out, and you represent coquetish affectation to the life.

Sloth appears by yawning, dosing, snoring; the head dangling sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other; the arms and legs stretched out, and every sinew of the body unstrung; the eyes heavy, or closed; the words, if any, crawl out of the mouth but half formed, scarcely audible to any ear, and broken off in the middle by powerful sleep.

People who walk in their sleep (of which our inimitable Shakespear has, in his tragedy of MACBETH, drawn out a fine scene) are said to have their eyes open; though they are not, the more for that, conscious of any thing, but the dream which has got possession of their imagination.  I never saw one of those persons, therefore cannot describe their manner from nature; but I suppose their speech is pretty much like that of persons dreaming, inarticulate, incoherent, and very different, in its tone, from what it is when waking.

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The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.