To be “blue” was his normal condition.  His sky was always cloudy, and with this was mingled a disposition of weariness which turned him with disgust from all familiar objects.  With him “familiarity bred contempt.”  One day when his psychological temperament was somewhat below normal the pent up thunder in him exploded and the lightning was terrible: 

“Here I am rooted to one spot,” he said, “fossilized, stagnant, wasting away, dead to the whole world except this one little acre.  And what is there here?  Streets, buildings, trees, fences, hills, water.  Nothing out of the ordinary; and so familiar, they have become hateful.  Why, everything in the environment breeds weariness, monotony, a painfully disgusting sameness.  The same things morning, noon and night, year after year.  Why, the very names of the people here give me nervous prostration.  Just think—­Cummings, Huston, Sanson, Austin, Ward, McAbee, Hobson, Bailey, Smith, Black, Brown, White—­Bah! the sound of them is like rumors of a plague.  I want to flee from them.  I want to hear new names ringing in my ears.  And I hate the faces no less than I do the names.  I would rather live on a prairie where you expect nothing; and get it—­anything so long as it is new.”

Now, that which is hereditary with the flesh cannot be a crime.  The victim is more to be pitied in his ancestral misfortune, and the monkey from which our hero sprang must have been somewhat cosmopolitan.

Of course his wife had heard such outbreaks of insanity from him before, so she only laughed, thinking to humor him back to earth again with her love and smiles.

“Conditions are not so bad in Bruce county as you paint them,” she said, “and if you do not go about sniffing the air you will not find so many obnoxious perfumes.  Why, I love the locality; and I like the people.  And I like you, and my home; and I am perfectly satisfied with everything.  Things might be a great deal worse.  You should have no complaint to make.  You have a steady situation, a good master, a beautiful home, plenty to eat—­and then you have me,” she exclaimed, as though her presence should atone for all else in the world that he did not have.  And perhaps a treasure of this kind should have been a valuable asset, and an antidote against all mere mundane cares.

“Look out through the parlor door,” she continued.  “Could anything be more beautiful?  The sun is just setting.  The lake is asleep.  See the reflection of the trees beneath its surface.  How peaceful, how restful!  My mind is just like the lake—­perfectly at ease.  Why do you not control your storm and calm down like the lake?  Look at the tall shadows of the contented firs reaching away out across its bosom.  How like a dream.”

“Bah!  Don’t mention lake to me.  I hate the sight of it.  I have seen it too long.  It is too familiar.  It is an eyesore to me.  I am weary of it all.  I want a rest.  Here comes Brown now.  Let me hide in the cellar.  It would be hypocrisy to remain here and smile welcome to him when I hate the sight of his physiognomy and detest the sound of his name.  No, he has gone by.  He does not intend to call.  Thank heaven.  Five minutes of his society would be equal to ten years in purgatory.  New sights, new scenes, new voices, new faces; all these are recreation to a mentally weary constitution.”