If he is uncomfortable, it is a pity; we are sorry, but we cannot
change the course of Nature. We shall soon have our own little turn of
torments, and we do not want to be worn out before it comes by having
listened to his; probably, too, the very things of which he complains are
pressing just as heavily on us as on him,--are just as unpleasant to
everybody as to him. Suppose everybody did as he does. Imagine, for
instance, a chorus of grumble from ten people at a breakfast-table, all
saying at once, or immediately after each other, "This coffee is not fit
to drink." "Really, the attendance in this house is insufferably poor." I
have sometimes wished to try this homoeopathic treatment in a bad case of
grumble. It sounds as if it might work a cure.
If you lose your temper with the grumbler, and turn upon him suddenly,
saying, "Oh, do not spoil all our pleasure. Do make the best of things:
or, at least, keep quiet!" then how aggrieved he is! how unjust he thinks
you are to "make a personal matter of it"! "You do not, surely, suppose I
think you are responsible for it, do you?" he says, with a lofty air of
astonishment at your unreasonable sensitiveness.
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