His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot
compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right
and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the
sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops
a metaphor like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy
book!"--said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give
that appellation to John Buncle,--"did I catch rightly what you said?
I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I
do not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above
all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian.
Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest
with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print
of a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing
off to Mr. ****. After he had examined it minutely, I ventured to
ask him how he liked MY BEAUTY (a foolish name it goes by among my
friends)--when he very gravely assured me, that "he had considerable
respect for my character and talents" (so he was pleased to say), "but
had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal
pretensions." The misconception staggered me, but did not seem much
to disconcert him.--Persons of this nation are particularly fond
of affirming a truth--which nobody doubts. They do not so properly
affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of
truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth
becomes equally valuable, whether the proposition that contains it be
new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible to become a subject of
disputation. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons,
where a son of Burns was expected; and happened to drop a silly
expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father
instead of the son--when four of them started up at once to inform
me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable