can trust him to put out your wood-fire for you as effectually as a
water-spout. And, if even a wood-fire, bless it! cannot outshine the gloom
of his presence, what is to happen in the places where there is no
wood-fire, on the days when real miseries, big and little, are on hand, to
be made into mountains of torture by his grumbling? Oh, who can describe
him? There is no language which can do justice to him; no supernatural
foresight which can predict where his next thrust will fall, from what
unsuspected corner he will send his next arrow. Like death, he has all
seasons for his own; his ingenuity is infernal. Whoever tries to forestall
or appease him might better be at work in Augean stables; because, after
all, we must admit that the facts of life are on his side. It is not
intended that we shall be very comfortable. There is a terrible amount of
total depravity in animate and inanimate things. From morning till night
there is not an hour without its cross to carry. The weather thwarts us;
servants, landlords, drivers, washerwomen, and bosom friends misbehave;
clothes don't fit; teeth ache; stomachs get out of order; newspapers are
stupid; and children make too much noise. If there are not big troubles,
there are little ones. If they are not in sight, they are hiding. I have
wondered whether the happiest mortal could point to one single moment and
say, "At that moment there was nothing in my life which I would have had
changed." I think not.

In argument, therefore, the grumbler has the best of it. It is more than
probable that things are as he says. But why say it? Why make four
miseries out of three? If the three be already unbearable, so much the
worse. 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