agreeable was to misunderstand the whole situation. Now, if I am
asked to stay at a tiresome house, I refuse; I decline invitations
to garden parties and public dinners and dances, because I know
that they will bore me; and as to games, I never play them if I can
help, because I find that they do not entertain me. Of course there
are occasions when one is wanted to fill a gap, and then it is the
duty of a Christian and a gentleman to conform, and to do it with a
good grace. Again, I am not at the mercy of small prejudices, as I
used to be. As a young man, if I disliked the cut of a person's
whiskers or the fashion of his clothes, if I considered his manner
to be abrupt or unpleasing, if I was not interested in his
subjects, I set him down as an impossible person, and made no
further attempt to form acquaintance.

Now I know that these are superficial things, and that a kind heart
and an interesting personality are not inconsistent with boots of a
grotesque shape and even with mutton-chop whiskers. In fact, I
think that small oddities and differences have grown to have a
distinct value, and form a pleasing variety. If a person's manner
is unattractive, I often find that it is nothing more than a
shyness or an awkwardness which disappears the moment that
familiarity is established. My standard is, in fact, lower, and I
am more tolerant. I am not, I confess, wholly tolerant, but my
intolerance is reserved for qualities and not for externals. I
still fly swiftly from long-winded, pompous, and contemptuous
persons; but if their company is unavoidable, I have at least
learnt to hold my tongue. The other day I was at a country-house
where an old and extremely tiresome General laid down the law on
the subject of the Mutiny, where he had fought as a youthful
subaltern. I was pretty sure that he was making the most grotesque