EXAMPLE.

"You see I make no splash!"


There are some individuals so inflated with self-sufficiency, and
entertain such an overweaning opinion of their skill in all matters, that
they must needs have a finger in every pie.

Perhaps a finer specimen than old V____, of this genius of egotistic,
meddling mortals, never existed. He was a man well-to-do in the world,
and possessed not only a large fortune, but a large family.

He had an idea that no man was better qualified to bring up his children
in the way they should go; and eternally plagued the obsequious tutors of
his sons with his novel mode of instilling the rudiments of the Latin
tongue, although he knew not a word of the language; and the obedient
mistresses of his daughters with his short road to attaining a perfection
in playing the piano-forte, without knowing a note of the gamut: but what
could they say; why, nothing more or less than they were 'astonished;'
which was vague enough to be as true as it was flattering.

And then he was so universally clever, that he even interfered in the
culinary department of his household, instructing the red-elbowed,
greasy, grinning Cook, in the sublime art of drawing, stuffing, and
roasting a goose, for which she certainly did not fail to roast the goose