TEN CHARACTERS.

I.

The mild, irresolute, good-natured, and indolent man. These qualities
are accompanied with good feelings, but no principles. The want of
firmness evinces also the want of any peculiar or deeply rooted system
of thought. A man conning a single and favourite subject of meditation
grows wedded to one or the other of the opinions on which he revolves. A
man universally irresolute has generally led a desultory life, and never
given his attention long together to one thing. This is a man most easy
to cheat, my beloved friends; you cheat him even with his eyes open.
Indolence is dearer to him than all things; and if you get him alone and
put a question to him point blank, he cannot answer, No.



II.

The timid, suspicious, selfish, and cold man. Generally a character of
this description is an excellent man of business, and would at first
sight seem to baffle the most ingenious swindler. But you have one
hope,--I have rarely found it deceive me,--this man is usually
ostentatious. A cold, a fearful, yet a worldly person has ever an eye
upon others; he notes the effect certain things produce on them; he is
anxious to learn their opinions, that he may not transgress; he likes to
know what the world say of him; nay, his timidity makes him anxious to