TWO CLASSES OF CONVERSERS.
ABOVE all other distinctions, there are two great classes of conversers: Those who make you feel that you are of some account in the world, and those who have a subtle way of convincing you that you have no right to exist. The latter class is small in number; but what they lack in quantity, they make up in sting. Sometimes they are gifted with a sharp tongue and an unerring faculty of saying the most grinding things. Sometimes they are apparently suave and considerate in manner and phrase. But, in either case, you go away from them with a feeling that the world is stuffed with saw-dust,—that you yourself are an imbecile and an impostor, and it may take days for you to recover your proper standing with yourself. Then, if you ask your soul, What fatal gift has the tormentor, which carries with it this power of making his fellow-mortals miserable? you discover that it is the gift of selfishness. The person to whom you have been talking is ungenerous. An ungenerous person adds the weight of another to your side of the scales, and down you go! But a generous man, a generous woman—you cannot come near such an one without receiving something that makes amends for your own disappointment with, your own ill opinion of, yourself.—The Old Cabinet; Scribner for July.