A SUSPICIOUS OR JEALOUS MAN

Is one that watches himself a mischief, and keeps a lear eye still, for fear it should escape him. A man that sees a great deal more in everything than is to be seen, and yet he thinks he sees nothing: his own eye stands in his light. He is a fellow commonly guilty of some weaknesses, which he might conceal if he were careless: now his over-diligence to hide them makes men pry the more. Howsoever, he imagines you have found him, and it shall go hard but you must abuse him whether you will or no. Not a word can be spoke, but nips him somewhere; not a jest thrown out, but he will make it hit him. You shall have him go fretting out of company, with some twenty quarrels to every man, stung and galled, and no man knows less the occasion than they that have given it. To laugh before him is a dangerous matter, for it cannot be at anything but at him; and to whisper in his company plain conspiracy. He bids you speak out and he will answer you, when you thought not of him. He expostulates with you in passion, why you should abuse him, and explains to your ignorance wherein, and gives you very good reason at last to laugh at him hereafter. He is one still accusing others when they are not guilty, and defending himself when he is not accused: and no man is undone more with apologies, wherein he is so elaborately excessive that none will believe him; and he is never thought worse of than when he has given satisfaction. Such men can never have friends, because they cannot trust so far; and this humor hath this infection with it, it makes all men to them suspicious. In conclusion, they are men always in offense and vexation with themselves and their neighbors, wronging others in thinking they would wrong them, and themselves most of all in thinking they deserve it.

A HIGH-SPIRITED MAN

Is one that looks like a proud man, but is not: you may forgive him his looks for his worth's sake, for they are only too proud to be base. One whom no rate can buy off from the least piece of his freedom, and make him digest an unworthy thought an hour. He cannot crouch to a great man to possess him, nor fall low to the earth to rebound never so high again. He stands taller on his own bottom than others on the advantage ground of fortune, as having solidly that honor of which

title is but the pomp. He does homage to no man for his great style's sake, but is strictly just in the exaction of respect again, and will not bate you a compliment. He is more sensible of a neglect than an undoing, and scorns no man so much as his surly threatener. A man quickly fired, and quickly laid down with satisfaction, but remits any injury sooner than words: only to himself he is irreconcilable, whom he never forgives a disgrace, but is still stabbing himself with the thought of it, and no disease that he dies of sooner. He is one had rather perish than be beholden for his life, and strives more to be quit with his friend than his enemy. Fortune may kill him, but not deject him, nor make him fall into a humbler key than before, but he is now loftier than ever in his own defense; you shall hear him talk still after thousands, and he becomes it better than those that have it. One that is above the world and its drudgery, and cannot pull down his thoughts to the pelting businesses of life. He would sooner accept the gallows than a mean trade, or anything that might disparage the height of man in him, and yet thinks no death comparably base to hanging either. One that will do nothing upon command, though he would do it otherwise; and if ever he do evil, it is when he is dared to it. He is one that if fortune equal his worth, puts a luster in all preferment.

A RASH MAN

Is a man too quick for himself; one whose actions put a leg still before his judgment, and outrun it. Every hot fancy or passion is the signal that sets him forward, and his reason comes still in the rear. One that has brain enough, but not patience to digest a business, and stay the leisure of a second thought. All deliberation is to him a kind of sloth and freezing of action, and it shall burn him rather than take cold. He is always resolved at first thinking, and the ground he goes upon is, hap what may. Thus he enters not, but throws himself violently upon all things, and for the most part is as violently thrown off again; and as an obstinate "I will" was the preface to his undertaking, so his conclusion is commonly "I would I had not"; for such men seldom do anything that they are not forced to take in pieces again, and are so much farther off from doing it, as they have done already. His friends are with him as his physician, sought to only in his sickness and extremity, and

to help him out of that mire he has plunged himself into; for in the suddenness of his passions he would hear nothing, and now his ill success has allayed him, he hears too late. He is a man still swayed with the first reports, and no man more in the power of a pickthank than he. He is one who will fight first, and then expostulate; condemn first, and then examine. He loses his friend in a fit of quarreling, and in a fit of kindness undoes himself; and then curses the occasion drew this mischief upon him, and cries, God, mercy! for it, and curses again. His repentance is merely a rage against himself, and he does something in itself to be repented again. He is a man whom fortune must go against much to make him happy; for had he been suffered his own way, he had been undone.

AN AFFECTED MAN

Is an extraordinary man in ordinary things. One that would go a strain beyond himself, and is taken in it. A man that overdoes all things with great solemnity of circumstance; and whereas with more negligence he might pass better, makes himself with a great deal of endeavor ridiculous. The fancy of some odd quaintnesses have put him clean beside his nature; he cannot be that he would, and hath lost what he was. He is one must be point-blank in every trifle as if his credit and opinion hung upon it; the very space of his arms in an embrace studied before and premeditated, and the figure of his countenance of a fortnight's contriving; he will not curse you without book and extempore, but in some choice way, and perhaps as some great man curses. Every action of his cries, "Do ye mark me?" and men do mark him how absurd he is; for affectation is the most betraying humor, and nothing that puzzles a man less to find out than this. All the actions of his life are like so many things bodged in without any natural cadence or connection at all. You shall track him all through like a schoolboy's theme, one piece from one author and this from another, and join all in this general, that they are none of his own. You shall observe his mouth not made for that tone, nor his face for that simper; and it is his luck that his finest things most misbecome him. If he affect the gentleman, as the humor most commonly lies that way, not the least punctilio of a fine man but he is strict in to a hair, even to their very negligences, which he cons as rules. He will not carry a knife with him to

wound reputation, and [will] pay double a reckoning rather than ignobly question it: and he is full of this Ignobly and Nobly and Genteelly; and this mere fear to trespass against the genteel way puts him out most of all. It is an ill-favored ostentation, and thrives not; and the best use of such men is, they are good parts in a play.

ATHOS, PORTHOS, AND ARAMIS.

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PÈRE.

(From "The Three Musketeers.")

[ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PÈRE, French novelist and dramatist, was born July 24, 1803; his grandmother was a Haytian negress. His youth was roving and dissipated; the few years after he became of age were spent in Paris experimenting in literary forms; at twenty-six he took the public by storm with his play "Henry III. and his Court." He was probably the most prolific great writer that ever lived, his works singly and in collaboration amounting to over two thousand volumes; he had some ninety collaborators, few of whom ever did successful independent work. A catalogue of his productions would fill many pages of this work. The most popular of his novels are: "The Three Musketeers series (including "Twenty Years After" and "The Viscount de Bragelonne") and "The Count of Monte Cristo." He died December 5, 1870.]

THE BASTION OF ST. GERVAIS.

ON arriving at his friends' quarters, D'Artagnan found them assembled in the same room. Athos was thinking; Porthos was twisting his mustache; and Aramis was reading his prayers in a charming little book, bound in blue velvet.

"By my soul, gentlemen," said he, "I hope that what you have to tell me is worth the trouble, otherwise I should not forgive your depriving me of rest after a night passed in dismantling a bastion, entirely by myself. Ah! why were you not there, gentlemen? It was hot work!

"We were in another place, where it was by no means cold either," said Porthos, giving his mustache a turn peculiar to himself.

"Hush!" said Athos.

"Oh, oh!" said D'Artagnan, understanding the slight frown of the musketeer, "it seems that there is something new stirring.'

"Aramis," said Athos, "you breakfasted at the Parpaillot tavern the day before yesterday, I believe."

"Yes."

"How are things there?"

"Why, I fared but poorly myself; it was a fast day, and they had only eggs."

"What," said Athos, "in a seaport, and no fish?"

They say that the dike which the cardinal is digging drives the fish out into the open sea," said Aramis, resuming his pious reading.

"But that is not what I wanted to know, Aramis," continued Athos. "Were you free, and did no one disturb you?" "Why, I think that there were not many idlers," replied Aramis. "Yes, in fact, for what you want, Athos, I think we shall do well enough at the Parpaillot.'

"Come, then, let us to the Parpaillot," said Athos, "for here the walls are like sheets of paper."

D'Artagnan, who was accustomed to his friend's manner, and understood by a word, a gesture, or a look from him that circumstances called for seriousness, took his arm and went out with him, without uttering a word. Porthos followed them, in conversation with Aramis.

On their way they met Grimaud, and Athos beckoned him to attend them. Grimaud, according to custom, obeyed in silence. The poor fellow had finished by almost forgetting how to speak.

When they arrived at the Parpaillot, it was seven in the morning, and the day was just beginning to dawn. The three friends ordered a good breakfast, and entered a room where the landlord assured them that they would not be disturbed.

The hour was, unfortunately, ill chosen for a consultation. The morning drum had just been beaten; every one was busy shaking off the sleepiness of night, and to drive away the dampness of the morning air, came to take a little dram at the tavern. Dragoons, Swiss guards, musketeers, and light cavalry succeeded one another with a rapidity very beneficial to the business of mine host, but very unfavorable to the designs of our four friends, who replied but sullenly to the salutations, toasts, and jests of their companions.

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Come," said Athos, "we shall invite some rousing quarrel on our hands presently, and we do not want that just now.