Semper Eadem

—If Mr. Edison could give us flashes not only of the distant in space, but of the distant in time, with what eagerness would many of us ask for a glimpse of old Athens, its streets, its houses, its spectacles, its manners ! Yet something like this is already in our power, if we would but profit by it. The Characters of Theophrastus is a camera obseura, though blurred and mutilated, of Athens twenty-two centuries ago. We can quaff largely, if not our fill, of the “ sweet Lesbian wine,” as Aristotle styled his disciple, that philosopher and walking dictionary of his time who, though a centenarian, complained that man was so short-lived compared with stags and crows, and that death surprised him just as he was beginning to acquire knowledge. In 1786 a more correct text of the Characters, with two additional chapters, was discovered in the Vatican library, and if the Egyptian papyrus at the British Museum had contained other fragments of the work, instead of that constitution of Athens which certain scholars now deny to be Aristotle’s, and others would be glad to think was not, some of us would have been better pleased. Yet the Characters, whether fragmentary or whether extracted or compiled from a larger work, is little known except as an appendix to La Bruyère, whose imitation, though a masterpiece, is of much inferior interest if only on account of its modernness. Few English translations of the work exist, and for ninety years (according to Poole) only a single article on it has appeared in any American or English magazine. It shows human nature to be the same in all ages and climes. This picture of men’s foibles and meannesses three centuries before Christ might have been drawn only yesterday. Then as now there were selfish churls, who when asked a favor pretended to be very busy or very short of money, promised to think it over, and slunk into a by-street to avoid meeting a would-be borrower. There were absentminded men, who forgot to keep appointments, could not remember where they laid put things, and having already salted a dish salted it again, so that it was uneatable. There were fidgets, who got up in the middle of the night to make sure that all was safe and that the front door was bolted, rose before a meal was ended to go and bait their horses, and were so afraid of losing the money in their purses that they were constantly counting it over. There were people devoid of tact, who interfered in a quarrel and made it worse, took the most unseasonable moment for asking a favor, brought up unsavory subjects at meals, railed against women at a wedding feast, stopped you with trivial conversation as you were starting on a journey, dragged you about sight-seeing just as you had arrived and needed rest, and if commissioned to draw up an epitaph inserted the very fact which the family washed to ignore. There were flatterers, who told you of compliments paid you behind your back, congratulated you on your good looks and youthful appearance, praised your viands, your house, or your garden, applauded an idealized portrait as a striking likeness, caressed and extolled your children, declared them to be the picture of their father, laughed immoderately at your poor witticisms, told you when fitting a boot that your handsome foot required a better shaped article, and sought to win the good graces of every foreigner by vaunting his countrymen as far superior to their own. There were grumblers and croakers, who found fault with everything, regretted the good old times, suspected everybody’s sincerity, complained of habitual ill luck, were jealous of your attentions to others, found some drawback to every success, repented a purchase as soon as they had made it, and felt no gratitude for a good turn. There were scandalmongers, who knew everything to a man’s discredit, raked up disreputable ancestries, and indulged in backbiting. There were bores, who told you their dreams, gave you minute descriptions of their diningsout, chattered ceaselessly about themselves, their families, the price of provisions, informed you that rain was much wanted, asked you the day of the month, told you to-morrow was such and such a festival, apprised you they were going to the barber’s, prevented your hearing the play at the theatre, entered into all their little ailments, and missed an appointment rather than stop chattering. Their tongues wag, says Theophrastus, as incessantly as a fish moves in the water, and flight is the only escape from their garrulity. Closely related to them were men who, anxious to be thought well informed, glibly invented circumstantial accounts of battles or other important events. There were boors, who talked in a loud tone, spoke with their mouths full, were addicted to spitting, would first refuse to lend money, and then lend it with the cynical remark that they never expected to get it back. There were dandies, who prided themselves on being well shaven, on having clean teeth (a laudable quality, surely), on having many suits of expensive clothes, on being well perfumed. There were slovens, who seldom patronized baths, or used a disagreeable-smelling oil, wore clothes too short and light or threadbare and greasy, and had long dirty nails. There were butter-fingered people, who would let fall a cup while making libations in the temple, and would giggle at their own clumsiness. There were boasters, who paraded their offerings for religious purposes, plumed themselves on their good vegetables and excellent cookery, enumerated on retiring from office all the good works they had done, magnified their wealth, claimed intimacy with famous men, pretended that a hired house was their own property, and talked of going into a larger one to accommodate their numerous visitors. There were niggards, who went only on free days to the theatre, or crept in during the performance when the money-taker had left; beat down the price of goods and insisted on getting a trifle over the weight ; exacted payment of the odd farthings of a bill, but in settling one had a few drachmas counted short. They grudged every cup of wine drunk by a guest, stinted their servants’ food and made them pay for breakage, rummaged the whole house to find a trifling coin, gave the smallest contributions to the temples, slunk off when a collection or subscription was imminent, reminded you of the drachma you borrowed a month ago, and claimed compound interest on loans ; they forbade their wives to lend salt or flour to a neighbor, would not allow a passer-by to pluck a single fig from an overhanging tree, borrowed a garment to save their own, kept their children at home when the school term had many holidays, or pretended that they were absent from illness at the time of making presents to the master, and went into the country to escape giving a wedding present to a friend’s daughter.

The reader will suspect that some of these touches are modern, or at least modernized, but they are taken literally from Theophrastus, the oldest collector of human types ; for the descriptions of the sluggard, the drunkard, and the profligate in Proverbs, though probably four centuries earlier, arethemes for moralizing, whereas Theophrastus simply describes, and does not moralize ; neither does he idealize like the historians, nor caricature like the dramatists. His portrait gallery makes us apply to human nature the French adage,