THE MISANTHROPIST.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4735, 9 October 1886, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE MISANTHROPIST.

Ho lived like a hermit, crab-like in hit* gildod yhell of a mansion, and said he was a misanthropist. He devoted his entire time to gloomy forebodings and was never so happy as when drawing gruesome comparisons between the times that wero and the times that are. Ho would pinch a cent, deprive himeelf of tho common necessities of life and preach sermons on tho subject of economy to the veriest beggar who applied at his area door for food. Across the way lived a little widow whose solo delight in life was to bring her only child—a sweet little girl—as a sunbeam. Tho misanthropist dotestod the child, her glow and warmth, her red cheeks, round limbs. Her merry laughter was saw-teeth to his cars ; and her appearance of a bright summer morn when the sun shone brightest, whon the birds sang sweetest arid whon the sky was bluest, was an eyesore to him as he drew his dingy curtains apart and looked forth from his cheerless room upon the loveliness of nature in her gayest robes.

Some men begrudge human kin the light of supreme bli.ss because the song, the light and gaiety aro choked out of their natures by the weeds of misanthropy. This was the Hort of a man my hermit-like Ciab was. He hated to see a single human being enjoy life, because ho had tasted of tho sour. The cup may have been of his own brewing ; the misanthropist's generally is.

Day after day tho gloomy man sat in his dull room, brooding on days gone away back into tho dusty, musty past. Day after day ho conjurod black nights of woe and shadows of despair as ho chewed tho cud of discontent and advertised himself to the world as a hater of mankind, a gonuino specimen of tho real misanthropist and—

A grand transformation scene has taken placo. The misanthropist has gone away. He is here, yet not here. From the windows the cobwebs havo been dusted. Tho green srassi has been cleared away from the area stops and tho milkman flirts with tho rosycheeked waiting Hiftid though the bars of the gate.

The little widow lives in tho grand Mansion ; the owner of the mansion is daily trying to win the widow's lussie to cull him 'papa ' and—another misanthropist's frail structure goes to smash ; and another mystery remains unsolved.