ESSAY XV.
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER.
It is astonishing, with all our opportunities and practice, how little we know of this subject. For myself, I feel that the more I learn, the less I understand it.
I remember, several years ago, a conversation in the diligence coming from Paris, in which, on its being mentioned that a man had married his wife after thirteen years’ courtship, a fellow-countryman of mine observed, that “then, at least, he would be acquainted with her character;” when a Monsieur P{{{1}}}— — —, inventor and proprietor of the Invisible Girl, made answer, “No, not at all; for that the very next day she might turn out the very reverse of the character that she had appeared in during all the preceding time[1].” I could not help admiring the superior sagacity of the French juggler, and it
