Such people, too,
while making a pretence of revealing to you all their secrets, will
often tell a very small portion of them, and make various statements
which you at the time are quite aware are not true. There are not many
things more disagreeable than a very stupid and ill-set old woman,
who, quite unaware what her opinion is worth, expresses it with entire
confidence upon many subjects of which she knows nothing whatever, and
as to which she is wholly incapable of judging. And the self-satisfied
and confident air with which she settles the most difficult questions,
and pronounces unfavorable judgment upon people ten thousand times
wiser and better than herself, is an insufferably irritating
phenomenon. It is a singular fact, that the people I have in view
invariably combine extreme ugliness with spitefulness and
self-conceit. Such a person will make particular inquiries of you as
to some near relative of your own,--and will add, with a malicious and
horribly ugly expression of face, that she is glad to hear how _very
much improved_ your relative now is. She will repeat the sentence
several times, laying great emphasis and significance upon the _very
much improved_. Of course, the notion conveyed to any stranger who
may be present is that your relative must in former days have been an
extremely bad fellow.
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