Petty Pomposity

I am led to believe that petty pomposity is one of the most unendurable of the minor unplensantnesses. The mildest case of this kind which I can at this moment recall is, at the same time, so obnoxious that, I regret to say, I can hardly bring myself to a proper frame of mind tor its calm discussioa. I thiuk I must be peculiarly sensitive to this style of social nuisance, because so few of my friends fully synipathize with my antipathy. Indeed there is so much diffidence in the manner of the pompous gentleman I have in my mind, - itissuch a gentle tragedy, - that there are many who do not perceive, or else arenotinthe least discomfited by, the thing that irritates me bo. Perhaps my own eelf-consciousne6S helps me to detcct the same quality in others; and perhaps the manner to which I allude is rather the outgrowth of a large self-consciousness than mything else. It may be this that affects the tono of nis voice and conversation, - ■ to whose murirturous common-places he seems to be listening with a s weet content. He says a thing, not in order to ccnvey an idea (supposing hiin possessed of such an anomaly), but that the air may be buvdenecl with the soft and measured tones of his utterance, as with a soothing song, bi inging delight to his own ears and, inciden tally, to thos of his auditors. Thus his simplest question or remirk, - as to the piice of huckleberries, or the imminecca of rain,- has a cadenee hII its own. The thing thU maddens me is that this fellow ot no accomplishment arro gates the subdued grandeur oL a hero ; he thinks to wear that fine flower of gentility wliich has its roots only in a