Washington Standard

Doubtless there are in the world many persons guilty of moral offenses compared with which absent-mindedness will seem like a very venial defect, but yet there is no one capable of inflicting more annoyance and inconvenience than an absent-minded man. Such a one now rises to my recollection, a man of good natural gifts and fine education, but who, through his absent-mindedness, failed to make himself agreeable or acceptable in society. The following instance will serve to give readers an idea of the haziness of his proceedings:

Going to a friend's house one evening, just as tea was being handed, he walked up to the lady of the house and shook her hand hard, without noticing that she held a cup of hot tea in it, thereby causing the scalding beverage to stream over her hand, wrist and arm, and forcing a cry of pain from her. Indeed in the matter of shaking hands, he seemed particularly dangerous, for on another occasion he inflicted quite serious hurt on a male friend, in the shake of the hand. He was just preparing to smoke a cigar when his friend came in, and forgetting that he held a lighted cigar in his hand, he bestowed on his visitor a warm grasp, in more senses than one. At length, his friends came to the conclusion that as a matter of self-defense they must restrict themselves to a bowing acquaintance with him, as he had such ingeniously painful modes of shaking hands.

Another turn that his absent-mindedness took was to forget that such and such acquaintances of his had died, and he would consequently inquire about them of their relatives in the most ill-timed and embarrassing manner. A young man of his acquaintance having gone to the West Indies and died there, he shocked the relatives of the deceased by remarking in his absent-minded way that "he supposed the young man was in very hot quarters." As the poor young fellow had been somewhat wild, his incensed relatives took this as an allusion to his probable condition in the other world, whilst, in reality, the absent-minded man merely referred to the tropical climate of the West Indies.

It is impossible to describe how flat he made a widower friend feel—the decease of whose wife he (like the widower himself) had forgotten. Meeting his friend at a picnic amid a bevy of young girls whom he was plying with lemonade and ice-cream along with flattery and pleasantry, the absent-minded man inquired in a tone of fatal distinctness, during a brief lull in the conversation, "My dear Smith, where is your good lady to-day? I should like to pay my respects to her. I really think she had better be looking after you." Dead pause, sudden pall on the company, but the absent-minded man not noticing this repeats his inquiries till Smith is forced to explicitly state why his wife is not present. Not only did he mingle the living and the dead in this hazy way, but he was apt to forget the relations existing between the living, and consequently to make the most malapropos remarks to unsuitable hearers.

Another turn his absent-mindedness took was never to deliver either a note or message intrusted to him, whereby he not unfrequently occasioned much inconvenience and annoyance, as well as misunderstandings of quite a serious nature. Persons would sometimes send a message or note to his wife by him, telling her that they were coming to visit her at a certain time, and he would remember the note or message only as he saw them drive up to the door, finding his wife quite unprepared for their reception. Occasionally this haziness would redound to his own vexation and mortification, as for instance, when he had invited some of his own particular cronies to dine, and forgetting to notify his wife of the fact, had been forced to treat them (albeit fastidious epicures) to a scrap dinner, probably on washing or house-cleaning day. I need not say that his wife took a grim satisfaction in the scanty and indifferent fare on such occasions. What rightly constituted woman would not do so? I may observe, en passant, that some modern writer advances the theory that the marital difficulties between Socrates and Xanthippe were produced by his bringing home his friends to dine with him without giving her notice.—Mary W. Early in Detroit Free Press.