Aspects of Borehood
"What a bore that man is ! " said somebody when left us; but it was not really true. is a tiresome, intrusive, button-holing sort of person whom it is well worth crossing the street to avoid, but he is not really a bore. A true bore is a work of art, a complex and fascinating mechanism. It is my personal belief that there are two main types of bore—those who bore from above (of one of whom it has been well said, by the Warden of All Souls, that conversa. tion with him is like having a tent collapse on top of you). and those who bore from below. The latter are more unendur. able than the former, from the flow of whose reminiscences and opinions one can in time acquire the sort of immunity that renders (it is said) residents in Station Hotels deaf to the sound of trains. The parasite-bore, the man who bores from below, warned perhaps by some vestigial conscience that an uninter. rupted monologue is anti-social, will keep trying to turn it into a duologue. "Now tell me," he is always saying, "how you do this, what you would have said to that, why you do not feel more strongly about the other ? " It is your move; grudgingq, you advance an unconsidered pawn. "I'm very interested. (or alternately "I didn't expect ") he exclaims, to hear yoU say that "; and off he goes. Occasional grunts of " Really ? and "Good Lord 1 " will not see you through this ordeal; nt any moment he will stop and drag you into the conversation again. In single combat (as it were) with the other, the jugger' naut type of bore, the parasite-bore would not stand a chance; he would be overrun, annihilated. Indeed, the only consolatios for falling into his clutches is that our sufferings are proof
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