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PDF Test Bank For Stress Health and Well Being Thriving in The 21St Century 1St Edition by Harrington Online Ebook Full Chapter
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Test bank for Stress Health and Well-Being: Thriving in the 21st Century 1st Edition by Harr
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. ____ refers to the overall enduring pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that define an
individual.
a. Personal trait c. Temperament
b. Disposition d. Personality
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
2. ____ is “the biologically based foundation of personality, including such characteristic patterns of
behavior as emotionality, activity, and sociability.”
a. Disposition c. A personal trait
b. Temperament d. A personality state
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
3. ____ refer(s) to particular characteristics or structural elements of personality that predispose a person
to respond in certain ways.
a. Disposition c. Temperament
b. Personality states d. Personality traits
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
4. Whereas ____ are considered more temporary internal phenomena, ____ are considered more enduring
and stable personality characteristics.
a. traits, states c. dispositions, temperaments
b. states, traits d. temperaments, dispositions
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
5. Sometimes ____ are referred to as dispositions since they imply that persons are inclined toward
particular experiences or expressions of personality.
a. traits c. personalities
b. states d. dispositions
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
6. Eysenck’s concept of ____ embodies the generally positively connoted traits of sociable, lively, active,
assertive, sensation-seeking, carefree, dominant, surgent, and venturesome.
a. neuroticism c. introversion
b. psychoticism d. extraversion
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
7. Traits of ____ are generally seen as undesirable even to those who score high on this superfactor, and
include characteristics such as anxious, depressed, guilt feelings, low self-esteem, tense, irrational, shy,
moody, and emotional.
a. neuroticism c. introversion
b. psychoticism d. extraversion
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
8. J. A. Gray’s ____, based on animal research, builds on Eysenck’s biological model and proposes two
functionally independent motivational systems that have a bearing on our understanding of underlying
temperament factors driving extraversion and neuroticism.
a. Five Factor Model c. Behavioral Inhibition System
b. reinforcement sensitivity theory d. Behavioral Approach System
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
9. Gray’s two systems are the ____ that is sensitive to reward and fueled by the dopamine areas and
circuits of the brain and the opposing ____ that is sensitive to punishment or non-reward and is driven
by the norepinephrine systems of the brain.
a. Behavioral Approach System, Behavioral Inhibition System
b. Behavioral Inhibition System, Behavioral Approach System
c. Five Factor Model, reinforcement sensitivity theory
d. reinforcement sensitivity theory, Five Factor Model
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
10. There are subcomponents of each factor in the NEO-PI, labeled ____, that are separately measured.
a. functions c. facets
b. types d. typologies
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
11. Among the Big Five, research findings are steadily converging on ____ as the most health protective.
a. agreeableness c. openness
b. conscientiousness d. extraversion
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: What is Personality?
13. It is no surprise that many studies have associated high scores on neuroticism with a greater likelihood
of developing a(n) ____ such as a mood disorder (e.g., major depression) or an anxiety disorder (e.g.,
generalized anxiety disorder).
a. neurotic disorder c. externalizing disorder
b. personality disorder d. internalizing disorder
ANS: D PTS: 1
REF: Stress and Health Personality Vulnerability Factors
14. Substance abuse or dependence and anti-social personality disorder are examples of a(n) ____.
a. neurotic disorder c. externalizing disorder
b. personality disorder d. internalizing disorder
ANS: C PTS: 1
REF: Stress and Health Personality Vulnerability Factors
15. In the early part of the 20th century, ____ medicine broke new ground in linking psychological health
to physical conditions.
a. allopathic c. psychosomatic
b. neuroleptic d. psychological
ANS: C PTS: 1
REF: Stress and Health Personality Vulnerability Factors
16. The psychoanalytic idea of psychological conflicts being expressed as symptoms (either psychological
or physical) played an important role in Freud’s ____, a construct that was widely accepted by
mainstream American psychiatry until the latter part of the 20th century.
a. theory of sublimation c. theory of the unconscious
b. theory of psychosis d. theory of neurosis
ANS: D PTS: 1
REF: Stress and Health Personality Vulnerability Factors
17. The first two editions of the ____ (a manual developed by psychiatrists to guide psychiatric diagnoses)
included neurosis as a condition that typically involved anxiety or depression and contrasted with
psychosis.
a. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual c. Physician’s Desk Reference
b. Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders d. Psychiatric Manual of Mental Illness
ANS: A PTS: 1
REF: Stress and Health Personality Vulnerability Factors
18. In their landmark prospective study known as the Western Collaborative Group Study, Rosenman et
al. found that Type As were ____ to develop coronary heart disease as Type Bs—a finding made more
remarkable since it held firm after statistically adjusting for other risk variables.
a. twice as likely c. half as likely
b. three times as likely d. just as likely
ANS: A PTS: 1
REF: Stress and Health Personality Vulnerability Factors
19. Johan Denollet and his associates introduced ____ and defined it as a personality type that has high
negative affectivity (NA) and high social inhibition (SI). A ____ person is similar to an introverted
neurotic.
a. Type A c. Type C
b. Type B d. Type D
ANS: D PTS: 1
REF: Stress and Health Personality Vulnerability Factors
20. ____, which deals directly with the stressor or the emotions it evokes, is more effective at mitigating
the effects of stress than ____ that involves escape and avoidance.
a. A low level of optimism, a low level of engagement
b. A high level of optimism, a high level of engagement
c. Engagement coping, disengagement coping
d. Disengagement coping, engagement coping
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: Stress and Health Protective Personality Factors
SHORT ANSWER
ANS:
Health-related behavior models focus on how personality factors influence health-related behaviors
which in turn have important future consequences for health and well-being. Certain personality
factors predispose us to engage in more health protective behaviors and others to engage in more
health risk behaviors.
ANS:
Personality types are qualitative categories of personality within a particular domain that define the
person according to the construct’s characteristics. For example, the Type A person is defined
according to the construct characteristics of being hard driving and competitive and having an
exaggerated sense of time urgency, and the Type B person is defined as having the opposite set of
characteristics.
ANS:
Although people diagnosed with psychoses do tend to score high on this supertrait, so do creative
non-psychotic individuals. Instead of measuring a clinical condition, the psychoticism factor seems to
more broadly reflect traits often associated with nonconformity or social deviance. Most of the
characteristics it reflects have negative connotations such as aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal,
impulsive, antisocial, and unempathic, although at least a few have positive or neutral connotations
such as creative and tough-minded. The social deviancy observed in many high psychoticism
individuals may have biological underpinnings reflected in lower cortical arousal since people scoring
high in psychoticism tend to show a higher interest in violent material and more quickly desensitize to
violent imagery.
4. What is the difference between the Behavioral Inhibition System and the Behavioral Approach
System?
ANS:
The Behavioral Approach System (BAS) motivates us to approach potentially rewarding situations or
stimuli whereas the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) inhibits action and is associated with
avoidance behavior. Thus, persons high in BAS sensitivity show exaggerated positive affect (e.g.,
happiness) to rewards and persons high in BIS sensitivity show exaggerated negative affect (e.g.,
anxiety) to aversive stimuli. For example, a daily-event-diary study found that participants with greater
BAS sensitivity (as measured by a self-report instrument designed to measure levels of BAS and BIS)
record more positive affect throughout their days, yet those with greater BIS sensitivity report more
daily negative affect.
ANS:
Recent versions of Gray’s theory link extraverts’ higher levels of positive affect to the BAS. For
example, reviewers of the ties between the dopaminergic systems (associated with feeling good) and
extraversion conclude that there is a strong connection between the two. A more dominant BAS could
account for extraverts’ higher well-being scores than introverts since extraverts are more likely to find
all positive experiences more rewarding, including positive social experiences. In contrast, as you
would expect, some research findings show those with low BAS sensitivity are more prone to
depression. So in simple terms, high BAS sensitivity equals more positive affect and low BAS
sensitivity equals less positive affect.
ANS:
Just as the trait of extraversion is linked to the BAS, the trait of neuroticism is linked to the BIS. High
levels of neuroticism are associated with greater BIS sensitivity, and this may account for the
predominant negative affect high neuroticism individuals experience. Thus, the higher BIS sensitivity
of neurotic individuals explains their greater negative response to stressors or other stimuli they find
threatening or punishing.
7. Describe the Big Five (also known as the Five Factor Model).
ANS:
Today, the most widely accepted model of broad personality traits is the Big Five, also known as the
Five Factor Model (FFM). This model, based on the results of factor analyses of everyday words used
to describe personality characteristics, as the name implies, proposes that there are a total of five
relatively independent factors that make up the entire personality. Paul Costa, Jr. and Robert McCrae
are the two pioneers in the field most closely associated with the model. They developed a popular
self-report instrument designed to measure the Big Five called the NEO-PI.
ANS:
The NEO stands for the three personality factors used in the first version of the instrument of
Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), and Openness (O) (PI stands for personality inventory). The last
two factors of Conscientiousness (C) and Agreeableness (A) were subsequently added to complete the
Big Five. A useful mnemonic for remembering the Big Five is OCEAN (Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism)—though the factors are usually presented in the order
of NEOCA, it’s fine to mix the order of the factors since order does not imply importance.
ANS:
According to Suls and Martin, the answer lies in understanding how the neurotic cascade is
experienced. The neurotic cascade involves five distinct though interrelated processes they labeled: (1)
Hyperreactivity, (2) Differential Exposure, (3) Differential Appraisal, (4) Mood Spillover, and (5) The
Sting of Familiar Problems. Each mechanism in the cascade serves to reinforce the other as each
prompts a series of unfortunate yet somewhat predictable set of interlocking events.
10. Why do those with high neuroticism traits exhibit negatively oriented emotional hyperreactivity
toward stressors?
ANS:
Theories presented by Eysenck and also Gray propose that there are biological reasons why those with
high neuroticism traits exhibit negatively oriented emotional hyperreactivity toward stressors. Both
theories suggest that specific areas of the brain are responsible (i.e., the limbic system—Eysenck— or
the amygdala within the limbic system—Gray). Further, Gray’s theory suggests that one of the
primary motivators for high neuroticism individuals is the brain mechanism that is more responsive to
punishment, the BIS (behavioral inhibition system).
ANS:
Those who score higher in neuroticism often set up scenarios that lead them to experience more
hassles or negative life events than they would otherwise experience. Social transactions within these
scenarios lead to unwanted stressors.
ANS:
High neuroticism individuals are more likely to appraise situations negatively even when the situations
are nonthreatening (high primary appraisal) and to lack confidence in their ability to utilize personal
resources to cope with or gain mastery over these situations (low secondary appraisal). For example,
thoughts of “This always happens to me” and “I guess I’m just cursed or something” suggest a
predominance of helplessness-oriented secondary appraisals.
ANS:
High neuroticism often leads to rumination that then leads to negative emotions or even depressive
states well beyond the event. Ruminators recycle old hurts and grievances so that they have trouble
recovering following a stressful interpersonal encounter.
ANS:
The most favorable pattern for intimate partner relationship satisfaction was low neuroticism
combined with high levels of the Big Five traits of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
There were no differences found between men and women or between married and non-married
participants in their study. Even though the effect sizes found by Malouff and his associates were
modest (in the range of small to medium) and causality could not be determined from the study, the
authors speculated that high neuroticism probably leads to more partner criticisms and to
defensiveness that would then contribute to relationship dissatisfaction.
15. What trait did Redford Williams and his associates link to coronary atherosclerosis and risk of death?
ANS:
Redford Williams and his associates were among the first to seriously explore hostility as a toxic core
component. Using a subscale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory designed to measure
hostility called the Cook-Medley Scale, they reported a finding that scores on this scale were more
robust predictors of coronary atherosclerosis than Type A. A few years later Schekelle, Gale, Ostfeld,
and Oglesby published findings of a much larger prospective study, the Western Electric Study, that
stated that high hostility (top 20%) as measured by the Cook-Medley Scale was related to a 42%
greater risk of death than low hostility (bottom 20%).
ANS:
Dembroski’s group found that “anger-in”, an anger expression style associated with anger suppression
that they described as “an unwillingness in a variety of circumstances to express frustration-induced
hostility and/or anger overtly,” was positively associated with severity of angina symptoms and
frequency of myocardial infarctions. Corroborating evidence was also found for suppressed anger as a
health risk factor for coronary heart disease in a number of other studies---moderate anger expression
was indicated as optimal.
17. Explain locus of control (and the two types) in Rotter’s social learning theory.
ANS:
According to Rotter’s social learning theory, over time we develop generalized expectancies about our
actions and the reinforcements that follow them, which are referred to as locus of control. When we
have an internal locus of control we generally expect that our actions will lead to predictable outcomes
and reinforcements. However, when we have an external locus of control we expect that
reinforcements and other outcomes will be influenced by outside forces such as luck, fate, coincidence,
powerful others, and so forth.
ANS:
If conscientiousness is the champion of health and longevity, extraversion is the champion of good
feelings and happiness. Of the Big Five, extraversion consistently rates number one in both positive
affect and subjective well-being. Overall extraverts appear to be more responsive to reward, less
responsive to punishment, experience higher levels of positive affect for longer periods of time, and on
the whole, report higher levels of well-being than introverts.
ANS:
Control (versus powerlessness) is similar to Rotter’s internal locus of control concept and refers to
confidence in one’s ability to cope with difficulties and to have an influence on outcomes. Challenge
(versus security) concerns a sense that stress and change are catalysts for growth and personal
development. They are appraised as exciting opportunities and not avoided in favor of easier pathways
to comfort or security. Finally, commitment (versus alienation) means to be deeply involved in one’s
life endeavors and to be true to one’s self and values even during periods of high stress.
20. What effects do high internal locus of control, sense of coherence (SOC), and hardiness have on health
and illness?
ANS:
There is evidence to suggest that high internal locus of control is protective against MI, other negative
health outcomes and behaviors, and cardiovascular as well as all-cause mortality. Support for SOC
protecting against cancer mortality and all-cause mortality was also found. Though many studies
indicate that hardiness buffers stress reactions against illness, the effects observed are mainly specific
to men and they may be due to low neuroticism rather than to additional protection that hardiness is
alleged to confer.
ESSAY
ANS:
Perhaps the most basic model is the biological predisposition model. This model stipulates that genetic
or constitutional (i.e., general biological makeup) factors influence a person’s physiological,
emotional, behavioral, and cognitive response to stress. A person with biological vulnerabilities is
more likely to develop impaired health in response to stress, but personality plays no causal role.
Personality is simply a reflection of underlying biological predispositions or temperaments. Thus, in
biological predisposition models, how a person responds to stress is largely biologically determined.
ANS:
Moderation models assume that personality influences the strength or direction of the relationship
between stress and health. Personality is an intervening variable between stress and health and can
serve as an intensifier of stress or a buffer that reduces the impact of stressors. Thus, when a person
encounters a potentially stressful situation, that individual’s personality influences how he or she will
appraise and then cope with the event. This in turn will affect that person’s physiological, emotional,
behavioral, and cognitive responses, which will then increase or decrease susceptibility to illness.
ANS:
Factor analysis uses multiple correlations to determine which of the measured elements cluster
together. The elements that cluster together form a factor that is named for the common theme the
elements in the cluster possess. For example, if words like reticent, timid, bashful, modest, demure,
self-conscious, and reserved form a statistical cluster, then this cluster, known as a factor, can be
labeled shyness because shyness is the construct or theme the factor appears to represent.
Based on his factor analyses, Cattell proposed that there are 16 distinct correlated factors or what he
referred to as source traits (because they each presumably tapped into the one underlying source of all
personality characteristics) that constitute each person’s personality. He developed the Sixteen
Personality Factor (16 PF) Questionnaire to measure these dimensions.
ANS:
Eysenck, a contemporary of Cattell, also employed factor analysis, although he disagreed with
Cattell’s use of correlated factors and preferred instead to use uncorrelated factors to map the
personality. As a result, he employed a statistical technique of rotating his factors so that they were
highly independent (sometimes called orthogonal) of each other. In doing so, he found substantially
fewer factors. Instead of 16 correlated factors, he discovered three superfactors that are referred to as
the Big Three supertraits or personality types.
ANS:
Have you ever noticed how a fly gets trapped in a window as it tries repeatedly to move through the
glass barrier? It fails to escape because it can see only one solution, which it tries over and over and
over again. Unfortunately, for many people who lack psychological flexibility, failed solutions are
applied repeatedly in spite of their proven ineffectiveness. Individuals with high neuroticism often
have distorted reasoning and impaired decision-making processes that hinder their ability to access or
use appropriate coping strategies. When they become aware that their issues and problems reoccur,
rather than try new solutions, they view these repeated patterns as validating their sense of
helplessness and pessimism. For example, a person might recognize that difficulties with relationships
often happen to him, but his cognitions convey helplessness and despair when he thinks that he is “just
cursed” instead of thinking, “maybe I ought to try a different approach.”
ANS:
There is meta-analytic evidence that neuroticism modestly increases the risk of adverse health
consequences through engaging in certain types of health-risk or harming behaviors. These health risk
behaviors may account for some of the findings of early mortality for persons with high levels of
neuroticism. Overall then, it appears that high neuroticism found in people with a higher level of
negative affect such as anxiety and depression; a lower level of positive affect, happiness, and life
satisfaction; a greater use of disengagement coping; a greater chance of developing a clinical disorder
(especially an internalizing disorder) or a personality disorder (especially a distress-related disorder);
more intimate relationship dissatisfaction; a greater probability of engaging in health harming
behaviors such as tobacco smoking and problem alcohol use; a greater likelihood of being involved in
an occupational accident; and perhaps a greater risk for early mortality, although the
neuroticism-mortality link is not firmly established.
Although these findings are very concerning, there is some room for optimism. For example, the trait
called emotional stability which is the trait at the opposite end of the neuroticism dimension, shows
steady increases across our life-span (as do traits such as warmth, self-control, and confidence) until it
levels off in late adulthood. These findings suggest then that the personality trait of neuroticism would
in turn gradually lessen over the lifespan—good news for those who suffer some of the pitfalls of
neuroticism.
ANS:
In the 1950s, two cardiologists named Myer Friedman and Rxay Rosenman (1974) made the
observation that many of their patients had hurry sickness. They wondered if the hurried behavior
patterns these tense individuals displayed were related to the development of coronary heart disease
(CHD). The duo captured the behavior pattern they often saw in their patients of an exaggerated sense
of time urgency, competitiveness, and an inordinate drive in a construct they called the Type A
behavior pattern. Later definitions of Type A also included negative affectivity qualities “such as
irritation, hostility, and increased potential for anger” (Rosenman, 1990, p. 2). Friedman and
Rosenman called those who showed the opposite pattern, the more relaxed and easy going types, Type
B.
The Type A behavior pattern, they posited, could be evaluated through using an assessment tool the
two developed called the Structured Interview. The Structured Interview was administered by trained
examiners who recorded interviews that were later evaluated for Type A qualities such as
rapid-accelerated speech with loud punctuated words or phrases, nervous movements (e.g., jaw
clenching), exaggerated gesticulation when talking (e.g., fist pounding), and other indicators of the
hurried and tense pattern. Later, a self-report instrument called the Jenkins Activity Survey was also
developed to measure the pattern.
8. How do hostility, anger, and anger expression differ? How are they linked to CHD (coronary heat
disease)?
ANS:
Although hostility and anger are overlapping constructs, Suls and Bunde point out that hostility refers
to “cynical attitudes about others” whereas anger involves “feelings of being treated unjustly and is
accompanied by subjective arousal;” “anger expression refers to tendencies to be verbally or
physically antagonistic.” Thus, hostility refers to an attitude, anger refers to a feeling, and anger
expression refers to behaviors. Over the ensuing decades, they note, hostility, anger, anger expression,
as well as depression and anxiety have all been linked to CHD. In addition, they point out, these risk
variables amount to three overlapping negative affectivity dimensions of anger-hostility, depression,
and anxiety that, in spite of their linkage to CHD, have also at times produced mixed or even negative
results as CHD predictors. Some of the negative results may stem from the differences in the way
these negative affectivity constructs have been defined and measured.
9. What are the three anger expression styles Davidson and Mostofsky used in their study of anger
expression as a gender-related risk factor for CHD (coronary heart disease)? How do these styles differ
between men and women?
ANS:
The type of anger expression as a gender-related risk factor for CHD has also recently been explored.
Davidson and Mostofsky coded interviews of 785 men and women participants according to the
following anger expression styles: (1) Constructive anger expression- assertively discussing why they
are upset with the person they feel anger toward in an attempt to resolve the situation while
considering that person’s point of view. (2) Destructive anger justification- blaming others for their
anger and expressing self-justification and desire for vindication; and (3) Destructive anger
rumination- holding grudges, brooding, and discussing their anger repetitiously in a way that
magnifies their animosity. Their prospective study found that constructive anger seemed to have a
protective effect for CHD in men but not women, whereas destructive anger justification increased
CHD risk for both men and women.
ANS:
One of the dispositional constructs involving perceptions of control is hardiness. The hardiness
construct emerged from stress research as a way of describing a stress-resistant personality that
exhibits existential courage. Hardiness is defined as a synergy of three cognitive elements, the 3 Cs of
control, challenge, and commitment.
Test bank for Stress Health and Well-Being: Thriving in the 21st Century 1st Edition by Harr
When persons approach life with existential courage they do not shrink from life’s challenges but
rather actively engage them in a form of transformational coping that serves to shape the outcome.
Hardy individuals also perceive stress and change as less threatening, thus lowering their overall
reactivity to stressors. In many ways, the concept of hardiness is similar to the concept of resilience.
One merry story suggested another, till the potent spirit of the bowl
covered some all over with slumber “as with a cloak,” laid others
prostrate beneath the table, and to the maudlin eyes of the
unconquered survivors presented every object as if of the dual
number. The bustle and hurry of preparation in the kitchen had died
away, orders for an additional supply of liquor were more tardily
executed, and the kitchen-maid came in half undressed, holding a
short gown together at the breast, rubbing her eyes, and staggering
under the influence of a stolen nap at the fireside, from which she
had been hastily and reluctantly roused. Cleekum, M‘Harrigle,
M‘Glashan, and myself were the only individuals who had any
pretentions to sobriety. The landlord had prudently retired to rest an
hour before. Silence reigned in the whole house, except in one
apartment, and silence would have put down her velvet footstep
there also, but for the occasional roars of M‘Harrigle, who bellowed
as if he had been holding conversational communion with his own
nowt; and the engine-without-oil sort of noise that M‘Glashan made
as he twanged, sputtered, and grunted his native tongue to
M‘Harrigle, who was turning round to the piper every now and then,
crying “D——n your Gaelic, you’ve spewed enough o’t the night; put a
bung in your throat, you beast!”
A few flies that buzzed and murmured round the room were the
only joyous and sleepless creatures that seemed disposed to prolong
the revelry. The cold toddy having lost its delicious relish, produced
loathing, and its former exhilarating effluvia was now sickening to
the nose. The candle-wick stood in the middle of the flickering flame
like a long nail with a large round head, and sending the light in fitful
flashes against the walls. The cock had sounded his clarion, the
morning seamed the openings of the window-shutters with lines of
light, and the ploughman, roused to labour, went whistling past the
door. I opened the window-shutter. A glare of light rushed in and
condensed the flame of our little luminary into a single bud of pale
light, whose sickliness seemed to evince a kindred sympathy with the
disorderly remains of the night’s revelry, and with the stupified
senses and exhausted bodies of the revellers themselves.
I looked out of the window. All was silent, save the far-off whistle
of the ploughman who had passed, and the continual roar of the
cataract; and all was motionless, except the blue feathery smoke
which puffed from a single-chimney, and floated down the glen in a
long wavering stream. How chill and piercing the morning air feels to
the nervous and debilitated reveller, and how reproachfully does the
light of another day steal in upon the unseemly disorder of his
privacy! Almost every man feels himself to be somewhat of a
blackguard who is thus surprised.
Going home drunk in a summer morning! What a beast!
Feebleness of knees, that would gladly lie down by the wayside,—
headache, that makes the brain a mere puddle of dirty recollections,
and dismal anticipations,—dimness of eyes, that makes every visible
object caricaturish and monstrous,—filthiness of apparel enough to
shame a very scavenger,—and a heart sick almost to the commission
of felo de se. Zig-zag, thump, thump, down again, howling, swearing,
praying. It is a libel on the brute creation to call it beastliness. Brutes
do no such thing. And the morning, how fresh, clear, green, and
glittering! Hang that fellow,—going to work, I imagine. What on
earth roused him at such an unseasonable hour? To be a spy upon
me, I suppose. Who are you, sir?—A poor man, please your honour,
sir.—A poor man! go and be hanged then.—These birds yelping from
that thicket are more unmusical than hurdy-gurdy, marrowbone and
cleaver. I wish each of them had a pipe-stopple in its windpipe. I
never heard such abominable discord. The whole world is astir. Who
told them I was going home at this time in the morning? Who is that
singing the “Flower o’ Dunblane” at the other side of the hedge? A
milkmaid—“and the milkmaid singeth blithe.” Ah, John Milton, thy
notions of rural felicity were formed in a closet. You may have a peep
of her through this “slap.” Rural innocence!—a mere humbug,—a
dirty, tawdry, pudding-legged, blowsy-faced, sun-burnt drab. What a
thing for a shepherdess in a pastoral! Confound these road trustees;
they have been drawing the road through a bore, and have made it
ten times its common length, and a hundred times narrower than its
common breadth. Horribly rough; no man can walk steadily on it.
Have the blockheads not heard of M‘Adam? In the words of the
Lawrencekirk album epigrammatist,—
“The people here ought to be hanged,
Unless they mend their ways.”
By D. M. Moir.
We’ll hap and row, hap and row,
We’ll hap and row the feetie o’t;
It is a wee bit weary thing,
I dinnie bide the greetie o’t.—Provost Creech.