* * * * *
Now that was not altogether an agreeable breakfast dish. And the worst
of it was that it was so supremely unjustifiable. Had my indignant
correspondent honoured me with her address, I should have answered
her at once. "Madam," I should have said, "your anger outstrips your
reason. I always intended to say something about men. I had already
begun a second letter to my friend VANITY on the subject. I can
therefore afford to forgive your hard words, and to admit that there
is a certain amount of truth in your strictures on us. But please
don't write to me again so furiously. Such excessive annoyance is
quite out of keeping with your pretty handwriting, and besides, it
takes away my appetite to think I have even involuntarily given you
pain. Be kind enough to look out for my next letter, but don't, for
goodness' sake, tell me what you think about it, unless it should
happen to please you. In that case I shall, of course, be proud and
glad to hear from you again."
I now proceed, therefore, to carry out my intention, and, as usual,
I address myself to the fountain head. My dear VANITY, I never shall
understand why you take so much trouble to get hold of men. They are
not a pleasing sight when you have got them, and after a time it
must cease to amuse even you to see yourself reproduced over and over
again, and in innumerable ridiculous ways. For instance, there is
Dr. PEAGAM, the celebrated author of _Indo-Hebraic Fairy Tales: a new
Theory of their Rise and Development, with an Excursus on an Early
Aryan Version of_ "_Three Blind Mice_." Dr. PEAGAM is learned; he has
the industry of a beaver; he is a correspondent of goodness knows how
many foreign philosophical, philological, and mythological societies;
his record of University distinctions has never been equalled; his
advice has been sought by German Professors. Yet he carries all this
weight of celebrity and learning as lightly as if it were a wideawake,
and seems to think nothing of it. But he has his weak point, and, like
Achilles, he has it in his feet.
This veteran investigator, this hoary and venerable Doctor, would
cheerfully give years off his life if only the various philosophers
who from time to time sit at his feet would recognise that those feet
are small, and compliment him on the fact. They _are_ small, there is
no doubt of it, but not small enough to be encased without agony in
the tiny, natty, pointed boots that he habitually wears. Let anybody
who wants to get anything out of Dr. PEAGAM lead the conversation
craftily on to the subject of feet and their proper size. Let him then
make the discovery (aloud) that the Doctor's feet are extraordinarily
small and beautiful, and I warrant that there is nothing the
Doctor can bestow which shall not be freely offered to this cunning
flatterer. That is why Dr. PEAGAM, a modest man in most respects,
always insists on sitting in the front row on any platform, and
ostentatiously dusts his boots with a red silk pocket-handkerchief.
Then, again, who is there that has not heard of Major-General
WHACKLEY, V.C., the hero who captured the ferocious Ameer of Mudwallah
single-handed, and carried him on his back to the English camp--the
man to whose dauntless courage, above all others, the marvellous
victory of Pilferabad was due? Speak to him on military matters,
and you will find the old warrior as shy as a school-girl; but only
mention the word poetry, and you'll have him reciting his ballads and
odes to you by the dozen, and declaiming for hours together about the
obtuseness of the publishing fraternity.
I don't speak now of literary men who value themselves above LAMB,
DICKENS, and THACKERAY, rolled into one; nor of artists who sneer at
TITIAN; nor of actors who hold GARRICK to be absurdly overrated. Space
would fail me, and patience you. But let me just for a brief moment
call to your mind ROLAND PRETTYMAN. Upon my soul, I think ROLAND the
most empty-headed fribble, the most affected coxcomb, and the most
conceited noodle in the whole world. He was decently good-looking
once, and he had a pretty knack of sketching in water-colours.
But oh, the huge, distorted, overweening conceit of the man! I have
seen him lying full length on a couch, waving a scented handkerchief
amongst a crowd of submissive women, who were grovelling round him,
while he enlarged in his own pet jargon on the surpassing merits
of his latest unpublished essay, or pointed out the beauties of the
trifling pictures which were the products of his ineffective brush.
He will never accomplish anything, and yet to the end of his life,
I fancy, he will have his circle of toadies and flatterers who will
pretend to accept him as the evangelist of a glorious literary and
artistic gospel. For unfortunately he is as rich as he is impudent
and incompetent. And when he drives out in a Hansom he never ceases to
simper at his reflected image in the little corner looking-glasses, by
means of which modern cab-proprietors pander to the weakness of men.
Such is your handiwork, my excellent VANITY. Are you proud of it?
Yours, &c.,