EGOTISM in couples is of two kinds.—It is our purpose to show this by two
examples.
The egotistical couple may be young, old, middle-aged, well to do, or ill
to do; they may have a small family, a large family, or no family at all.
There is no outward sign by which an egotistical couple may be known and
avoided. They come upon you unawares; there is no guarding against them.
No man can of himself be forewarned or forearmed against an egotistical
couple.
The egotistical couple have undergone every calamity, and experienced
every pleasurable and painful sensation of which our nature is
susceptible. You cannot by possibility tell the egotistical couple
anything they don’t know, or describe to them anything they have not
felt. They have been everything but dead. Sometimes we are tempted to
wish they had been even that, but only in our uncharitable moments, which
are few and far between.
We happened the other day, in the course of a morning call, to encounter
an egotistical couple, nor were we suffered to remain long in ignorance
of the fact, for our very first inquiry of the lady of the house brought
them into active and vigorous operation. The inquiry was of course
touching the lady’s health, and the answer happened to be, that she had
not been very well. ‘Oh, my dear!’ said the egotistical lady, ‘don’t
talk of not being well. We have been in _such_ a state since we saw you
last!’—The lady of the house happening to remark that her lord had not
been well either, the egotistical gentleman struck in: ‘Never let Briggs
complain of not being well—never let Briggs complain, my dear Mrs.
Briggs, after what I have undergone within these six weeks. He doesn’t
know what it is to be ill, he hasn’t the least idea of it; not the
faintest conception.’—‘My dear,’ interposed his wife smiling, ‘you talk
as if it were almost a crime in Mr. Briggs not to have been as ill as we
have been, instead of feeling thankful to Providence that both he and our
dear Mrs. Briggs are in such blissful ignorance of real suffering.’—‘My
love,’ returned the egotistical gentleman, in a low and pious voice, ‘you
mistake me;—I feel grateful—very grateful. I trust our friends may never
purchase their experience as dearly as we have bought ours; I hope they
never may!’
Having put down Mrs. Briggs upon this theme, and settled the question
thus, the egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after a few
preliminary remarks, all tending towards and leading up to the point he
had in his mind, inquired if we happened to be acquainted with the
Dowager Lady Snorflerer. On our replying in the negative, he presumed we
had often met Lord Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on intimate
terms with Sir Chipkins Glogwog. Finding that we were equally unable to
lay claim to either of these distinctions, he expressed great
astonishment, and turning to his wife with a retrospective smile,
inquired who it was that had told that capital story about the mashed
potatoes. ‘Who, my dear?’ returned the egotistical lady, ‘why Sir
Chipkins, of course; how can you ask! Don’t you remember his applying it
to our cook, and saying that you and I were so like the Prince and
Princess, that he could almost have sworn we were they?’ ‘To be sure, I
remember that,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘but are you quite
certain that didn’t apply to the other anecdote about the Emperor of
Austria and the pump?’ ‘Upon my word then, I think it did,’ replied his
wife. ‘To be sure it did,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘it was
Slang’s story, I remember now, perfectly.’ However, it turned out, a few
seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman’s memory was rather
treacherous, as he began to have a misgiving that the story had been told
by the Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last time they dined there; but
there appearing, on further consideration, strong circumstantial evidence
tending to show that this couldn’t be, inasmuch as the Dowager Lady
Snorflerer had been, on the occasion in question, wholly engrossed by the
egotistical lady, the egotistical gentleman recanted this opinion; and
after laying the story at the doors of a great many great people, happily
left it at last with the Duke of Scuttlewig:—observing that it was not
extraordinary he had forgotten his Grace hitherto, as it often happened
that the names of those with whom we were upon the most familiar footing
were the very last to present themselves to our thoughts.
It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew everybody, but that
scarcely any event of importance or notoriety had occurred for many years
with which they had not been in some way or other connected. Thus we
learned that when the well-known attempt upon the life of George the
Third was made by Hatfield in Drury Lane theatre, the egotistical
gentleman’s grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the first man who
collared him; and that the egotistical lady’s aunt, sitting within a few
boxes of the royal party, was the only person in the audience who heard
his Majesty exclaim, ‘Charlotte, Charlotte, don’t be frightened, don’t be
frightened; they’re letting off squibs, they’re letting off squibs.’
When the fire broke out, which ended in the destruction of the two Houses
of Parliament, the egotistical couple, being at the time at a
drawing-room window on Blackheath, then and there simultaneously
exclaimed, to the astonishment of a whole party—‘It’s the House of
Lords!’ Nor was this a solitary instance of their peculiar discernment,
for chancing to be (as by a comparison of dates and circumstances they
afterwards found) in the same omnibus with Mr. Greenacre, when he carried
his victim’s head about town in a blue bag, they both remarked a singular
twitching in the muscles of his countenance; and walking down Fish Street
Hill, a few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman said to his
lady—slightly casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument—‘There’s a
boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible. It’s very strange. I don’t like
it.—In five seconds afterwards, Sir,’ says the egotistical gentleman,
bringing his hands together with one violent clap—‘the lad was over!’
Diversifying these topics by the introduction of many others of the same
kind, and entertaining us between whiles with a minute account of what
weather and diet agreed with them, and what weather and diet disagreed
with them, and at what time they usually got up, and at what time went to
bed, with many other particulars of their domestic economy too numerous
to mention; the egotistical couple at length took their leave, and
afforded us an opportunity of doing the same.
Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of another class, for
all the lady’s egotism is about her husband, and all the gentleman’s
about his wife. For example:—Mr. Sliverstone is a clerical gentleman,
and occasionally writes sermons, as clerical gentlemen do. If you happen
to obtain admission at the street-door while he is so engaged, Mrs.
Sliverstone appears on tip-toe, and speaking in a solemn whisper, as if
there were at least three or four particular friends up-stairs, all upon
the point of death, implores you to be very silent, for Mr. Sliverstone
is composing, and she need not say how very important it is that he
should not be disturbed. Unwilling to interrupt anything so serious, you
hasten to withdraw, with many apologies; but this Mrs. Sliverstone will
by no means allow, observing, that she knows you would like to see him,
as it is very natural you should, and that she is determined to make a
trial for you, as you are a great favourite. So you are led
up-stairs—still on tip-toe—to the door of a little back room, in which,
as the lady informs you in a whisper, Mr. Sliverstone always writes. No
answer being returned to a couple of soft taps, the lady opens the door,
and there, sure enough, is Mr. Sliverstone, with dishevelled hair,
powdering away with pen, ink, and paper, at a rate which, if he has any
power of sustaining it, would settle the longest sermon in no time. At
first he is too much absorbed to be roused by this intrusion; but
presently looking up, says faintly, ‘Ah!’ and pointing to his desk with a
weary and languid smile, extends his hand, and hopes you’ll forgive him.
Then Mrs. Sliverstone sits down beside him, and taking his hand in hers,
tells you how that Mr. Sliverstone has been shut up there ever since nine
o’clock in the morning, (it is by this time twelve at noon,) and how she
knows it cannot be good for his health, and is very uneasy about it.
Unto this Mr. Sliverstone replies firmly, that ‘It must be done;’ which
agonizes Mrs. Sliverstone still more, and she goes on to tell you that
such were Mr. Sliverstone’s labours last week—what with the buryings,
marryings, churchings, christenings, and all together,—that when he was
going up the pulpit stairs on Sunday evening, he was obliged to hold on
by the rails, or he would certainly have fallen over into his own pew.
Mr. Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling meekly, says, ‘Not
quite so bad as that, not quite so bad!’ he admits though, on
cross-examination, that he _was_ very near falling upon the verger who
was following him up to bolt the door; but adds, that it was his duty as
a Christian to fall upon him, if need were, and that he, Mr. Sliverstone,
and (possibly the verger too) ought to glory in it.
This sentiment communicates new impulse to Mrs. Sliverstone, who launches
into new praises of Mr. Sliverstone’s worth and excellence, to which he
listens in the same meek silence, save when he puts in a word of
self-denial relative to some question of fact, as—‘Not seventy-two
christenings that week, my dear. Only seventy-one, only seventy-one.’
At length his lady has quite concluded, and then he says, Why should he
repine, why should he give way, why should he suffer his heart to sink
within him? Is it he alone who toils and suffers? What has she gone
through, he should like to know? What does she go through every day for
him and for society?
With such an exordium Mr. Sliverstone launches out into glowing praises
of the conduct of Mrs. Sliverstone in the production of eight young
children, and the subsequent rearing and fostering of the same; and thus
the husband magnifies the wife, and the wife the husband.
This would be well enough if Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone kept it to
themselves, or even to themselves and a friend or two; but they do not.
The more hearers they have, the more egotistical the couple become, and
the more anxious they are to make believers in their merits. Perhaps
this is the worst kind of egotism. It has not even the poor excuse of
being spontaneous, but is the result of a deliberate system and malice
aforethought. Mere empty-headed conceit excites our pity, but
ostentatious hypocrisy awakens our disgust.