I had not intended to annoy you with another letter. But since I
addressed you last week I have received one or two communications--not
from you, _bien entendu_, for you are too wary to dispute the accuracy
of what I have written; but from concrete human beings, who pretend to
speak on your behalf, and deny that I have "proved my case." I might
answer by saying that I never set out to prove a case--that I wished
merely to enjoy a friendly chat with you, and to appeal to your
clemency on behalf of the large class whom I ventured to represent by
the DABCHICKS. "But," says one of my detractors, in a letter now lying
before me, "you have only given one instance. You have talked grandly
about Queens, and Dukes, and actresses, and, in the end, you have
put us off with a wretched story about the _parvenu_ DABCHICK. For
my part, I refuse to admit your authority until you prove, in greater
detail, that you really know something of the subject on which you
presumed to write." "Sir," I reply, "you are brusque, and somewhat
offensive in the style you use towards me. For my part I do not admit
that you are entitled to an answer from me, and I have felt disposed
to pass you by in silence. But since there may be other weak vessels
of your sort, I will do violence to myself, and pen another letter."
And thus, my dear SOCIAL AMBITION, I once more take the liberty of
addressing you, not without an inward tremor lest you should pounce
upon me unawares, and cause me to expiate my rashness by driving me
from the calm seclusion in which I spend my days, to mingle with the
feverish throng who wrangle for place and precedence, myself the most
feverish wrangler of them all. But, on the principle that we are both,
in some sort, hawks, I think I may trust you to spare my eyes, while I
remind you of one or two incidents in which you bore a part.
And first BLENKINSOP knocks at the door of my memory. I bid him
enter, and I see a tall slim youth, not ill-favoured, wearing well-cut
clothes, and carrying a most beautiful, gold-topped Malacca cane
delicately in his hand. He is smoking a cigar, and complains to me
that his life is a succession of aimless days, and that he cannot find
any employment to turn his hand to. That very night, I remember, he
dined with me. We went to the play together, and afterwards looked in
at Lady ALICIA PARBOIL's dance. Dear Lady ALICIA, how plump she was,
and how good-natured, and how well she married her fiddle-headed
daughters. Her husband too, that clumsy, heavy-witted oaf, how
cunningly and how successfully withal she schemed for his advancement.
_Quid plura?_ you knew her well, she was devoted to you. I only speak
of her to remind you that it was in her hospitable rooms that GERVASE
BLENKINSOP met you--and his fate. He had danced for the second time
that evening with ELVIRA PARBOIL, and, having returned that blushing
virgin to her accustomed corner, was just about to depart when the
ample form of Lady ALICIA bore down upon him: "Oh, Mr. BLENKINSOP,"
her Ladyship began, "I really cannot allow you to go before I
introduce you to Mr. WILBRAHAM. I hear," she continued, "he has just
lost his Private Secretary, and who knows but that--" Here she paused,
and archly tapping her _protégé's_ cheek with her fan, she bore him
off to introduce him to the Cabinet Minister. I watched the ceremony.
Something whispered to me that BLENKINSOP was lost. Must I go through
the whole painful story? He became Private Secretary to his new Right
Honourable friend, and from that moment he was a changed man. His
cheery good-nature vanished. Instead of it he cultivated an air of
pompous importance. One by one he weeded out his useless friends, and
attached to himself dull but potentially useful big wigs who possessed
titles and influence. At one of our last speaking interviews (we
only nod distantly now when we meet), he hinted that in the next
distribution of honours his name might be expected. It appeared, but,
alas for gratitude, he had to satisfy himself with a paltry K.C.M.G.,
which his wife (I forgot to say that he married ELVIRA) despises.
He is now a disappointed man whom his friends, if he had any, would
pity. He is getting on in life; the affectations he so laboriously
cultivated no longer amuse. The witlings of his Clubs remark openly
upon his ridiculous desire to pose as an earth-shaking personage, and
when he goes home he has to listen to a series of bitter home-truths
from the acrid ELVIRA. Would it not, I ask, have been better for
Sir GERVASE BLENKINSOP, K.C.M.G., to have continued his ancient and
aimless existence, than to have had a fallacious greatness dangled
before his eyes to the end of his disappointed, but aspiring life?
[Illustration]
One more instance, and I have done. Do you remember TOMMY TIPSTAFF at
Trinity? I do. He was, of course, a foolish youth, but he might have
had a pleasant life in the fat living for which his family intended
him. In his second year at the University, he met Sir JAMES SPOOF,
an undergraduate Baronet, of great wealth, and dissolute habits. Poor
TOMMY was dazzled by his new friend's specious glare and glitter, and
his slapdash manner of scattering his money. They became inseparable.
The same dealer supplied them with immense cigars, they went to
race meetings, and tried to break the ring. When Sir JAMES wished to
gamble, TOMMY was always ready to keep the bank. And all the time poor
Mrs. TIPSTAFF, in her country home, was overjoyed at her darling's
success in what she told me once was the most brilliant and remarkable
set at Cambridge.
Where is TOMMY now? The other day a ragged man shambled up to me,
with a request that I should buy a box of lights from him. There was
a familiar something about him. Could it be TOMMY? The question was
indirectly answered, for, before I could extract a penny, or say a
word, he looked hard at me, turned his head away, and made off as fast
as his rickety legs would carry him. Most men must have had a similar
experience, but few know, as I do, that you, my dear SOCIAL AMBITION,
urged the wretched TOMMY to his destruction.
On the whole, I dislike you. Those who obey you become the meanest of
God's creatures.
Pardon my candour, and believe me, Yours, without respect, DIOGENES
ROBINSON.
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