I trust you will observe and appreciate the discreet ambiguity of
style with which I have chosen to address you. I may assure you at
once that I have done this not without considerable thought. For,
though I have often watched you in the exercise of your energies, I
have never yet been able to satisfy myself as to whether I ought to
class you amongst our rougher sex, or include you in the ranks of
those who wear high heels, and very low dresses. Sometimes you fix
your place of business in a breast adequately covered by a stiff and
shining shirt-front and a well-cut waistcoat. Sometimes you inhabit
the expansive bosom of a matron. Nor do you confine yourself to one
class alone out of the many that go to the composition of our social
life. You have impelled grocers to ludicrous pitches of absurdity;
you have driven the wife of a working-man to distraction because her
neighbour's front room possesses a more expensive carpet, of a sprucer
pattern than her own. Clerks have suffered acutely from your stings,
and actresses have spent many a sleepless night under your malign
influence. You have tortured Dukes on the peaks of gracious splendour
where they sit enthroned as far above common mortals as they ought to
be above the common feeling of envy; and you have caused even Queens
to writhe because there happened to be a few stray Empresses in the
world.
[Illustration]
On the whole, then, I think I do wisely in leaving the question of
your sex a doubtful one. You would wish it so left yourself, otherwise
so powerful a personality as yours would, I am certain, have revealed
itself with greater clearness to an honest investigator, such as
I humbly trust I have proved myself. But, be that as it may, I can
assert with perfect confidence that you are no respecter of persons,
though it must, in fairness, be added, that one of your chief
functions seems to be to implant an exaggerated respect and admiration
of others in the minds of your victims. In saying this I praise your
impartiality, while I hint a dislike of your ordinary methods. Not
that I have any hope of causing you to desist. For to desist would be
to cease to exist, and I cannot fairly expect you to commit suicide,
however much I may desire it. Moreover, your subjects--for, to be
candid, you are a despot--seem to like you. You minister so craftily
to their self-esteem, you flatter their vanity with an adroitness
so remarkable, that, after a few feeble struggles, they resign
themselves, body and soul, to your thrall. Even then you proceed
warily. Your first labour is to collect, with patient care, all the
little elements of dissatisfaction that are latent in every nature,
and to blend them with the petty disappointments to which even the
best of us are liable. The material thus obtained you temper with
intentions that seem to be good, and eventually you forge out of it a
weapon of marvellous point and sharpness, with which you mercilessly
goad your victims along the path that leads to ridicule and disaster.
Let me take an instance which I am sure you will remember. When
I first met little DABCHICK, I thought I had never seen a happier
mortal. He was clever, good-natured, and sprightly. He sold tea
somewhere in Mincing Lane, and on the proceeds of his sales he managed
to support a wife and two pleasant children in reasonable comfort
at Balham. Mrs. DABCHICK could not be accused by her best friends of
over-refinement, but everybody agreed that she was just the homely,
comfortable, housewifely person who would always make DABCHICK happy,
and be a good and careful mother to his children. Often in the old
days when I came down to Balham and took pot-luck with DABCHICK, while
Mrs. DABCHICK beamed serenity and middle-class satisfaction upon me
from the other end of the table, and the juvenile JOHNNY DABCHICK
recited in a piping treble one of Mr. GEORGE R. SIMS's most moving
pieces for our entertainment, often, I say, have I envied the simple
happiness of that family, and gone back to my bachelor chambers with
an increased sense of dissatisfaction. Why, I thought to myself, had
fate denied to me the peaceful domesticity of the DABCHICKS? I was as
good a man as DABCHICK, probably, if the truth were known, a better
than he. Yet there he was with a good wife, an agreeable family, and
a comfortable income to compensate him for his extravagance with the
letter h, while I had to toil and moil in solitary gloom.
Now, however, all is changed. In an evil moment for himself, DABCHICK
speculated largely and successfully in the Gold Trust of Guatemala. In
a very short time his income was multiplied by ten. The usual results
followed. The happy home in Balham was given up. "People about here,"
said DABCHICK, "are such poor snobs"--and a more ornate mansion in
South Kensington was taken in its stead. The old friends and the
old habits were dropped. JOHNNY DABCHICK was sent to Eton with an
immoderate allowance of pocket-money, and was promptly christened
"PEKOE" by his schoolfellows. Mrs. DABCHICK rides in a huge landau
with blue wheels, and leaves cards on the fringes of the aristocracy.
DABCHICK himself aspires to Parliament, and never keeps the same
circle of friends for more than about six months. He knows one shady
Viscount to whom rumour asserts that he has lent immense sums of
Guatemalan money, and the approach of a Marquis makes him palpitate
with emotion. But he is a profoundly miserable man. Of that I am
assured. It amuses me when I meet him in pompous society to address
him lightly as "DAB," and remind him of the dear old Balham days, and
the huge amount of bird's-eye we used to smoke together. For his motto
now is, "_Delenda est Balhamia_"--I speak of course figuratively--and
half-crown havannahs have usurped the place of the honest briar. I
know the poor wretch is making up his mind to cut me, but I must bear
it as best I may.
Now, my dear Sir or Madam, for this melancholy deterioration in the
DABCHICKS you are entirely responsible. I am saddened as I contemplate
it, and I appeal to you. Scarify Dukes and Duchesses, make vain and
useless social prigs as miserable as you like, but leave the DABCHICKS
of this world alone. They are simple folk, and really I cannot think
that the game is worth the candle.
Believe me to be, your obedient servant,