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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl, by Jenny Wren
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl
+       Sister of that "Idle Fellow."
+
+Author: Jenny Wren
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2005 [EBook #16507]
+Last updated: January 17, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAZY THOUGHTS OF A LAZY GIRL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     LAZY THOUGHTS OF A LAZY GIRL.
+
+                    (Sister of that "IDLE FELLOW.")
+
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+                             JENNY WREN.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+                          HURST AND COMPANY
+                             PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+    CHAPTER.
+
+    I.    ON LOVE.
+
+    II.   ON BILLS.
+
+    III.  ON POLITICS.
+
+    IV.   ON AFTERNOON TEA.
+
+    V.    ON DRESS.
+
+    VI.   ON CHRISTMAS.
+
+    VII.  ON THE COUNTRY.
+
+    VIII. ON TOWN.
+
+    IX.   ON CHILDREN AND DOGS.
+
+    X.    ON CONCERTS.
+
+    XI.   ON DANCING.
+
+    XII.  ON WATERING PLACES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ON LOVE.
+
+    "Love is of man's life a thing apart;
+    'Tis woman's whole existence."
+
+
+So sings the poet, and so agrees the world. Humiliating as it is to
+make the confession, it is undeniably true. "Men and Dress are all
+women think about," cry the lords of creation in their unbounded
+vanity. And again, we must submit--and agree--to the truth of the
+accusation; at any rate, in nine cases out of ten. Fortunately I am a
+tenth case; at least, I consider myself so. I don't dispute the
+"dress" imputation. I am very fond of dress. Nearly as fond of it as
+the twenty-year old youth, and saying that, I allow a good deal. But
+very few of my thoughts are given to the creature "man"! I do not
+think him worth it. As my old nurse used to say, "I never 'ad no
+opinion of the sex!"
+
+Do not conclude, however, that because of my statement that I am a
+disappointed, soured old maid, for I am nothing of the sort. I am on
+the right side of twenty-five, and I have never been crossed in love;
+indeed, I have never even experienced the tender passion, and only
+write from my observations of other people; thus taking a perfectly
+neutral ground in speaking of it at all.
+
+One never hears that Adam fell in love with Eve, or that Eve was
+passionately attached to Adam. But then, poor things, they had so
+little choice--it was either that or nothing. Besides, there was no
+opposition to the match, so it was bound to be rather a tame affair.
+For my part, I pity Eve, for Adam was, I think, the very meanest of
+men. When he was turned out of the garden, what a wretch he must have
+felt himself! and how he must have taunted his poor wife! Weak men are
+always bullies.
+
+But "_revenons à nos moutons_," I am wondering who was the first
+person to fall in love! Cain _might_ have done so with his mysterious
+wife; history does not say. But certainly there is always some
+attraction in mystery, so such a thing is possible. I wonder whence
+that extraordinary woman sprang!
+
+Neither do we hear much of Noah's domestic experiences, but I should
+conclude on the whole that they were not happy. No man could be
+endured for forty days shut up in the house, no business to go to,
+nothing to do, always hanging about, his idle hands at some mischief
+or other, and last, but not least, a diabolical temper, displayed at
+every turn! Why, I cannot endure one for a week! My only wonder is
+that the female population of the Ark did not rise up in a body and
+consign their lords and masters to the floods.
+
+Poor men, they deserve a little of our pity too, perhaps; for if Mrs.
+Noah and her daughters-in-law at all resembled their effigies in the
+Noah's Arks of the present day, they were women to be avoided, _I_
+think.
+
+So that, after all, it must have been Jacob who set such a very
+foolish example; because we could not count Isaac, his being so
+extraordinary and isolated a case, when he fell in love with his own
+wife!
+
+Therefore I think we owe Jacob a great many grudges. He was the
+inventor of the tender passion, and since his time people have begun
+to follow his example long before they come to years of discretion,
+simply because their parents did so before them, and they think they
+are not grown up, that they are not men, unless they have some love
+affair on hand.
+
+Some get married at once, some wait a long time, and some do not marry
+at all. These last are, I think, generally the happiest, for this
+so-called love lasts for only a very short time, and neither husband
+nor wife are long before they console themselves with someone else's
+affection to make up for what is wanting on the part of the other.
+
+Of course I am speaking generally. As far as I can see, the majority
+act thus, though I am glad to say that many and various are the
+exceptions. It was only the other day I came across our washerwoman
+and asked her how she and her husband got on together. He used to be a
+drunkard, and used her cruelly, but two years ago he took the pledge,
+and, what is more, he kept it. "Lor', mum," she exclaimed fervently,
+"we draws nearer every day!" I am afraid not many husbands and wives
+could say the same.
+
+People are so anxious to marry too. I cannot understand them, men
+especially. They have their clubs, they are entirely independent, and
+can go home as late as they please without being questioned as to
+their whereabouts. And yet, as soon as they can, they saddle
+themselves with a wife, who requires at least half the money--they
+have never found sufficient for themselves alone--besides a great deal
+of looking after!
+
+Women, on the contrary, are different. They have to make some
+provision for the future, so to speak. How do you like it, oh men! the
+idea that you, with your handsome personages and fascinating ways, are
+used only as a kind of insurance office? This is the case very often,
+however, though you may not know it!
+
+Yet others pursue the god Hymen merely for the sake of being married.
+As soon as they leave the school-room, sometimes before, they begin
+their search for a husband, and look out for him in the person of
+every man they meet. No matter who it is so long as they are married
+before So-and-So, and can triumph over all their friends.
+
+It must be said for men that they are falling off in the marrying
+line. This is not nearly such a proposing generation as the last. Then
+they married much younger and seemed to propose after a few days'
+acquaintance. No, this is a more cautious age altogether. Men look
+round carefully before they make their choice. They sample it well,
+they watch it in the home circle, they watch it abroad, they watch it
+with other men, and finally come to the conclusion that it is worthy
+to be allied to their noble selves, or they don't!
+
+Another thing. Men of the present day are so direfully afraid of a
+refusal! So fearful are they, that rather than risk one, they give up
+many chances of happiness.
+
+They expect that a girl should show her feeling toward them, before
+they come to the point. But you must remember that girls also have to
+be cautious, and a few--I acknowledge it is only a few--would rather
+die than show they cared for a man who after all might only "love and
+ride away."
+
+Not that I altogether blame man in this respect. I always admire
+pride, and am afraid I should not care for a refusal myself. I am
+intolerant of it even in the smallest matters!
+
+It is curious how men run in grooves. The same style of man nearly
+always marries the opposite type of girl. I mean that the
+intellectual, the clever, invariably choose the insipid brainless
+girl. Pretty, she may be, but it is in a doll-like way, with not a
+thought above her household. You would have imagined that such men
+would require some help-meet, in the fullest sense of the word; with a
+brain almost as quick as their own. But such a choice occurs very
+seldom.
+
+Again, why is it that little men always select the very tallest women
+they can find? You would think that a man would hesitate to show off
+his meagre inches to such bad advantage. But these pigmies appear to
+enjoy the contrast. It is evidently quantity they admire, not quality.
+
+I daresay a good deal of what I have written sounds very cynical, but
+perhaps my experience has been unfortunate, therefore you must forgive
+me: certainly it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish between
+the real thing and its successful counterpart.
+
+Parents are greatly at fault in the issues of the matrimonial market.
+After all these centuries of experience you would give them credit for
+more tact than they possess. Any match they do not desire, they oppose
+at once, and thereby set alight all the contradictory elements in your
+nature. If Laban had been less obstinate, and had consented to an
+alliance between Jacob and Rachel from the first, provided Leah was
+left behind to look after him, the latter would immediately have been
+endowed with attractions innumerable to Jacob, tender eyes and all!
+
+Nowhere is there such a fertile soil for love as opposition!
+
+On the other hand, if parents wish to encourage a match, young people
+are thrown together as much as possible. However big the gathering,
+you are somehow always paired off with the eligible parti until you
+grow to loathe the man, and would sooner become an "old maid" than
+marry him.
+
+Parents have a bad time altogether I am afraid. Their nice little
+plans are so nearly always upset by their ungrateful children, and
+then they have to be continually looking after their brood. I knew one
+mother who used to take her daughters on the pier and lose sight of
+them at once, as they paired off with their he-acquaintances. Do what
+she would she could not find them again, so many were the nooks and
+crannies near at hand. Finally she had recourse to the Camera Obscura,
+and, with the help of the views set before her there, she found the
+missing girls! "We never can escape her now," they told me in mournful
+tones, after her fatal discovery.
+
+Girls are degenerating sadly, it is said. They are getting too
+masculine, too independent, too different from man's ideal--the modest
+little maid who sits at home and mends her husband's socks.
+
+I do not dispute the fact. They _are_ degenerating. Neither, though I
+dislike the ideal specimen, and have a contempt for her, do I stand up
+for the other extreme. I have a horror of fast masculine girls, and
+agree with all that is said against them. Nevertheless, I do not
+consider men have any right to complain, as they are the chief cause
+of the deterioration of our sex.
+
+Everyone knows that a girl thinks more of a man's opinion than that of
+anyone else. If he applauds, then she is satisfied. She does not
+consider it ignominy to be termed "a jolly good fellow!" She gets
+praise, and in a way admiration, when she caps his good stories,
+smokes, and drinks brandies and sodas. Unfortunately, she does not
+hear herself discussed when he is alone with his friends, or perhaps
+she would be more cautious in her manners and conversation for the
+future, for this is not the kind of girl who is
+
+    "Rich in the grace all women desire,
+    Strong in the power that all men adore."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ON BILLS.
+
+
+BILLS! BILLS! BILLS! Detestable sound! Obnoxious word! Why were such
+things ever invented? Why are they sent to destroy our peace of mind?
+
+They always come, too, when you are expecting some interesting letter.
+You hurry to meet the postman, you get impatient at the length of time
+he takes to separate his packets (I sometimes think these men find
+pleasure in tantalizing you, and keep you waiting on purpose), and
+when he at last presents you with your long-expected missive, behold,
+it turns to dust and ashes in your hand--metaphorically speaking, of
+course.
+
+It is a pity such a metamorphosis does not occur in reality; for the
+wretched oblong envelope, with the sprawly, flourishy writing, so
+unmistakably suggests a bill, that you--well, I do not know what
+_you_ do on such an occasion; _my_ letter, which I have been so
+anxious to obtain, is flung to the other side of the room.
+
+How is it that bills mount up so quickly? You buy a little ribbon, a
+few pairs of gloves, some handkerchiefs--mere items in fact, and yet
+when quarter day comes round you are presented with a bill a yard
+long, which as your next instalment of money is fully mortgaged, is
+calculated to fill you with anything but extreme joy.
+
+Why are the paths leading to destruction always so much easier of
+access than any other? It takes so much less time to run up a bill, it
+is so much simpler to say, "Will you please enter it to my account?"
+than to pay your money down. First the bill has to be added up, and,
+strange as it may seem, these shop people appear to take _hours_ over
+a simple addition sum. "Eight and elevenpence halfpenny if you please,
+ma'am." Of course you have not enough silver, and so are obliged to
+wait for change. Then someone has to be found to sign. Altogether it
+takes quite five minutes longer paying ready money; and think, how
+five minutes after each purchase would mount up in a day's shopping!
+I should say that, on an average you might call it two important hours
+regularly thrown away. "And a good job, too," perhaps our fathers,
+husbands, and brothers would say. But, then, you see, they are
+Philistines and do not understand.
+
+But though we suffer somewhat at the hands of these shop people, I
+think in their turn they have to endure a great deal more from their
+customers. I have seen old ladies order nearly the whole shop out,
+turn over the articles, and having entirely exhausted the patience of
+their victims, say, "Yes--all very pretty--but I don't think I will
+buy any to-day, thank you," and they move off to other counters to
+enact the same scene over again. Selfish old things!
+
+I was dreadfully hard up a short time ago, and of course my bills were
+ten times as big as usual. I had no money coming in, and could not
+conceive how I was to meet my debts.
+
+It is astonishing, when you come to try it, how few paths there are
+open for poverty-stricken ladies to make a little money, especially
+when your object is to keep your difficulties a secret from your
+mankind. I tried every imaginable way without success. What is the
+good of having an expensive education, of being taught French and
+German--neither of which languages, by the way, when brought to the
+test, a girl can ever talk, or at any rate so as to be understood.
+What is the good of it all, I say, when you want to turn your hand to
+making a little money? I felt quite angry the other day when, our cook
+being ill, we had a woman in to take her place. Fifteen shillings a
+week she made! She, who had had little or nothing spent on her
+education, could yet make more shillings in a week than I could pence!
+I began to wish I had been brought up as a scullery maid.
+
+I can paint rather well, but what are the advantages of art compared
+to those of cookery? Many and many a shop I went into, carrying
+specimens of my talent, and asking the owners if they would employ me
+to decorate their tambourines, bellows, &c. But no, they all had their
+own especial artists, and were quite suited. It is such a dreadfully
+humiliating business. At the first place I could have slain the man
+for his impertinence in declining, and I left the shop with a haughty
+mien and my head in the air. But I grew accustomed to it in time, and
+even used to try a little persuasion, which, however, proved of no
+avail. One man offered to exhibit my wares (I felt quite like a
+peddler going his rounds), and through him I sold two tambourines.
+Then who so proud as I? though my profits only came to a few
+shillings. However small, the first taste of success is always
+exhilarating, though indeed my confidence did not last long, for this
+was my first and last experience of money-making in the painting line.
+
+I used to search the sale and exchange columns of the papers, and
+found once that someone wanted music transposed. I wrote directly
+offering my services, and charging a shilling per piece or song. For a
+wonder I was successful, for the person answered, asking for a
+specimen of my skill, which she was pleased to say would do very well.
+
+How her letters used to amuse me! She must have been a rather
+incapable singing mistress I think. Her letters though properly spelt
+were written in an uneducated hand, and she addressed me as if I were
+a servant. She used to give me very little time in which to transpose
+her songs, and insisted on their being finished when she wanted them.
+Sometimes I was quite tired out, for copying music is not a thing to
+be done in a hurry.
+
+Somehow, our negotiations did not last long. Whether I grew careless,
+or she found others to do the work cheaper, I do not know, but she
+suddenly withdrew her custom, and I have never heard from her since.
+
+My next venture was tale writing. Who has not tried this most
+unsatisfactory method? It is a tremendously anxious time when your
+first effort is sent out. What a lot of money you expect to obtain for
+it! You do not intend to be unprepared, so you spend every penny in
+your mind beforehand. Then there is the honor and glory of it! You
+will hear everyone talking of the cleverly written tale and wondering
+who is the gifted author!
+
+What made me more hopeful was the possession of a cousin, who was very
+successful in this line. Indeed, she has reached the three-volume
+stage by now, and is beginning to be quite well known. I have lost my
+interest in her, however, since she took me and my family off in one
+of her books. It is such an easy thing to do. You only have to find
+out a person's peculiarities--and everyone has a peculiarity!--and
+overdraw them a little. My sisters and I, I remember, figured as
+three brainless, fast girls, which would only have amused us had she
+left the rest of the family alone. It is a foolish thing to do, for
+besides nearly always giving offence it is not by any means an
+evidence of good taste.
+
+It is much more difficult to write a tale than some people think; you
+get in such hopeless tangles sometimes. People you kill off in the
+first chapter, you sadly need in the last. Then, when you are
+finishing up, there are so many people to get rid of, that you are
+obliged to dispatch them in a bunch with an explosion, or something
+equally probable--three or four strangers as a rule, who have never
+seen each other before, but who considerately assemble in one place to
+meet their doom. Then the last pages will never fit in with the first.
+Your meek but lovely heroine at the beginning has been transformed
+into a beautiful vixen as you near the end, and is quite
+unrecognizable. The worst parts of all are the sensational ones. You
+think you have worked your hero up to a pitch of fiery eloquence,
+while his _fiancée_ is dying in agony close by, and when you
+complacently turn to read over the passage, you find his words imply
+no more sorrow than they would at the death of a relative from whom he
+had expectations, or--a mother-in-law!
+
+It is rather a difficult matter in a large family to keep your actions
+a secret. Obtuse as most men are, with things going on right under
+their eyes, it is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is
+roused. And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women!
+Though Eve _was_ the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention
+of being behindhand. I know a man who always manages to get down to
+breakfast five minutes before the rest of his family, for the purpose
+of examining the correspondence all round.
+
+Fortunately I managed to escape from these inquisitive eyes, for I met
+the postman myself when he brought back my first tale. It was returned
+with the Editor's "compliments and thanks," coupled with the regret
+that he could not make use of my contribution.
+
+I don't know that I ever felt such keen disappointment as when that
+tale came back from its first visit. I had hoped so much from it, and
+had been so confident of its success. It depressed me for some time,
+and it was long before I ventured upon anything in the literary way
+again. But habit is second nature, they say, so after that and other
+tales had been the round of all the magazines and returned to their
+ancestral home, decidedly the worse for their outings (change of air
+evidently does not agree with MSS.), they affected me no more than the
+receipt of a tradesman's circular. In fact I grew quite to welcome
+them as old friends, and no one would have been more astonished than I
+had they been converted into £ s. d.
+
+Apparently I am not cut out for literary work. I have not sufficient
+imagination, nor am I sceptical enough for this fanciful and
+scientific age. The world only cares for impossible adventures and
+magic stories, or stories which undermine their religion or upset it
+altogether, and I am not clever enough for this.
+
+Of course, in my pecuniary need I did not neglect to employ a
+"chancellor of the exchequer," as Miss. Mathers calls her; a "wardrobe
+keeper," as she terms herself. Indeed, I employed two or three, and so
+had plenty of opportunities of observing the type.
+
+These women certainly vary in the way they carry on business, but very
+rarely do they vary in appearance. For the fattest, ugliest, oiliest
+old creatures to be found anywhere, commend me to a Chancellor! I
+pause in astonishment sometimes, and wonder how they have the strength
+to carry so much flesh about with them.
+
+The first one I engaged possessed a complexion of a glowing yellow,
+like unto the petals of an alamander. She carried on the business in a
+too independent way altogether. She would take up my garments, look
+them over with a contemptuous sniff (what eloquence there is in a
+sniff!), and then begin to talk of the "ilegant costoomes she 'ad 'ad
+lately of Lady ----, of the 'ansome silks and furs purchased from the
+Countess of ----," &c. It was cunningly and knowingly done.
+Immediately, as was intended, my productions began to lose value in my
+eyes, in contrast to her gorgeous descriptions. Finally she would
+state her price, and by no art or persuasion would she give way a
+penny afterwards.
+
+I believe she was given to fits. Anyhow she fell very ill once when
+she came, and had to be given brandy to support her. I was afraid she
+was going to die in the house, which would have been exceedingly
+unpleasant, for it is a heinous breach of gentility to be found mixed
+up in any such transactions. We are so foolish, we have such little
+minds, we try to hide our doings from our neighbors, who are all going
+through the same experiences, and are equally desirous of concealing
+them from us. If all our screens were taken away what a comedy of
+errors would be disclosed. How surprised we should be to see everyone
+committing follies of which we have been so ashamed and so anxious to
+hide from the eyes of all!
+
+After all the brandy had a most beneficial effect. I think it must
+have flown to her head; for never before had she given such large
+amounts. I was quite sorry to find her so well at her next advent. Her
+sniff was even more eloquent, and her prices had returned to their
+original low level. I regret now that I did not again try the brandy.
+
+Another woman I employed was even uglier than the first. She was so
+wholesomely ugly. A great red full moon represented her countenance,
+radiant with the color of the Eiffel Tower. She was altogether a more
+satisfactory chancellor than the other. She always insisted on your
+stating your own price to begin with. "Well, what d'yer think yerself,
+mum?" was her invariable ejaculation, and then, hearing your reply,
+would break in on whatever you said by "It ain't worth more than
+_'arf_ that to me, mum," in the most aggrieved voice. I became used to
+her in time, and knowing she would halve whatever I said, used to
+demand double the worth of the thing. "What d'yer think yerself, mum?"
+You grow so tired of your opinion being thus asked. I wonder how many
+times she says it in a day! It is a cautious way of going about it, at
+any rate. If that woman ever appeared in a police court on a charge of
+dishonesty, and the magistrate asked her what she had to say to the
+charge, the answer would undoubtedly be, "Well, what d'yer think
+yerself, sir?"
+
+Some of those bills are still unpaid. Quarter day is coming round
+again, so I expect there will be some more soon. Alas! I am an unlucky
+being, born under an unlucky star.
+
+You may think it a strange notion, but I attribute all my ill-luck to
+spiders:
+
+    "If you wish to live and thrive,
+    Let a spider run alive."
+
+I am not superstitious as a rule, but I cannot help thinking that my
+wholesale massacre of this obnoxious insect has something to do with
+my misfortunes by way of retribution.
+
+I hate spiders! Nearly everybody has a pet aversion of some sort. I
+have heard people shriek at the sight of a caterpillar, and turn pale
+in the neighborhood of a toad. My great antipathy is a spider! Not
+that I object to its treatment of flies--nasty little worries, they
+deserve everything that happens to them. But it is the _appearance_ of
+a spider that is so against it. There is a shifty expression about the
+eye, and such a leer on the upper lip. Money spinners are not so
+objectionable. I can tolerate them. It is the big, almost tarantulas,
+from which I flee. Those creatures which start up suddenly, and run
+across the room close by where you are sitting; creatures so large
+that you can almost hear their footsteps as they pass.
+
+A man told me once he had found a spider in his room of such enormous
+dimensions that he had to open the door in order that it might get
+out!
+
+Overdrawn, you say? Well, it sounds a little improbable certainly; not
+so much on account of the unusual size of the spider as for the
+extraordinary consideration on the part of the man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ON POLITICS.
+
+
+Perhaps you don't think me competent to talk about politics? "What do
+women know about such things?" asks the superior masculine mind.
+
+Well, they don't know so much as men, I admit, and I earnestly hope
+they never will. A woman who is infected with politics is a positive
+pest, and should be removed at once. If I do not know anything about
+them, at any rate I ought to, as I have been brought up in a raging
+Tory household, and so have been steeped in them from my youth up.
+
+There is such a sameness in politicians. Whatever their opinions,
+their language and feelings are all one. They are only directed at
+different people. While one man is gloating over a Conservative
+victory you hear a mutter from the Radical to the effect that "That
+_brute_ has got in for ----" Poor man, why, because he thinks
+differently to you, should he be a brute? But just the same words are
+spoken if the positions be reversed. It is only the mouths that change
+places.
+
+I am afraid my views incline toward the Tory side. I cannot help it, I
+was bought over long ago. You _must_ feel an interest as to the
+successful candidate when the result means either a tip all round or a
+thundery atmosphere for the rest of the day. Men take an adverse poll
+as a personal affront and vent their feelings on their families. The
+tipping was quite an understood thing when I was younger, now it is
+given up, and joy is shown in a less substantial way, I regret to say.
+Unfortunately the thunder storms are not events of the past as well.
+
+Politicians have such a narrow way of looking at things. The other
+side can do nothing right while they themselves are absolutely
+faultless! If a Tory wishes to confer an opprobrious epithet on a
+person he calls him a Radical, and _vice versâ_; the opposite faction
+is capable of any enormity? This reminds me of the old Scotchman who
+on being asked his opinion of a man who had first murdered and then
+mutilated his victim, answered in a shocked voice, "What do I think?
+Well, I think that a maun who'd do all that would whistle on the
+Sawbuths!" "Such a man must be a Home Ruler," my father would have
+said.
+
+In having a guest with opposite views at your dinner table, what
+agonies do you not suffer? I have gone through those dreadful meals
+trembling at every word that drops from the man's lips. Try as you
+may, turn the conversation how you will, there is sure to be some
+allusion, some statement that sets on fire all the host's enthusiasm,
+and it does not take long before the poor guest is entirely
+annihilated and subdued--unless indeed he is as hot on his side as the
+other is on his; then indeed all we can do is to sit and hear it out.
+To attempt to stem such a torrent would be the act of a lunatic. We
+only feel thankful that "pistols for two and coffee for one" is a
+thing of the past.
+
+The General Elections are dreadful times; nothing but canvassing goes
+on night after night for weeks beforehand. Conversation is entirely
+restricted to the coming event--if you mention a word about anything
+apart from it, you are considered absolutely profane, and are treated
+as a pariah for the next few days.
+
+It is interesting, I admit, and the election day itself is positively
+exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember
+once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess,
+tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary.
+True, it was on what she considered her own side, though I don't think
+she knew enough to distinguish between the two; still her real
+annoyance was occasioned more by the look of the thing. That a pupil
+of hers should act in such a plebeian way, and in so public a place,
+certainly must have been somewhat provoking? Anyhow, she gave me a bad
+mark for disobedience, which affected me but little, as when I related
+the story to my father later on he rewarded me with a shilling for my
+prowess! Electioneering, you see, is not good for the morals!
+
+How tired you get, too, of seeing the names of would-be members stuck
+up all over the place. My brothers used to follow the Liberal
+bill-sticker round, and as soon as he had turned his back pull the
+placards down, or cover them up with their own. This was found out at
+last, and the foe grew more cautious.
+
+Then the extravagant promises made by the candidates, which they never
+really intend to fulfil, and could not if they wished. It is like the
+man in Church who, while singing--
+
+    "Were the whole realm of nature mine,
+    That were an offering far too small,"
+
+was rubbing his finger along the rim of a threepenny bit to make sure
+it was not a fourpenny!
+
+On election days all mankind goes mad. Their excitement is so great
+that they would scarcely know it did they forego their dinner. And
+this, with men, proves an absorbing interest in the matter. Anything
+placed above dinner, in their opinion, must be important indeed.
+
+There is such a polite element abroad on polling day. Men are so
+respectful and hurl such affectionate terms at one another. Even the
+dogs are upset, and strut about in quite a different manner than on
+ordinary days, so puffed out with vanity are they, on account of their
+decorations. The members' wives and their friends are all taking part
+in the scene too, bringing voters along in their carriages, and
+shaking hands with everybody indiscriminately. I heard an old navvy
+protesting once that "Lady ---- never troubled to shake 'ands with him
+any other time, but was generally that 'orty she'd step over you as
+soon as look at you."
+
+Poor old men are dragged out _nolens volens_ to add their mite to the
+public voice, and are sometimes so aged that they scarcely know what
+their opinions are. I hope I shall not live to be very old. It is a
+terrible thing when you make such a prolonged stay on this earth that
+you have to be helped off it.
+
+It is very curious too, how exceedingly disobliging old people are. I
+know a family who have never worn anything brighter than grey for
+years. "In case we have to go into mourning soon--our poor old aunt,
+you know. It's so very sad!" and they squeeze a tear out from
+somewhere, but whether on account of their relative's illness, or her
+prolonged life, is open to opinion. The old lady is flourishing still,
+and the family is as soberly clothed as ever. When she has been dead
+a few months what rainbows they will become, to make up for lost time!
+
+"A disappointing man," I have heard a dutiful nephew term his uncle.
+True, he (the uncle, I mean) is ninety-four, and therefore old enough
+to know better than to rally so many times. But after all, he does
+nothing, runs into no danger, is tended as carefully as a new-born
+baby; I should not at all wonder if he still continued "disappointing"
+and took a new lease of life for seven years. But I am digressing, and
+must return to politics.
+
+I went to a Primrose meeting once and the experience was not so happy
+as to make me wish to try it again.
+
+It amused me, certainly. The conclusion I eventually arrived at, when
+I left, was that the chief element in the Primrose League was
+gratitude! This virtue seemed to be the point round which all the
+speakers rallied.
+
+First the secretary rose, ran off a quantity of statistics, as to what
+had been done by the great League, what it was going to do, and how
+many converts had been induced to join, which was exceedingly
+uninteresting, I think, but which elicited loud applause from the rest
+of the audience. Then some resolution was passed, at which if you
+agreed you were begged "to signify the same in the usual way." After
+which those who thought differently were asked to show their feelings
+in the same fashion. I held my hand up here, but I suppose the ruling
+councillor did not expect any opposition, for he never even looked
+round to see, but gabbled off by rote, "On the contrary? carried
+unanimously!" and my amiable attempt at running counter to the rest
+was not even noticed!
+
+Then the ruling councillor gave way to Mr. ---- (here a sickly smile
+was directed at the great man), who had so very kindly come to speak
+to us this evening, who would, he felt sure, quite enchant us with
+his--er--great eloquence (another leer to his right).
+
+The great man then came forward, and with a superior smile on his
+countenance waited until the applause which greeted his entrance had
+ceased, and then began. He commenced somewhat softly, detailing all
+the advantages of the Primrose League: what it had done for England,
+the fear it arouses in the heart of the Liberal faction, how it will
+raise the country to a summit it never before has reached! No! and
+never would have reached had it not been for this flourishing, this
+powerful League! &c., &c., &c. His voice gradually grew louder and
+louder until, with beating his hands on the table, stamping violently
+over the sins of the Radicals, and perspiring vehemently in the
+effort, he presented anything but a pleasing spectacle.
+
+Of course animation like this brought down the house. The applause
+nearly deafened me, and I was quite glad when he drew near the end of
+his most tedious speech. He concluded by calming down very suddenly,
+returned to his original tones, and thanking his audience for his
+exceedingly kind reception, retired to his seat looking, as Mr.
+Mantalini would say, a "dem'd damp, moist, unpleasant body."
+
+Then up rose the ruling councillor, and called us all to pass a vote
+of thanks to the "gifted orator." Someone seconded it, and the great
+man came forward again to thank us for thanking him. A sort of "So
+glad, I'm glad, you're glad" business, it seemed to me.
+
+Then the ladies were thanked for being present: "Such great aids, and
+such an _important_ element in the League," with a snigger, and what
+he confidently hoped was a fascinating smile, but which made him
+resemble a very placid cow with the corners of its mouth turned up.
+Such a mouth, too! The poor man could have whispered in his own ear
+had he wished. Then someone returned thanks for the ladies. The ruling
+councillor was thanked, and thanked his thankers back again, and after
+a few more people had exhibited their great faculty for gratitude the
+meeting broke up--the only moment at which I felt inclined to applaud.
+
+I do not wish to disparage my own "side" by the foregoing remarks, not
+caring in any way to emulate Balaam. It is not only the members of the
+Primrose League who are so anxious to praise each other. It is the
+case at nearly every meeting you go to. It is a weakness of human
+nature. We know that if we laud our friend he will sing an eulogy on
+us the next minute, so it is only natural we should do it, after all.
+
+    "The fault is not in our stars,
+    But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ON AFTERNOON TEA.
+
+    "The Muses' friend, Tea, does our fancy aid,
+    Repress the vapors which the head invade,
+    And keeps the palace of the soul serene."
+
+
+How I do love tea! I don't deny it, it is as necessary to me as
+smoking is to men.
+
+I have heard a lady accused by her doctor of being a "tea-drunkard"!
+"Tea picks you up for a little time," he said, "and you feel a great
+deal better after you have had a cup. But it is a stimulant, the
+effect of which does not last very long, and all the while it is
+ruining your nerves and constitution. I daresay it is difficult to
+give up--the poor man finds the same with his spirits. You are no
+better than he!"
+
+It is rather a come down, is it not? Somehow, when you are drinking
+tea, you feel so very temperate. Well, at least, the above reflection
+makes you sympathize with the inebriates, if it does nothing else;
+and I am afraid it does nothing else with me. In spite of the warning,
+I continue to take my favorite beverage as strong and as frequently as
+ever, and so I suppose must look forward to a cranky nervous old age.
+
+It is curious to notice how men are invading our precincts now-a-days.
+They used to scoff at such a meal as afternoon tea, and now most of
+them take it as regularly as they stream out of the trains on Saturday
+afternoons with pink papers under their arms--such elevating
+literature! Indeed there is quite a fuss if they have to go without
+it--the tea I mean, not the paper.
+
+It is strange too, because they dislike it so, if we trespass on their
+preserves, _e.g._, their outcry on ladies smoking: which is
+exceedingly unfair, for we have no equivalent for the fragrant weed.
+Still I agree with the men in a way, for nothing looks worse than a
+girl smoking in public, though a cigarette now and then with a brother
+does, I think, no harm, provided it does not grow into a habit.
+
+My brother once gave me a cigarette and bet me a shilling that I would
+not smoke it through. It was so hard that if I had bent it, it would
+have snapped in two. He had only just found it in a corner of a
+cupboard where it had lain for years and years. But oh, the strength
+of that cigarette! It took me hours to get through, for it would not
+draw a bit. Nevertheless, with the incentive of a shilling to urge me
+on, I continued "faint but pursuing" and eventually won the bet. I
+would not do it again for ten times the amount.
+
+But I should be talking about tea, not smoking; and tea has other
+baneful influences besides destroying the digestion. I think that
+afternoon tea is the time that breeds more gossip and scandal than
+any other hour in the day.
+
+As Young exclaims:--
+
+    "Tea! How I tremble at thy fatal stream!
+    As Lethe dreadful to the love of fame.
+    What devastations on thy bank are seen,
+    What shades of mighty names that once have been!
+    A hecatomb of characters supplies
+    Thy painted alters' daily sacrifice!"
+
+Acquaintances drop in. They have all the latest doings of the
+neighborhood at their fingers' ends, and in a quarter of an hour have
+picked everyone of their most intimate friends to pieces, nor do they
+leave them a shred of character.
+
+Why do we feel such a relish in running down our friends and
+relations--the latter especially? _I_ quite enjoy it, though I should
+never do so outside my own family; thus my words never come round to
+their ears. It is a necessity to relieve your feelings occasionally,
+and your family is a good, safe receptacle.
+
+For those who have a taste for speaking spitefully of their neighbors,
+I can suggest an amusing game which was, I believe, started in Oxford.
+It is called Photograph whist, and is played by four. Two or three
+dozen photographs are dealt round, and each person plays one, he who
+plays the ugliest portrait taking the trick. The more hideous the
+photograph, the greater its value as a trump! I have played the game
+with a man who always keeps his brother to the end, and then brings
+him out with enormous success, the said brother never failing to
+overtrump any other card in the pack! So you see it is a most amiable
+game altogether. You must only be careful not to spread your doings
+abroad, or no one will present you with their portraits ever again.
+
+There is no sin so bad as being found out. You can say anything as
+long as you are not discovered to be the originator. But if your words
+against a person ever happen to get round to him or her (of course
+added to, and made almost unrecognizable in their progress) you make
+an enemy for life. At least, this is so as a rule. Personally, I never
+care what people say against me, so long as it is not true. But if
+they only keep to the truth, then it is aggravating. You cannot deny
+it! You cannot "tremble with indignation, and fling the words back in
+their faces," as the slandered heroine always does in the modern
+novel. You must simply submit to the accusation.
+
+A man I know was saying all round the place a little while ago, that
+my sisters and I "were all good looking until we opened our mouths."
+Of course we heard of it, and have never forgiven him for his "damning
+praise." But it is true. We always admit the fact. We know we show our
+teeth too much when we laugh and talk. It was impossible to disclaim
+such a statement. If he had said that we squinted, not a syllable
+would have been pronounced against him. Our eyes are all exceptionally
+good, and would bear any detrimental remarks. But no, he kept to the
+truth, and consequently has suffered ever since, for ways of revenge
+have been found which were thoroughly successful. He is the ugliest
+man I ever met too, and should therefore have been the last to offend.
+
+In spite of the tea you are invariably given on such occasions, I
+think calls--formal calls--are some of the most dreadful experiences
+Mrs. Grundy obliges you to undergo. I dislike them immensely, and
+always get out of them if possible. I hope servants do not afterwards
+record the expression of my countenance when they tell me their
+mistress is "out." It is radiant with an unholy joy!
+
+These dreadful "at home" days, too, are so provoking. If you know a
+dozen people in a neighborhood, you can only call on one at a time.
+They all have different days! This may seem slightly impossible; but
+it is not indeed. While one lady's house is open to visitors on the
+first and third Wednesdays in the month, another is on view on the
+second and fourth, and so on. Not two people agree!
+
+Small talk, I think, is never so small as on these occasions. The poor
+weather is thorougly worn out, a few mutual friends are picked to
+pieces, and of course there is a discussion about dress. Sometimes you
+hear some sad account of the lady's second cousin's daughter, and you
+have immediately to clothe your countenance in a sober garb. You must
+look grieved, and all the while not caring one straw if the cousin's
+daughter has fits or gets insane, or anything else she cares to do.
+You have never heard of her before, and therefore have not the
+slightest interest in her eccentricities. I always feel so terribly
+inclined to laugh, just because I ought to be doing the other thing.
+
+People are so fond of talking about their troubles and griefs. The
+greater the sorrow, the greater the discussion. They call up tears to
+their eyes, as if the subject were too sacred to approach. But such
+tears are kept for the purpose. They come at their bidding, and fall
+as naturally into their place as if the exhibition had been practiced
+beforehand. It is a positive enjoyment to such people to detail their
+grievances.
+
+With the lower classes, this, so to speak, gloating over your losses
+is even more apparent. One comparatively well-to-do woman I know,
+seems to have a monopoly of funerals. There is always some relation
+dead, and off she goes with an important air, draped from head to foot
+in black; the picture of "loathed melancholy" outwardly; inwardly,
+glowing with pride; while all her neighbors stand outside their doors,
+literally consumed with jealousy at her good fortune! And then the
+terrible moment of her return, when you are obliged, whether you will
+or not, to listen to the whole account, the description, the progress,
+and finally the interment of "the corpse"! I hope, however dead I may
+be one day, that I shall never be described as "a corpse"! There is
+something so horrible in the word, I always think. It makes you even
+more dead than you are. It cuts you so absolutely off from the living.
+
+Then there are those tiresome people who talk of nothing but their
+own families. The mother from whom you hear all the ailments of her
+children if they are young, all the conquests of her daughters if they
+are old. The sisters, to prevent the accusation of vanity, do not
+praise themselves, but arrive at the same end by lauding up each
+other! These "mutual admiration" families, as Wilkie Collins so aptly
+terms them, are families to be shunned.
+
+You do not very often come across men on these "at home" days. If they
+are in the house, they wisely avoid the drawing-room; and if you ever
+do meet one, he is sure to be a very milk-and-water young man--one who
+delights in small talk and small matters; or else a curate.
+
+I met one of the former class the other day. He was a dreadful
+specimen! A large head, a bland smile, a vacant stare, and an enormous
+capacity for eating!
+
+He came and sat by me when I first arrived; but when he made a slip of
+the tongue, and I brought it to his notice kindly, but firmly, he went
+away and sulked for the rest of the afternoon.
+
+He was talking about the recent muzzling order, and added, in quick
+little tones, "They are talking about muzzling cats, I see."
+
+"But cats do not bite," I objected.
+
+"No," in mild surprise at my ignorance; "but they scratch."
+
+"And do they intend to muzzle their paws?" I asked, smiling; adding a
+suggestion that two pairs of goloshes apiece would answer the purpose
+admirably, besides having the combined advantage of keeping the poor
+things from rheumatism!
+
+But he did not smile. He saw nothing funny in what he had said. He
+thought I was laughing at him, and so left me at the very first
+opportunity, and went and sat by himself at the tea table. I could not
+very well see what he was doing, for his back was turned; howbeit it
+was a very eloquent back--a back which appeared absorbed in bread and
+butter and cakes! He must have cleared the table, I should think,
+before he had finished!
+
+It certainly is not nice to be caught up suddenly and made to appear
+foolish. If you ever make a mistake, the best way is to confess it at
+once, to tell the tale yourself. It sounds very different from your
+lips than from those of your dearest friends. People laugh, but it is
+a laugh that lacks the sting it would have if someone else told it at
+your expense.
+
+I remember making a woeful slip when I was taken over a cotton mill.
+The man who was conducting us pointed to what looked like a heap of
+dirty wool, and explained that it was the raw material. "And is that
+just as it comes off the sheep's back?" I asked, unthinkingly. If a
+thunderbolt had fallen in our midst the guide could not have been more
+astonished. "Cotton, Miss!" he said, with grave surprise, "_Cotton_ is
+a plant!" I inquired for no further information in that cotton mill,
+but I told the story myself when I reached home, joining in the
+laughter that followed as heartily as any of my audience.
+
+Curates are more the rule than the exception at the five o'clock meal.
+Somehow, you always connect the two. Afternoon tea without a curate
+sounds an anomaly, a something incomplete.
+
+I have had great experience in curates. Ours is a large parish, and
+many clerical helps are needed. Large, small, nice, objectionable,
+ugly, handsome--I have met specimens of each and all, and have come
+to the conclusion that the last kind is the worst. How rarely do you
+meet a good-looking man who thinks of anything but his appearance. It
+is strange, for the more lovely a woman is the less apparently
+conscious she is of her beauty. At any rate, she does not go about
+with an expression which seems to say, "I am that which is 'a joy
+forever'--admire me!"
+
+The "pale young curate" type is perhaps the most general. This poor
+thing is so depressingly shy--I say depressingly, because his shyness
+affects his company. You try to draw him out. You ask question after
+question, and have to supply the answers yourself, only obtaining, by
+way of reward, despairing upward glances, that are by no means an
+encouragement to proceed.
+
+The most fatal effect of this shyness, however, lies in the fact that
+he dare not get up to go! He sits toying with his hat, he picks up his
+umbrella three or four times, and lets it drop again; finally,
+starting up with a rush in the middle of a conversation, he hurries
+out, shaking hands all round with everyone but his hostess!
+
+Would it be a very heinous breach of etiquette, if after an hour and a
+half of this curate's company, one should suggest diffidently that it
+was time to go?
+
+In strong contrast, there is the bold, dashing man, who only comes
+when he knows all the daughters are at home, not so much because it
+gives him pleasure to see them, as because he would not deprive them
+of the pleasure of talking to him. He has a faith in himself that
+removes mountains; no lady's heart can beat regularly in his presence,
+according to his confident opinion.
+
+So on the whole I do not think afternoon tea is so nice abroad as it
+is at home. It is not so pleasant with many as with a chosen few. I am
+selfish, I am afraid, but I must confess I enjoy mine most with the
+sole company of a roaring fire, a very easy chair, and a novel!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ON DRESS.
+
+
+I do not know who was the originator of the remark, but it has often
+been said, and is generally admitted, that women do not dress to
+please the men, but to outdo one another.
+
+I think just the same might be said of men in their turn. It is after
+all this spirit of competition which helps to make the world go round.
+It is innate in man, and woman too, to always try to outrun each
+other.
+
+With clothes it is undoubtedly the case. The ancient Briton must have
+vied with his neighbor in different designs with the woad plant. An
+unusual curve, an uncommon pattern, caused, I daresay, as much
+excitement then as the fashions of our own day.
+
+I often wonder how they will manage some points in the histories for
+the coming generation. In most of these books you see illustrations
+and descriptions of the dress of the period, the costume of the reign.
+How, oh historians! can you show forth those of Victorian times? Fifty
+years have passed already! There were four seasons in each of those
+fifty years! Two hundred illustrations must be shown in order to give
+a correct idea of the dress of the time! Perhaps it might be more
+satisfactory to devote a volume exclusively to the subject.
+
+If only we did not run on so quickly! We seem to get faster every
+year. In a very little time, what we wear one day will be quite out of
+date the next! When we arrive at this climax, there will be a sudden
+convulsion of nature, I should think, and we shall return once more to
+the more simple garb of the aborigines. What an amount of trouble it
+would save us! No worrying because the dressmaker has not sent our
+gowns home in time! No sending them back to be altered! No
+dressmaker's or tailor's bills; or at the least, very small ones; for
+"woad" could not ruin us _very_ much.
+
+So on the whole it would be well perhaps if this revolution did occur.
+Some such convulsion as geologists declare has already frequently
+befallen our earth; and, as they prophesy, is shortly coming again.
+
+I do not like talking to these scientific men. They make you feel so
+infinitesimally small. They go back such a long, long way. They make
+out that from the Creation (which by the way they do not admit, only
+considering it another great change in the world springing from
+natural causes), from the Creation until now, is the space of a moment
+on the great clock of time, is a mere "parenthesis in eternity."
+
+It is not nice to feel such a nonentity. What are our lives, our
+little lives in comparison? We, who each consider ourselves the one
+person upon the earth, the hero or heroine in the great drama: all the
+rest mere by-characters. We do not care to be considered of such
+little consequence; only puppets appearing on the stage for one moment
+and taken off the next. We are like the clergyman in the small island
+off the North of Scotland, who prayed for the inhabitants "of Great
+Cumbray and Little Cumbray and the neighboring islands of Great
+Britain and Ireland!" On our small piece of land, we yet consider
+ourselves the centre of the universe.
+
+It is to be hoped if this revolution occurs, after all, that the
+climate will change likewise. We should require something more besides
+blue paint in most of our English winters!
+
+Perhaps we take too much thought for what we shall put on. They say
+that nothing but the prevailing and forthcoming fashions fill the
+feminine mind. It is true sometimes, I daresay, and yet I always agree
+with our immortal bard in thinking that "Self-love is not so vile a
+thing as self-neglect."
+
+It is decidedly better to think too much than too little. It is a duty
+to your country and your nation to look your best, no matter who is
+likely to see you.
+
+Of course it can be overdone, _e.g._, the lady who insisted on her
+bonnet being trimmed on the right because that was the side presented
+to the congregation! And she, I am afraid, is only a type of many.
+
+There is no reason why this should be the rule; yet nearly everyone
+seems to bring out their new clothes on Sunday, and exhibit them in
+Church. I suppose it is because they meet so many friends there, and
+with laudable unselfishness wish them all equally to enjoy the sight.
+
+"What's the good of your going to church?" a man said to me once; "you
+only go to show off your gown and look about to see who has a new
+bonnet and who has not! Now, when _I_ go," he went on in a superior
+way, "I don't notice a single thing anyone has on!"
+
+"No," I answered quietly, "but you could tell me exactly how many
+pretty girls were amongst the congregation, and describe their
+features accurately!" And he not only forbore to deny the accusation,
+but admitted it with pride! No girl, he assured me, with any pretence
+to good looks, ever escaped _his_ notice.
+
+Which was the worse, I wonder; he or I? At least I did not glory in my
+misdeeds.
+
+"_Il faut souffrir pour être belle_;" and I _have_ suffered sometimes.
+How often I used to burn myself when I first began to curl my hair!
+This is such an arduous task, too, with me, for my hair is, as my old
+nurse used to call it, "like a yard o' pumpwater" (I never went to her
+when I wanted a compliment). It certainly is straight, and I find it a
+matter of great difficulty to give it the appearance of natural
+curls. But "practice makes perfect," they say, so I still persevere,
+hoping that it may come right some day. I have to be so careful in
+damp and rainy weather. It is such a shock to look at yourself after a
+day's outing, to find your "fringe" hanging in straight lines all down
+your forehead, an arrangement that is so particularly unbecoming. You
+begin to wonder at what time during the day it commenced to unbend,
+and if you have had that melancholy, damp appearance many hours.
+Perhaps it is as well that you did not know before, for it could not
+have been rectified; you cannot bring a pair of tongs and a
+spirit-lamp out of your pocket and begin operations in public! Still
+it is exceedingly aggravating if you think you have been making an
+impression, and you return home to confront such a dejected-looking
+spectacle as you find in your mirror.
+
+I am wandering again. Let me get back to my subject--Dress. To insure
+a good fit you must have your gown so tight that it is impossible to
+raise your arms. You are obliged to walk about stiffly, with all the
+appearance of a trussed fowl. If you wish to put on your hat you must
+first unbutton your bodice! It is particularly awkward, too, in
+Church: you scarcely have the power to hold your book at seeing
+distance. But what do such trifles matter? You look as if you had been
+melted and poured into your gown. What are a few discomforts, more or
+less, when you have procured an effect such as that?
+
+I always like to look as tall as possible. Five feet four is not a
+very great height; so, to give the appearance of another inch I have
+my skirts made as long as possible; that is to say, they just don't
+sweep the pavement, and that is all. But, oh! the trouble of that
+extra inch! Unfortunately I have no carriage, my present pecuniary
+condition does not permit me the luxury of hansoms, and I always avoid
+an omnibus, where you have fat old men sitting nearly on the top of
+you, wet umbrellas streaming on to your boots, squalling babies, and
+disputes with the conductor continuing most of the way--not to speak
+of the time you have to wait while so many roll by "full inside!" So
+on muddy days, when I take my walks, the amount of distress I have to
+undergo on account of the length of my gown is inconceivable. I grow
+weary with holding it up, and have to stop in the middle of the street
+to change hands, and when you have an umbrella as well, and sometimes
+a small parcel besides, this performance is anything but a momentary
+matter. You drop your gown, the umbrella changes hands, and the parcel
+generally falls in the mud! While picking it up, four impatient, wet,
+mackintoshed pedestrians knock against you, and go off uttering
+imprecations on your head. And when you are once again comfortably
+settled, your satisfaction does not last long. Your left hand tires as
+soon as your right, and the scene has all to be acted over again.
+
+There is a great deal of "_savoir faire_" in holding up. Your gown
+must be high enough to quite clear the ground, but then comes the
+danger of holding it too high. There has been no license yet granted
+for the exhibition of ankles in the great metropolis either by Mrs.
+Grundy or the County Councils; therefore "holding up" becomes a very
+delicate performance.
+
+Though we do not dress only to please the men, I always prefer their
+criticisms on a costume to those of my own sex. You can never tell if
+the latter speak the truth. They may be jealous, and run it down from
+spite; they may want to gain something from you, and so call yours "a
+perfection of a gown, and suits you admirably, my dear!" disliking it
+exceedingly in their inmost hearts.
+
+But a man never gives his approbation unless he really means what he
+says, and he is not difficult to please as a rule. So long as the
+costume is neat and well-fitting, he does not care about anything
+else. It is the _tout ensemble_ he thinks of, not the thousand and one
+details that go to make up the whole.
+
+I wonder why so many men dislike large hats! It is a pity, for they
+are so very becoming to some faces, and give a picturesque effect
+altogether. Perhaps this last is a reason for their disapproval. They
+never like their womankind to attract attention.
+
+The most unpardonable sin one woman can commit against another, is to
+copy her clothes and bring the style out as her own idea. It is
+intensely irritating! If she admits she has copied or asks your leave
+beforehand, it is a different matter. You are even gratified then,
+for "imitation is the sincerest flattery." But to have your ideas
+stolen and brought out in such a way as to convey the impression that
+you are the imitator, to say the least, arouses murderous intentions
+in your heart!
+
+There are times, too, when you receive a shock to your vanity; times
+when you are quite satisfied with your appearance, and find to your
+dismay that everyone is not of the same opinion.
+
+I remember once when I was dining out and feeling very pleased with my
+_tout ensemble_, I was disillusioned in a way that not only upset my
+self-confidence, but my gravity at the same time. To heighten the
+general effect, I had stuck a patch near my mouth. (Oh, the minds of
+the last century! From whose fertile brain did it emanate, I wonder,
+the fact that a piece of black plaster on the face, should be so
+eminently becoming!) Imagine my horror when the maid, an old servant I
+knew very well, took me aside and whispered confidentially, "Oh, Miss!
+you've got _such_ a big smut on your chin!"
+
+Clothes are altogether a great nuisance, I think. How tired you get of
+the regular routine of the morning toilet; always the same, never any
+variety. Why are we not born, like dogs, with nice cosy rugs all over
+us, so that we should just have to get out of bed in the morning,
+shake ourselves, and be ready at once to go down to breakfast and do
+the business of the day?
+
+"Ah well! God knows what's best for us all," as an old charwoman said
+to me, years ago, when she was remarking on how I had grown. I never
+saw the application of the remark, and do not think I ever shall.
+Whether my growth was a subject to deplore, and she tried to comfort
+me, or not, I cannot say; but she was evidently proud of the remark,
+for she repeated it three times!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+It is such a prickly time. Not only everything but everybody is
+positively bristling with prickles. Go where you will, you cannot
+avoid these pointed, jagged edges. You come across them everywhere,
+and have to suffer accordingly.
+
+To begin with, there is the holly. Now you could not find anything
+lovelier in the way of foliage than holly, only such a little
+suffices. At Christmas time you are literally saturated with it. In
+every house you enter, in everything you eat, at every step you take,
+nothing but holly, holly, holly.
+
+Then there are the Church decorations, begun generally a week
+beforehand. All the ladies of the place assemble in the vestry,
+attracted there by divers reasons. Some, by the desire to have a
+finger in every pie; some, because it is an opportunity to meet the
+curates; and some, but a very few, from real love of the work. I
+cannot understand these latter, I must confess. It is the most
+disagreeable work I have ever undertaken. Such dirty work, too! Your
+hands or your gloves grow perfectly black under the operation; and it
+is a curious thing, that when this stage is reached, your nose
+invariably begins to itch, and you forget the condition of your
+fingers, and--well, the result is anything but becoming! It is so
+comfortable, too, walking about the vestry, isn't it? The holly grows
+so affectionate to your ankles, and at every step squash goes a berry,
+and all its middle oozes out and sticks to the sole of your boot. When
+you go home, you find you are at least an inch taller by reason of the
+many corpses of berries you have collected!
+
+Yes, Christmas decorations are delightful altogether. And so the
+clergymen think, when they become excited in their sermons, and bring
+their fists down sharply on some charming arrangement of holly round
+the pulpit. They do not actually swear then, but their faces express
+sufficiently all they would like to say; it rather spoils the effect
+of the discourse, especially if the text be on the virtue of patience.
+
+As I said before, everybody is prickly at Christmas time, especially
+one's relations. And so, to make the season as festive as possible,
+we, in our sensible way, collect as many of these cheerful, sociable
+beings together as we can; and, in short, make a delightful family
+party. Holly? it is an insult to the tree to compare it in any way.
+No, I think the whole gathering resembles a hedgehog more than
+anything else. It is one _mass_ of prickles. Ah, these happy family
+parties! Is there ever one member that agrees with another, I wonder?
+
+There is the crabbed old maiden aunt, always on the defensive, never
+without the idea that someone is waging war against her. Yet she has
+to be treated civilly, and humored. Has she not that which some people
+term "filthy lucre," but never really think so? Have these old ladies
+ever had any youth? Have they ever danced and enjoyed themselves like
+other people? What has made them so sour, so bitter? Is it
+disappointment or regret? Poor old souls! In spite of their money,
+they never seem happy. They are to be pitied, I think, though they do
+try to make themselves as disagreeable as possible. They are so
+independent, too, they will not be interfered with. They know
+everything better than any one else. One old lady I used to know
+declined altogether to have a lawyer, insisting on making her will
+herself. It was found afterwards, fortunately not too late, that she
+had appointed herself her own executor!
+
+Then there is the maternal grandmother; to whom, of course, the host
+is openly rude. This wears you out more than anything, for you have
+always to be ready to smooth over and soften every sentence that is
+said. And she never helps you at all, either. If she can possibly put
+her foot in it, and unconsciously irritate her son-in-law more than
+ever, she does it.
+
+Then the uncle who spends his life in making the most villainous puns
+you ever heard. Not a remark, not a word in any assembly, which this
+witty specimen of humanity does not at once garnish with a pun of the
+poorest description. It generally has to be repeated twice, too, for
+it is never noticed the first time. The poor pun, indeed, has a most
+melancholy existence, for it is greeted with no other applause than
+that emanating from the author of its being, and stirs up a torrent of
+abuse from the maiden aunt, who thinks the laughter is directed at
+her.
+
+Why were punsters ever invented, or family parties either? They are
+our thorns in the flesh, I suppose, and so must be endured.
+
+After dancing attendance upon these lively old people during the day,
+the least you expect is a good night's rest to support and invigorate
+you for the battles on the following day. But no, at Christmas time
+any repose is denied you.
+
+You are just off to sleep, forgetful of all troubles and strife, when
+you are rudely awakened and brought back to the present by the most
+awful screechings under your window. Morpheus flies, he has a musical
+ear has that god, and when once, "Oh, come let us adore him," with a
+concertina accompaniment, both voices and instrument woefully out of
+tune; when once these harmonious strains have started, that good old
+deity goes, to return no more that night.
+
+Where does the pleasure come in, I wonder? Certainly not to us fuming
+inside; and surely not to those poor deluded people squalling outside!
+It must be so cold, so raw; and they never get appreciated, these
+so-called "waits"--oh, if they only would _not_ wait, but go away
+somewhere else, how much more satisfactory for us all!
+
+No, Christmas is not a soothing time. It does not altogether improve
+your temper. How glad I am when the festive season draws to a close,
+and the last petitioner for Christmas-boxes goes on his way rejoicing.
+To me it always realizes that period so often referred to by the lower
+classes, "a month o' Sundays." So much church and so few posts!
+
+It certainly is a little more interesting when the presents come in.
+There is a kind of excitement about them; and it is not until the
+following day, when you find yourself with a dozen letters of
+gratitude to indite, that you feel that perhaps, after all, you might
+have done without them.
+
+There is nothing so annoying as being obliged to write letters when
+you do not feel inclined. It is a great art, this letter writing, and
+very few possess it. People often think they do, and they write for
+writing's sake; but these letters are most wearying to read. Between
+every line you seem to see the words, "Is not this a charming letter?"
+and in reality you are so bored it is all you can do to reach the end.
+Then those dreadful persons who "cross and recross" their epistles in
+every direction! Paper is not so dear but that they could at least
+afford a fly-leaf. They defeat their own ends, too, for their letters
+are never legible, and they have to write again to explain their
+meaning, thus paying another penny away in postage.
+
+Why do we not make a stand against the old forms? Why should we always
+tread in the footmarks of our ancestors, instead of making tracks of
+our own? "Dear Mr. So-and-So," we write to a man almost a stranger to
+us. Imagine his surprise if we addressed him so to his face! And we
+end in just such a foolish and unreasonable way, "Yours obediently,
+faithfully, truly!" Where is the sense? Your signature should be quite
+enough. You have to be so careful, too, in saying whether you are
+obedient, faithful, or affectionate to your correspondent. If you end
+too warmly, by mistake, the whole letter has to be written again. It
+is not a thing you can scratch out or correct. It would look so very
+bad.
+
+People have different ideas of "Christmasing." Some prefer to adopt an
+unsteady gait, and to spend the night in a ditch or a police-station;
+some have a taste for family parties; some like it better by
+themselves, and some go right away and spend the time at a different
+place every year. These last are, I think, by far the most sensible.
+It is a mistake to have land-marks to remind you how time is running
+on, how friends have left, how the loved ones have passed away. The
+vacant place appears even more empty. The old happy times show out
+even happier in contrast to the present. You cannot enjoy yourself or
+forget the past, for
+
+    "A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
+
+It is far better to go away somewhere to places which recall no
+sorrows or recollections and have no associations with the years gone
+by.
+
+He is growing such a foolish old man is Father Christmas. He rarely
+visits us now with hoary head, his garments sparkling with frost and
+snow. He is tired of all that. He likes a change of fashion, like
+everybody else. He either comes so thickly enveloped in yellow fog
+that you can scarcely distinguish the old man, or else he arrives so
+drenched with rain and splashed up to the beard in mud that we
+scarcely like to open our doors to him.
+
+He is growing old, I suppose, and trembling on the brink of second
+childhood, so we must not blame him. But still he is not a very great
+favorite of mine, and I cannot refrain from echoing the complaint in
+one of the comic papers--"_Why doesn't he strike, like the rest?_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ON THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+At which season, I wonder, is the country most lovely, most enjoyable!
+Is it in the spring, with its richly-colored carpet, its young green
+leaves, its delicious perfumes, its glorious freshness? Ah, why cannot
+we, like the trees, put off our old sinful world-steeped habits, and
+year by year bud out in purest innocence once again? The hedges, but a
+week ago barren and bare, are now clothed in brightest apparel, the
+greenest of cloaks thrown over them, lifting up their heads and
+sharing in the general rejoicing, in the glory of their annual
+resurrection. Is it in summer, with its myriads of blooms, and its
+thousand thousand happy voices, the silent torpid river, basking in
+the light of the sun, and responding only to the fishes as they frisk
+near the surface? Or is it in the autumn, with its many shades, with
+its long avenues on which nature has lavished whole tubes of burnt
+sienna and vermilion; when you tread on gorgeous paths heavy with
+golden leaves? Oh, why are we not as lovely in our autumn of life as
+nature is in hers? Why, when she decks herself in the gayest coloring,
+do we don our soberest garb? _We_ do not gain in splendor as we grow
+older. We lose our beauties and our charms one by one, till at last we
+stand destitute. Oh, cruel Time to treat us so!
+
+    "Time that doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
+    And delves the parallels in Beauty's brow."
+
+And yet "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." While He takes from
+us our youth He also takes away the inclination to be young. We pine
+for the happy days of childhood; yet, if the power were given us, who
+would wish himself back in the past? We feel we should always like to
+be young, but should we not get very weary of the world, should we not
+wish for some kind of change?
+
+Or is nature at her best when the year is dead and the earth puts on
+her spotless white shroud, when everything around has fallen asleep,
+and only robins are left to join in the wake?
+
+Unanswerable question. There are too many opinions. Some prefer
+winter, some summer; some like the heat, some like the cold. Only in
+one thing do we agree, and that is, in our taste for variety, for
+change. Much as we admire the country, lovely as it is, it would not
+suit many to live there all the year round. The peace and quiet of our
+woodland scenes make us enjoy the town life all the more, while the
+unceasing turmoil of the season makes us hail with delight the idea of
+once more being
+
+    "Far from the madding crowd."
+
+The very thought refreshes you. There is something exhilarating in our
+journey country-wards, long and tiring though it may be. Few people
+care about a railway journey, and yet with one or two kindred spirits
+I think it most enjoyable.
+
+Traveling alone in the midst of strangers, you do feel rather
+melancholy. You try to read, and when you are tired of chasing the
+words up and down the page, you look out of the window and admire the
+scenery as you flit past until your eyes ache to such an extent you
+are obliged to withdraw your gaze and be satisfied with the study of
+human nature, as far as it can be procured from the inmates of your
+compartment. Finally you go to sleep, only to wake up after a few
+minutes, to find the eyes of all your fellow passengers upon you, and
+this serves to make you nervous and uncomfortable. You dare not close
+your eyes again. You feel sure it is the signal for everyone to turn
+in your direction, and you will not gratify them.
+
+Then comes luncheon time, when we all begin to grow fidgety, and take
+surreptitious looks at our watches, and then glance round at our
+companions to see if anyone is taking the first plunge. Hopeless
+quest! Nobody ever _will_ be the first to begin to eat in a railway
+carriage. Why is it, I wonder? Are they afraid none of the others will
+follow suit, and they be left to eat all alone? It would be nervous
+work, certainly. You would feel so dreadfully greedy, and yet if you
+offered any of your fellow travelers even a sandwich, they would peek
+up their heads, give you an astonished look, and decline shortly but
+with decision. You are made to feel you have insulted them, and yet
+they had such a hungry expression! Rarely indeed, though, do you
+undergo such an experience. You only have to rise, and reach down your
+basket, and behold! the next moment all the carriage is feeding. We
+are nothing but sheep after all. One leads the way, and we all follow.
+
+When you have once made a start, eating on a railway journey is easy
+enough work; it is when you grow thirsty that the difficulty comes in.
+You pour the sherry, claret, whatever you have (some take milk in a
+green bottle--not a very tempting beverage to look at!) on to the
+floor, over your gown, on your neighbor's foot (thereby eliciting a
+most unholy frown from the recipient of your bounty), anywhere,
+indeed, except in your glass. Even if you are fortunate enough to
+catch a few drops, it is another Herculæan effort to take it to your
+mouth. No, drinking in the train, while it is in motion, requires
+years of practice.
+
+Then again, your fellow passengers are not always all that can be
+desired. Often they are neither pleasant in themselves nor interesting
+as a study. I traveled with an awful old lady the other day. She had
+six small packages with her in the carriage, besides her hand-bag and
+umbrellas and half the contents of an extra luggage van. The
+long-suffering porter who had looked after her boxes and finally put
+her in the train, was crimson with his exertions. The generous lady,
+having searched several pockets before finding the necessary coin,
+bestowed on him a threepenny piece for his trouble! "Thank yer, mum,"
+he went off muttering grimly, "I'll bore a 'ole in the middle and 'ang
+it round my neck."
+
+This good dame never ceased to worry all through the journey. She
+pulled her things from under the seat and put them up in the rack, and
+then reversed their locality. At each station she called frantically
+to the guard to know where she was and if she ought to change.
+Finally, when we reached our destination, it was proved that she had
+taken her ticket to one place and had her luggage labelled to another;
+and there she was, standing on the platform gesticulating violently,
+while the train was steaming off with her belongings. What happened I
+do not know, for I was hurried off by my friends; but I should think
+it would be long before she and her luggage met again.
+
+Fortunately she never knew how near she was to her death. If ever I
+had murderous intentions in my heart, it was on that journey north.
+
+You do not feel very affectionate toward the country on a wet day.
+Indeed, it is a most mournful affair altogether, unless you have a
+particularly merry house party. There is absolutely nothing to do. The
+heavens weep at such inopportune moments too. There is sure to be some
+large picnic, some delightful gathering on the "tapis," when they
+choose to exhibit their griefs. And they never notice how unwelcome
+such a display of feelings is, but go on weeping, weeping, weeping all
+day long, until at last you catch the malady yourself, and are obliged
+perforce to mingle a few of your own tears with theirs.
+
+No, there is simply nothing to be done, and Satan has quite a
+difficulty to find enough work for all the idle hands. Some can be
+perfectly happy in spending all their time in solving the intricacies
+of those many wonderful puzzles which have appeared lately as a sort
+of antidote to the mischief generally supposed to be perpetrated by
+the aforesaid gentleman. Unfortunately, an entirely contrary effect is
+produced on me. They did not look far enough ahead when they made me.
+They could not conceive the wonderful minds of this time, and so did
+not endow me with a sufficient quantity of patience. If they could
+have imagined those marvelous little tin saucers, with shot running in
+and out of horse-shoes, &c., with _me_ in the perspective, well, I
+think they would have gone about their work more carefully, and
+perhaps brought about a happier result. As it is, the puzzles are
+always swept away now at my approach. I have smashed so many.
+
+It is base ingratitude, too, on my part, to bring them to so speedy an
+end; for what I owe to those dear little things I am powerless to
+express. Those entertaining people who sit speechless, and only answer
+yes and no with an eternal smile on their faces: give them a puzzle.
+There is no further effort to amuse them required on your part. They
+are at once absorbed in "shot." Their only idea is to successfully get
+them into their places. They never do; but being good thorough-going
+characters will never give up the attempt.
+
+You meet several of these people in the country, but they never get
+very friendly. You shock them too much with your "London manners."
+They vote you "fast," and turn aside, fearful of contamination for
+their daughters.
+
+Oh, the dreariness, the heaviness of a country dinner party! It seems
+to last four times as long as any other--parish, horses, or crops the
+only topic of conversation. How can you be interested in old Jane
+Smith's rheumatism when you have never heard of her before; in the
+swelling of a favorite mare's hock, when you did not know it possessed
+such a thing. People's views grow so dreadfully narrow, shut up in
+their small parish. Their stock of conversation is so very small. It
+is wise to find out your dinner partner at once, and avoid that man as
+you would a disease until the meal is announced. If not, if you
+accidentally get in his neighborhood, and he talks to you, all his
+conversation is at once exhausted, and you are obliged to hear it over
+again at table, or submit to an interesting silence.
+
+Dinner parties anywhere are, I think, a mistake. It is a wicked waste
+of time to spend nearly three hours over eating and drinking. And you
+require such a very interesting "taker-in" to make it bearable at all.
+
+The river is the nicest way of spending a holiday, in my opinion; you
+are so free and untrammeled. Mrs. Grundy even waives some of her laws
+on the river. The smaller the cottage, the more primitive the place,
+the more enjoyable it is. You can spend your time on the water, and
+when you are tired of that, you can hire a pony and trap and drive
+through some of the loveliest bits of English scenery, to your heart's
+content.
+
+Only be careful before engaging your pony to find out its previous
+occupations. It is a necessary caution, I assure you. It once took me
+nearly an hour to drive out of one of the smallest villages
+imaginable. And why? Because my pony had formerly belonged to the
+butcher, and insisted on first going his rounds! I coaxed, I
+persuaded, I lashed him, but it was all of no avail. On he trotted
+until he reached the familiar doors of his late customers, and then he
+stopped and _would_ not go on for at least five minutes. One place
+was worse than any. I could not get him away for over a
+quarter-of-an-hour. This rather mystified me until I was told later
+that the butcher was on "walking out" terms with the cook residing
+there!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ON TOWN.
+
+
+There is not much difference of opinion as to when Town is at its
+best. Perhaps a few misanthropists, wrapped up in their little selves
+and their narrow thoughts, would shut themselves up during the season,
+in order to escape the pain of witnessing us all in our ungodly
+career. Shallow butterflies they call us. And what do they know about
+our lives? They judge from appearances; and because we wear a cheerful
+expression, shutting down our cares and struggles in our inmost
+hearts, and not burdening other people with them, we are called
+shallow and worldly. No, you good and godly people, what do you know
+about us? You are no more capable of judging than the ephemera, which
+lives but for a day, and so must consider the world all sunshine, all
+light. How can it imagine the night which closes round later on, when
+neither it nor any of its ancestors have ever lived to see it?
+
+You ought to be punished for your ignorant mutterings. You complain of
+the well-dressed happy throng. You should be turned out in the streets
+in August and September, and if the utter destitution does not shortly
+turn your brains back in the right direction I am afraid your case is
+hopeless.
+
+Does any place come up to London I wonder? Having never been out of
+England I cannot give an opinion. Unfortunately I have not the gift,
+like some people, of either imagining or describing places I have
+never seen--descriptions generally gleaned from other books and
+compiled under one authorship as original compositions. Why cannot
+they be content with laying their English stories in English scenery:
+places they know well and can write about. Some save up their money in
+order to go abroad and visit one particular place, so as to bring new
+scenes into their new books. But ah, how weary you get of this one
+place! It is brought into at least three of their next novels.
+Everything, past, present and future seems to happen there. Your one
+prayer, as you lay down the book, is to the effect that they may soon
+be able to save up a little more and visit another spot.
+
+There is so much going on in May, June, and July, that it is a
+difficulty to get through all your engagements and yet see everything
+there is to be seen. Then there is the Park. Two or three hours of the
+day must at least be spent in the Park. There we all come out to show
+ourselves and to look at others. There the equestrians canter up and
+down the Row. Such equestrians too! If foreigners take their ideas of
+English riding from the Row, they must form a high opinion of our
+horsemanship.
+
+There are the loungers flocking around their friends or walking up and
+down in the hope of admiration. And they get it too, for who could
+help admiring such master-pieces of a tailor's skill? Are these really
+the descendants of that Adam whose posterity had all to earn their
+bread by the sweat of their brow? These automatons, whose only
+business in life seems to be to look after pretty women and
+themselves? Men are supposed to be bread winners, but they have a
+very easy time of it, I think, though they generally try to make
+themselves out so overworked. Go into that great centre of business,
+the City, and you find everyone of these busy men out and about,
+always apparently in a great hurry, never seeming to arrive at any
+destination, running about and hustling each other, occasionally
+meeting an acquaintance, which proves a good opportunity for one to
+stand the other a "drink." A funny way men have of showing their
+affection, have they not? "Ah! how de do, old fellow? Come and have a
+drink," is their invariable salutation to an intimate friend. After
+all it is better than the mutual kissing on the part of women, which
+is the more emphatic the more they dislike one another. Men are less
+demonstrative and therefore more sincere in their friendships. Anyhow
+there cannot be many at work in their offices, or where could this
+idle crowd come from?
+
+In spite of their haste, though, they generally find time to stare at
+any woman who crosses their path. Why should not a woman go to the
+City? She has as much right there as man, and yet if she is in the
+least degree superior to the flower girls (?) who surround the Royal
+Exchange, she is looked on as a freak of nature, a positive curiosity,
+and is followed by every pair of male eyes within reach!
+
+Mrs. Grundy is inclined to rather overdo her season, I think. There is
+so much she might leave undone, so many things that "never would be
+missed." Imagine the gratitude that would be displayed to anyone who
+would put down and demolish those dreadful crushes, so called "at
+homes," where nobody ever is at home; where you have neither space nor
+air from the moment you arrive until the glad time comes for
+departing. Does anyone enjoy them, I wonder! Does anybody like being
+literally baked with heat, which I am sure must exceed even that at
+Mexico; where one of the inhabitants of that delightful climate, when
+he died and went to perdition, found the contrast so striking that he
+was obliged to send home for his greatcoat!
+
+Still, I suppose such entertainments will continue to exist. They are
+a good deal cheaper than balls or dinners, and you can "knock off"
+ever so many people at the same time.
+
+It is well, at any rate, to consider economy in some matters in these
+wofully extravagant days. When the shops are decked out in their
+gayest colors to lure us on to destruction, why is it that "just the
+very thing you want" is placed so conspicuously in the front of the
+window, put cunningly near a mirror too, so that you see it all the
+way round, and it appears doubly precious?
+
+How convenient it is, by the way, when they have mirrors in the shop
+windows. You can look to see if your hat is straight, or your veil
+nicely arranged, without being credited with vanity. You are supposed
+to be admiring the bonnets displayed to view, not yourself. Girls make
+a great mistake when they take little surreptitious glances at any
+mirror they come across. The action is always noticed and condemned;
+while if they, instead, went up boldly, ostensibly to smooth their
+hair or alter a pin, it would be taken as a matter of course.
+
+It so soon grows into a habit, this always looking about for your
+reflection, and one that is very difficult to get out of. Not that the
+men are at all behind us in this respect. There are not many of our
+little follies that the lords of creation do not take up and
+cultivate. You see them at dinner, addressing nearly all their
+conversation opposite--where hangs a mirror. At dances they are
+admiring and smiling at their reflections the whole evening, finding
+far more satisfaction in gazing there than at their partner, even
+though she be the loveliest in the land.
+
+But to return to my subject. (I seem to be always wandering away.) You
+need never be idle in town. A wet day even makes no difference, when a
+place teems with picture galleries, as London does. They are such good
+places to meet your friends. You always see someone you know. You
+might as well be there as anywhere else. Of course you do not look at
+the pictures. You glance at the few you have heard talked about, just
+so as to say you have seen them. But you do not go to a picture
+gallery to look at _pictures_! "We always go the wrong way round. You
+avoid the crowd like that, you know," I have heard people say.
+"_Avoid_ the crowd!" It is the crowd they want to see! There is less
+chance of missing your friends if you go in the opposite direction!
+There is one real advantage though in beginning at the other end. You
+don't have the same people following you all the time, nor have to
+listen to ignorant remarks. "Who's that? She don't look very happy, to
+be sure," I once heard one woman ask of another as they were going
+round. "That? why that's Adam and Eve, o' course, and the serpent in
+the distance. I never 'eard of anyone else who went about without
+their clothes on, though why they put chains on her I can't think: it
+says nothing about 'em in the Bible."
+
+I glanced at the picture. It was "Andromeda!" And they talk of the
+strides education has been making of late years!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ON CHILDREN AND DOGS.
+
+
+Are you very shocked that I should couple these two subjects? An
+insult to the children, do you say? Well, do you know, I am afraid I
+consider it an insult to the dogs. I am not fond of children, and I
+love dogs. A man may be a superior animal to a dog, but a puppy is
+decidedly more intelligent than a baby. What can you find more
+helpless, more utterly incapable, than a baby? Look at a puppy in
+comparison. At a month old it is trotting about, and growing quite
+independent; more sensible altogether than a child aged a year.
+
+I am afraid I shock people often by my opinions, but they are really
+genuine. I am always more interested in the canine race than in the
+blossoms of humanity. Very likely it is the behavior of each that
+makes me so. Children never take to me, nor come near me if they can
+help it. I do not understand them, or know what to talk to them about.
+On the other hand, dogs will come to me at once, and, what is more,
+keep to me. I have never been growled at in my life, and I have come
+across a good many dogs, too.
+
+"You were a baby yourself once!" How often has this been said to me
+when I have aired the above opinions. It is put before me as an
+unanswerable argument, a sort of annihilating finale to the
+conversation. Yet I really don't see what it has to do with the
+matter. I suppose I was a baby once. At least they say so. Which
+protestation, by the way, rather leaves it open to doubt, for "on
+dits" like weather forecasts are nice reliable institutions if you do
+but follow the opposite of what they tell you. Still, as there is more
+than one witness to the effect, I will give in and admit it; I was a
+baby.
+
+But the admission makes me no fonder of the species. If anything it
+makes me admire them the less; for if I at all resembled the
+photographs that were taken of me--"before my eyes were open," I was
+going to say; at any rate before I could stand--I wonder a stone was
+not put round my neck, and they did not drown me in the first bucket
+of water they came across.
+
+It is said that ugly babies grow up the best looking, and _vice
+versa_. This is a pleasant and comforting thought for the ugly baby.
+It can bear a little depreciation now, because it can look forward to
+the time when it will far outdo its successful rival. And the pretty
+baby's glory is soon over. It becomes only a memory which rather
+irritates than soothes. For after all, retrospection is not so
+pleasant as anticipation.
+
+The above remark was said before a child about four years old, the
+other day. She must have been listening intently, and having taken in
+the sense she inwardly digested it; for the next time she quarrelled
+with her sister, she broke in spitefully, "You must have been the
+beautifullest baby that ever was born."
+
+Children should never be seen until they are over two. Until then they
+are neither pretty nor entertaining. But at this age they begin to say
+funny things, and so are interesting. "You only care for them when
+they amuse you!" cried a young mother once, indignant at my
+selfishness. I suppose it is a selfish way of looking at it; but if
+modern children were brought up as we were brought up I should not
+object to them in the least. We were always kept strictly in the
+nursery, only appearing down-stairs on the rarest occasions: and when
+we arrived there we behaved properly--we were seen and not heard. We
+did not run noisily up and down the room, taking up the whole
+conversation of the party. We did not try to make the most
+disagreeable personal remarks; or if we did we were sent up-stairs at
+once, and not laughed at for our "sharpness."
+
+There are no children, now-a-days; they are mimic men and women. They
+dine late, they stay up until the small hours, and are altogether as
+objectionable a faction as can be. They respect their father and
+mother not a whit. It was only two or three days ago I heard a child
+of five allude to her father as "the fat old governor," and simply get
+laughed at for her remark, no one joining more heartily than the said
+parent himself. Of course, with such applause, the child repeats it
+again and again.
+
+They have such dreadfully sharp eyes, too, these children. Not a
+defect escapes their notice. You tremble to hear what will come out
+next. They ask Mr. Jones what makes his nose so red. They want to know
+why Mrs. Smith puts flour on her face. In spite of a thick veil, they
+discover at once that Miss. Blank has a moustache, and inquire of her
+with interest if she is a man!
+
+There are some nice children, of course--there are exceptions to every
+rule--and if they are pretty I cannot help admiring them. It is
+fortunate that I have never had anything to do with children. If I
+were a governess I should be so dreadfully unjust, I should always
+favor the pretty ones. I love beauty in any form. There are girls I
+could sit and look at all day, if they would let me. Only they are
+most of them so self-conscious; they expect to be admired, and when I
+see girls laying themselves out for admiration, however beautiful they
+may be, however strong my inclination to gaze, I will not gratify
+their vanity. For it is certainly true, that though we prefer the
+praise of men, we do not disdain any like offering from our own sex.
+
+That is the best of very young children. They do not notice you, they
+are not yet awake to the power of their charms, so that you are able
+to look your full. I say "very" young, because it is a knowledge that
+comes to them only too soon, and a little of this knowledge is, at any
+rate, "a dangerous thing."
+
+Children sometimes set you thinking more than any philosopher who ever
+existed. Their ideas are so fresh, so unsophisticated, so original.
+The atmosphere of the great unknown still seems to cling to their
+souls. They are not yet tainted with the world's impure air. They ask
+you questions impossible to answer, but which you are obliged to parry
+in an underhand manner, so as not to expose your ignorance. They solve
+problems and reach conclusions after a way of their own, which, at any
+rate, have plenty of reason about them. I remember being very much
+struck by a little boy's idea once when his mother was remarking on
+the strange appearance of a man who, while his whiskers were black as
+ebony, possessed hair of a snowy white. "But why, mother, should it
+seem funny?" broke in the child. "Aren't his whiskers twenty years
+younger than his hair?"
+
+Dogs certainly cannot talk or say quaint things, but they can do
+nearly everything else. At any rate they can understand you and
+distinguish between the words, as the following instance proves.
+
+We have family prayers at home, and have had them ever since we were
+quite little things. What an ordeal they used to be too! We used to be
+watched so strictly, and the moment our eyes wavered from our books,
+attention would at once be drawn to the culprits and cover them with
+confusion. Woe be to him, too, who forgot to turn over the leaf of his
+book with the rest! It is such an unkind thing to do to print all the
+books alike. If you forget and turn over later, you are at once
+detected. Being sharp children, however, we used to make this our
+first care, so that whatever we were doing--laughing, pinching,
+winking, our pages all went over together, so we _sounded_ attentive.
+
+Our little dog was even more cunning than ourselves. He was never
+permitted, on any plea, to lie before the fire. "It enlarged his
+liver," his master said. Now this decree is a great deprivation to
+dogs. They like warmth and comfort just as much as we do; indeed,
+they love the fire to such an extent that if all the terrors of Hades
+were put before them, they would by no means have a salutary effect.
+The dogs would try to be as naughty as possible in the hopes of
+getting there.
+
+But this particular little animal was made of most obstinate
+materials, and had no intention of being baulked; so directly we knelt
+down for prayers, he scrambled from under the table, and stretched his
+full length before the fire. He knew he would not be spoken to until
+we had finished, and felt quite safe until we all joined in the Lord's
+Prayer at the end, when he would immediately decamp, and thus escape
+any scolding for his disobedience. It was more especially clever of
+him because we all joined in the Confession as well, but he never took
+any notice of that, and always put off his departure until the last
+minute.
+
+We had this dog twelve years altogether, and a sad night it was,
+indeed, when he had a fit and died. The breakfast-table next morning
+presented a most distressing spectacle. We were all positively
+swimming in tears. The whole family was upset at his death; and when,
+later on in the day, he was wrapped up in a fish basket and buried in
+the garden, next door to a favorite rabbit--on whose grave a cabbage
+had been planted, most unkindly reminding him of the sweets of life he
+had left behind--we all lifted up our voices and wept again.
+
+I often wonder if we shall meet our faithful dumb friends hereafter!
+Sages say no; but I cannot believe they are so entirely blotted out,
+and like to think they have some happy sugary existence somewhere, and
+that we shall see them again some day.
+
+Dogs are very human after all; they have a great many of our virtues
+and nearly all our vices. I expect it is this that endears them to us,
+for "One touch of nature makes all the world kin." They are just as
+contradictory, as disappointing, as ourselves. Why will they always
+show off to such bad advantage? After spending weeks in teaching them,
+and fortunes on pieces of sugar, why, before an audience, will they
+insist on ringing the bell when they are told to shut the door? and
+when you ask them to sit up and beg, _why_ do they die for the Queen?
+
+A little while ago we used to have grand steeplechases with our dogs.
+We put up fences and water jumps, all of which--with the aid of sugar
+again--they were able to master in time. I think they used to get
+quite excited themselves at last. Our old gardener, who used to watch
+the races with great interest, told me once that he "'ad seen one of
+the little dawgs a'jumpin' backwards and forwards over that 'ere bit
+of wood (the highest and most perilous jump), and a'practisin' by
+hisself!" He _was_ a very clever "little dawg," but I don't think he
+ever reached such a pitch of intelligence as to practice "by hisself."
+
+We had to fill up the fences down to the ground, or, to save
+themselves the trouble of getting over, they would run under or
+scramble through in some extraordinary fashion, which in the end took
+much the most time and pains. Humanity again! Lazy people always take
+the most trouble!
+
+When I was a little girl I had every morning to learn and repeat to my
+governess three verses from a French Bible. I thought I had hit upon
+an easy way of getting over this, and of reducing the quantity I had
+to commit to memory; so I chose the cxxxvi. Psalm, in which you will
+find, if you care to look it up (I have just had to do the same to
+find out the number, not being by any means a living concordance to
+the Psalms!)--you will find that half of each verse is composed of the
+words, "For His mercy endureth for ever." Ingenuity wasted! Trouble
+increased! Not one whit the better off was I. Until that Psalm was
+finished I had to learn six verses instead of three. I retired
+anything but satisfied, and heartily wishing I had left that Psalm
+alone. It was very mean of my governess all the same. She should
+better have appreciated the craftiness of her pupil. But, poor things,
+they have to be very sharp and always on the look-out, or the children
+will take them in; they will not let any opportunity escape them, and,
+indeed, I pity anyone who has the care of these unraveled Sphinxes,
+these uncut Gordian knots.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ON CONCERTS.
+
+
+I am not thinking about the Albert Hall Concerts, where the highest in
+the musical world go time after time, always singing the same songs.
+
+Neither am I thinking of "Monday Pops," and purely classical concerts,
+to which at least half the audience listens with closed eyes and
+thoughts somewhere in dreamland. They like to be thought musical; they
+know they ought to appreciate _such_ renderings of _such_
+compositions; and after all, when they describe "the treat they had!
+such a perfect touch, my dear! and the execution!!--" no one knows
+they have never heard a note, so what does their inattention matter.
+They have been seen there, and that is all they care about.
+
+No, my thoughts take a much lower range. They are intent on only
+amateur productions, from penny readings upwards, to those
+superintended by the _élite_ of the neighborhood, when the seats rise
+in price to five shillings each.
+
+They are such nice cheery entertainments, so much life, such a great
+deal of energy about them! You are called on by four separate people
+to take tickets. In desperation you have to yield at last; paying
+extra for having your seat reserved, or else you must start
+half-an-hour beforehand, and scramble in with the crowd. There is
+generally a series of them too, and you are obliged to go to them all.
+They are so considerate, these concert-makers, they would not allow
+you to miss one for worlds.
+
+There is a great deal of novelty and variety about the artists
+themselves. All the musical members in the neighborhood are routed
+out, and each is persuaded to contribute to the public pleasure--by
+the way, there is never very much persuasion needed. It is such a
+treat to listen to people you know, and whom you have heard perform
+dozens and dozens of times before in every drawing-room in the place.
+At least, you know what to expect. You recognize each song, each
+piece. You wait in suspense until Miss. Brown has passed her high
+A--always half a tone too flat. You take it as a matter of course that
+Mr. Black--the first violinist in the place--after tuning up for ten
+minutes, will break a string directly he begins to play. I should have
+thought he would be pretty well used to it by now, but he never gets
+in tune again for the rest of the evening. You would be quite
+disappointed if Mrs. Green ever concluded her most finished and
+spirited pianoforte solo on the right chord.
+
+These concerts always begin with a pianoforte solo, and the performers
+ought to feel very flattered at the way in which they are received.
+We, the audience, regard them no more than we do the mounted policemen
+in the Lord Mayor's Show. They are not part of the procession. They
+are only meant to clear the way and let us know that the concert is
+going to begin, and then we must leave off our chatter. Naturally, we
+make the most of our time, and try to get all our talking done at
+once. In fact, we are so taken up with what we are saying that we
+actually forget to applaud when the performance is over.
+
+After the introduction in this form, the chief moving spirit of the
+entertainment comes forward, and, after bowing right and left,
+stammers out (the chief moving spirit is never a good speaker) that he
+much regrets that, on account of Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith, and Miss. Blank
+having been prevented by illness from turning up, he is afraid there
+will be a little change in the programme. Now as Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith,
+and Miss. Blank are down for seven things between them there is likely
+to be a very great change in the programme. Why is it that people
+never know they cannot come until the last moment, I wonder? Perhaps
+they think that the more often they disappoint the more they emulate
+the "stars" in the musical world. Only the force of example, you see.
+And, after all, what does it matter? The other performers are most
+kind and sympathetic, and ready to help all they can. They are
+delighted to sing four times each instead of twice. Selfish people!
+they have no consideration for the audience, they only think of their
+own enjoyment!
+
+There is the youth who looks as if he were going to favor us with a
+sweet treble. Lo, and behold! he opens his mouth, and out comes a
+loud double bass voice that seems to spring somewhere from the region
+of his boots. It is not a pretty sound by any means.
+
+There is the smiling, simpering girl who comes forward gorgeously
+arrayed in light blue satin. She chooses a song, all trills and little
+scales, running up and down, shaking at last upon a high note for
+nearly two minutes, and then coming down with a rush. This brings down
+the house. We applaud lustily; we begin the encoring business here,
+which, having once started, we do not intend to give up again. We like
+to get as much as we can for our money, we Britons. She keeps us
+waiting some time, too--taking a little refreshment in between,
+perhaps--and then comes back beaming with smiles and, under the
+impression that she is a second Patti, shrieks out in plaintive tones,
+"Home, sweet home!" A cat might as well try to emulate a thrush! And
+we never find it "sweet" either. Never do you dislike "Home" more than
+when you hear it sung thus.
+
+There is the sentimental man, who gets into position while the
+introduction to his song is being played. He sticks his finger down
+his collar (the object of which I can never understand), pulls both
+cuffs out, stretches out his music a yard or two in front of him and
+gazes above the audience with a hungry yearning look. His is always a
+love song, an unhappy love song, that should bring tears to our eyes,
+only we are so taken up with his expression, and the fear that he is
+going to die or have a fit, that we have no time for weeping. True to
+our instincts, he is greeted with deafening applause, and coming back,
+he generously treats us to the last verse over again.
+
+Everyone is not so fortunate in receiving an encore, though. It
+depends on how well they are known, not on their desserts.
+The newcomer in the neighborhood tries her hardest and does her best,
+but as we have never seen her before we scarcely take the trouble to
+applaud her, which must be rather disappointing, especially when her
+mother is sitting among the audience with the encore song on her lap,
+ready to hand it up.
+
+The best exhibition of all is made by the flutist. He is the only one
+who plays that instrument for miles round, and so the swagger with
+which he steps on to the platform is perhaps excusable.
+
+How anyone _can_ play it I do not know. It is such a singularly
+unbecoming instrument. But the wretched owner never seems to think so.
+When he once commences he gives us a good dose of it. We begin to
+think he is going on all night. Suddenly there comes a pause, and
+applause is started at once, we being only too delighted to make a
+little noise on our own account. But no--it is a mistake, a delusion,
+after all. The pause was only an interval between an Andante and a
+Scherzo; and, with a bland smile at his ovation, on he goes again for
+another quarter of an hour. We--the audience--are disappointed, we
+feel we have been tricked, and we therefore sulk for a season. But the
+Scherzo is so long, it gives us time to get over our ill-humor, though
+we are mutually resolved that we will not have him back again. Vain
+hope! From the far end of the room comes thundering applause, which
+never dies away until the talented flutist appears on the platform
+again. We find out afterwards that he treats the whole of his
+establishment to the cheap seats; so, of course, poor things, we
+cannot blame them. They are only earning their wages. Perhaps they are
+presented with an extra shilling each when their master returns home.
+
+It is a curious thing how we all like applauding and making a noise.
+If you notice, at organ recitals in the Church we feel quite
+uncomfortable. We think we ought to do something at the conclusion of
+the pieces; so, as we may not clap our hands, we all give a little
+rustle and cough. This is to show our approbation. _Every_one coughs.
+It is astonishing how many people have bad colds. For my part I think
+it is a pity applause is not allowed. It is infinitely preferable to
+the coughing at any rate.
+
+Of course the comic singer goes down best. He is called back three,
+sometimes four times. The schoolboys behind grow excited, and greet
+him with a whistle that would do credit to the "gods." This is too
+much for decently-clad minds, anything so profane as that whistle. The
+clergyman, who is in the chair (the proceeds are always to be devoted
+to some charitable object), rises and insists "that if that most
+objectionable noise does not cease, the boys will have to be turned
+out."
+
+Where the "objectionable" comes in I cannot think. The boys are very
+clever to be able to do it. I have often tried it, and cannot succeed,
+and so conclude it must be a difficult accomplishment. They stick
+about four fingers in their mouths, and thereby make quite a different
+sound to any ordinary whistle. However, it is no wonder the chairman
+discourages it. When he was reading a few minutes before, reading out
+some dry little tale with a moral, in which the humorous parts were
+the heaviest, no encore whistle was accorded him. He was clapped
+loudly, of course--is he not one of the chief men in the parish? But
+no one wished to hear him read again, so we stopped our applause just
+in time to prevent him from re-appearing.
+
+We go home glad at heart, and two mornings later read an account of
+the evening's performance in the local paper.
+
+We find there a few statements which agree with our own feelings.
+They say that "Mr. Jones sang in a pure and cultured manner, and
+deserves special attention for his sweet tenor voice and the
+refinement of the sentiment in his songs" (whatever that may mean!)
+"Mr. Smith played two violin solos with remarkable precision of touch
+and with the greatest ease;" while "Miss. Blank, with a good contralto,
+was all that could be desired in both her songs!" They were none of
+them there, but that does not matter. They were praised up more than
+anyone else, which must be very discouraging to those who _did_
+perform. But on account of their non-appearance alone we feel they
+deserve some approbation, and so do not grudge it them. It is of no
+consequence to a newspaper reporter who is there and who is not. He
+takes the programme, ticks off the names, and writes his remarks and
+criticisms just as he likes. It would be wiser, all the same, on his
+part, if he found out the absentees, for otherwise his little hints
+rather lose their effect.
+
+He writes that this one wants a little "animation," that one "sings
+out of tune." Miss So-and-So plays the piano "with faultless
+manipulation, the only drawback being a slight preponderance of
+pedal," and so on. He generally has as good an ear for music as a
+parish priest who only knew two tunes: one of which was "God save the
+Queen," and the other wasn't. And once, when a brass band was playing
+a selection outside the vicarage, he went on to his balcony, hat in
+hand, and waved it vigorously as he commenced to sing the first line
+of "God save the Queen."
+
+Well, it does not matter after all. The only object is to appear
+learned, and to use long words. If the artists do not like being
+ignorantly criticized they must forbear to appear in public, a result
+which would incline us to go and shake hands with the reporters all
+round in the exuberance of our gratitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ON DANCING.
+
+
+I was looking through a "Querist Album" the other day; one of those
+dreadful confession books in which you are required to answer the most
+absurd questions. Dreadful indeed they are to write in, but not
+altogether uninteresting to peruse, though the interest comes not so
+much in the answers themselves as in the manner in which they are
+written.
+
+Some go in for it seriously, and describe their inmost feelings on the
+pages; some take a witty strain, and put down the most ridiculous
+things they can think of; while others write just what comes first.
+
+Some are such hypocrites, too. Here is a man who describes his wife as
+his ideal woman; and when we know that he scarcely ever addresses a
+civil word to the poor little woman, his admission is, to say the
+least of it, amusing.
+
+"Have you ever been in love? and if so, how often?" This is one of the
+questions. The answers to it are of doubtful veracity. All the single
+ladies reply "Never!" underlining the word three times. "Yes, only
+once," is the statement of the married ones. According to the Querist
+Album, "The course of true love _always_ runs smooth." No one seems to
+be attacked by Cupid but they must immediately marry the object of
+their choice, and "all goes merrily as a marriage bell." The men, on
+the contrary, like to appear somewhat inflammable. It is generally the
+masculine writers who adopt the sprightly key. Twenty--forty--thousands
+of times they admit falling in love. Such one-sided affairs they must
+have been, too; for the girls, according to their own confessions, never
+reciprocated any attachment until their rightful lords and masters appeared
+on the scene. I am afraid we must be a very hard-hearted race!
+
+But it is the question relating to your idea of "the greatest earthly
+happiness" that struck me most. "Never being called in the morning,"
+was one lazy person's reply. "To write M.P. after my name," was the
+ambition of another. "Married life," wrote the bride on the completion
+of her honeymoon. Ah, little bride, you have been married some years
+now. Are your ideas still the same, I wonder? "A good partner, a good
+floor, and good music," said a fourth, and it is this one that has my
+entire sympathy. I agree with her. It is my idea also of "the greatest
+earthly happiness." I do not require much, you see. These are not very
+difficult things to procure now-a-days; and yet I am often taunted
+with my love of dancing. If I express disapproval of a man, "I suppose
+he can't dance," they say with a sneer.
+
+Now though that accomplishment is a necessity in a ball-room, I do
+_not_ consider it indispensable in a husband. Unfortunately you cannot
+dance through life. I wish you could for many reasons. A continual
+change of partners, for instance, would it not be refreshing? You
+would scarcely have time to grow tired of them. And how much more
+polite our husbands would be if they thought we were only fleeting
+joys! What am I saying? I am shocking everyone I am afraid; the
+little matron who advocates married life, the newly-made brides whose
+ideal men are realized in their husbands--I am shocking them all! I
+humbly plead forgiveness. You see, I am not married myself. I can only
+give my impressions as a looker-on, and, as Thackeray says, "One is
+bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, and a deal of
+disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an
+undertaking."
+
+But dancing _is_ indispensable in a ball-room. If a man cannot dance
+he should stay away, and not make an object of himself. Unfortunately,
+so many think they excel in the art when they have not the least idea
+of it. Again, with girls, dancing (in a ball-room only, of course)
+comes before charm of manner, before wit, even before beauty. I know
+girls, absolutely plain, with not a word to say for themselves, who
+dance every dance, while the walls of the room are lined with pretty
+faces, and dismal-looking enough they are too, which is very foolish
+of them. They should have too much pride to show their discomfiture.
+
+Men have so much the best of it at dances--so everybody says. I am
+afraid I do not agree. I would not change our positions for anything.
+After all, a girl can nearly always dance with anyone she likes, and
+pick and choose as well as the men--provided, of course, that she is
+an adept on the "light fantastic toe" herself.
+
+And think, on the other hand, what men go through! Reverse the order
+of things, as you are supposed to do at leap year dances--which
+system, however, is never properly carried out. But suppose you go up
+to a man and ask him for a dance, and he tells you with a smile that
+"he is very sorry, but really he has not one left." Suppose that the
+next minute you see him give three to another girl, would you speak to
+that man ever again? _Never!_ And yet this is what they constantly
+endure and, what is more, forgive.
+
+After all, if you analyze it, what an absurd thing dancing is. Close
+your ears to the music and look around you when a ball is at its
+height. What motive, you foolishly wonder, could induce all these
+people--who are supposed to possess an average amount of brains--to
+assemble together to clasp each other round the waist, twirl round
+and round up and down the room, suddenly stop, and hurry one after
+another outside the dancing hall, seeking dark corners, secret
+retreats, anywhere away from the eyes of other men? "Ah, what a mad
+world it is, my masters!"
+
+How our grandmothers exclaim at the present mode of dancing!--they who
+used to consider round dances almost improper. How the programmes must
+astonish them, too; those engagement cards that did not exist fifty
+years ago, and in their infancy were quite content to bear only two or
+three names on their paper countenances. But now times have changed,
+and as they grow older they become most greedy little cards. They are
+not only not content with being scribbled all over, but require two
+names on the top of one another, and thus causing dissensions to
+ensue.
+
+There is a great deal of art in making up a programme. It is a mistake
+to be full up before you arrive. Someone may come whom you did not
+expect, and then you have no dance to give him. Arrangement of a
+programme requires two or three seasons' practice. There are the duty
+dances to be got through first; put them up early, so that they shall
+be soon over, and then you have the good ones at the end to look
+forward to.
+
+Everyone has duty dances. There are your father's constituents,
+clients, patients, someone you are obliged to ingratiate, and these
+are generally the worst dancers in the room! One is so fat he shakes
+the hall as he walks, and yet is just as eager to join the giddy
+throng, and alas! to take you with him! Another resembles the little
+tin soldiers which schoolboys have such an affection for, in that he
+has been gifted with large flat stands, twice the length of himself,
+instead of feet. And oh, _how_ he kicks! Then there is the
+complimentary man, a creature who never opens his mouth without making
+or implying a compliment. Does he ever find anyone whom this system
+pleases, I wonder! The only antidote I can find is to take no notice,
+and pretend not to understand that the pretty speeches are directed at
+you. This discourages him after a time.
+
+It is amusing to get hold of a man's programme, and find out how you
+are represented there. They do not put down names, but describe
+costumes, hoping thus to find their partners easier, but in reality
+plunging themselves into most hopeless perplexities. They scribble
+down "pearl necklace," and find later that there are at least sixteen
+in the room, and so are worse off than if they had written the name.
+
+Some describe the personal appearance, but this is a very risky thing
+to do. A man the other day wrote down his partner as "Miss blue dress,
+with the nose," and subsequently dropped his programme, which, of
+course, was picked up by the lady mentioned. Now I do not know why you
+should dislike being told that you have a nose--you would feel very
+much worse without one--but when your nasal organ takes up double its
+share of room in your face, and is, moreover, prettily tinted with
+scarlet, which you try to conceal under a little pearl powder, and
+only succeed in making it purple--well, perhaps you would not like to
+be told you have a nose. At any rate, this lady did not, and hers very
+much resembled this description, I believe. But she was a wise woman.
+Not a word did she say on the subject, and he went home happily
+unconscious of her fatal discovery, until a few days later he
+received his programme back as a Christmas card, with "Miss blue dress
+with the nose's compliments." How very comfortable he must have felt
+when he met her next!
+
+What a great many different styles of dancing there are! You have to
+change your step with nearly every partner. The girl should always
+suit hers to the man's, he has quite enough to do with the steering.
+You require about five good partners altogether, and can then spend an
+enjoyable evening. A different man for every dance is tiring. You
+never get beyond the theatres and the weather; you have not time to
+say much more, and grow quite weary of the same style of conversation.
+I always think I must be a most uninteresting partner when I am asked
+what theatres I have been to lately, or what is my opinion of the
+Academy, &c., &c. I never begin this kind of talk myself except as a
+last resource, when I can get nothing else out of a man. Someone says,
+I forget who, that "a woman can always know in what opinion she is
+held by the conversation addressed to her," and is it not true? The
+foolish compliments paid to the pretty, but silly little _débutante_;
+the small talk to the fools; the sparring with the witty; the _risqué_
+tales enjoyed by those of a more rapid style. Men find out first what
+are our tastes, and then dish up their conversation accordingly, and
+they do not often make mistakes.
+
+Some girls dance with one man the whole evening. How weary they must
+get of each other! Engaged people invariably pass the evening
+together, and sometimes do not dance at all, but sit out in some
+secluded corner. They have to endure one another for years to come, I
+wonder they do not get as much variety as possible now. At any rate,
+they might just as well stop at home.
+
+Like everything else, dancing is hurrying along, and growing faster
+every year. The _deux-temps_, they say is coming back. May the day be
+far ahead when that step reigns once more! Perhaps before then I shall
+be converted into a chaperone, and shall sit watching others dance,
+not being able to do so myself; or, perhaps worse, not being _asked_
+myself. I am afraid I should not make a nice chaperone. I should look
+very cross, and should hurry away as early as possible. Ah, sad indeed
+will the day be when I give up dancing, when only the remembrance of
+my past enjoyments will be brought back to me through the scent of
+gardenias and tube-roses, dear dissipated-smelling flowers!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ON WATERING PLACES.
+
+
+What a great deal of trouble and time it takes to choose a
+watering-place! And yet there are many and various kinds of resorts,
+some for one season, some for another.
+
+If you could be carried sufficiently high above the earth so as to
+have a bird's-eye view of the whole of Great Britain, what a strange
+sight it would present during the months of August and September! The
+county would appear surrounded with a human fringe, the outer edge
+more resembling a disturbed ants' hill than anything else. I don't
+suppose we should appear more significant than ants at that distance.
+
+There are those places teeming with shop-keepers and children, when
+you can scarcely see the beach so covered is it with those who are
+making the most of their one holiday in the year.
+
+There is the primitive little village, discovered by few, which is
+welcomed by the city man who wants rest and entire seclusion from
+business matters and the world for a month or two. And oh, what
+language he uses! and how annoyed he is to find absolutely nothing to
+do--one post a day, and, worst of all, no newspaper until late in the
+afternoon! And this is the man who wishes to be shut out from the
+world and from his acquaintances! There is no pier, there are no
+amusements. The esplanade is composed of nothing more than a plank of
+wood, on which, in walking you have to observe much caution in order
+to keep your balance; and sometimes the butcher from the neighboring
+village forgets to call! In desperation, the unfortunate creature digs
+sand-castles with his children, and, after a few days of his
+banishment, grows quite excited as the waves wash up and undermine
+their foundations. He picks acquaintance with anybody he comes across,
+be he peer or peasant--anything to make the time pass a little quicker
+until he can return to the stir of his business life again.
+
+Someone remarks somewhere that "a man works one-half of his life in
+order that he may rest the other." I wonder if those who are
+successful ever appreciate their rest when they get it! I wonder if it
+comes up to their expectations! if the goal toward which they have
+been looking almost since they began to exist is worth the trouble and
+energy spent on it! Ah, I am afraid they very rarely find it so! They
+have become so immured in their busy lives, that it is difficult to
+grow accustomed to any other. Unless one is brought up to it, the
+_Dolce far niente_ is not an existence we enjoy. We are made the wrong
+way about somehow. We ought to be born old and gradually grow younger
+as the years roll on. Still, I daresay there would be something to
+complain of even then, and perhaps it would not be very dignified to
+go off the stage as a baby!
+
+To go to the opposite extreme, there are the fashionable water-places;
+little Londons, or rather little imitations of London; for beside that
+great capital itself they are like pieces of glass to a diamond. And
+yet fashion and folly are all here, sunning themselves by the sea
+instead of in the park; driving up and down in the same way, in
+equally charming toilets. But still there seems to be something
+lacking, something wanting. They are too small, these towns; you so
+soon know everyone by sight, and grow tired both of them and their
+costumes. There is a good deal of stir and life about all the same.
+There are bands, niggers, clairvoyantes, fire-eaters; plenty indeed
+for you to see and hear when you are weary of strutting up and down
+and nodding to your friends. And yet, in spite of all, you grow tired
+of "London by the sea," after a few weeks, even in that dead season of
+the year--November.
+
+Have you ever visited one of these places in the midst of a tennis
+week, when the grand tournaments take place? Lawn tennis is a
+delightful recreation for a time, provided you have a good partner and
+good antagonists, and you are playing under a moderately warm sun; but
+when you hear, see, and play nothing else for a week, when the
+conversation is "tennis," when no one appears without a racquet in his
+hand, when all you have to listen to are criticisms on the courts and
+balls, grumblings against the handicapping, imprecations on
+"bisques"--well, you begin to hate the very name, and wish you could
+injure the man who invented it. You grow tired of watching the same
+thing day after day, the men who spend their lives in tossing balls
+across to each other, the sea of faces; turning backwards and forwards
+at each stroke with the regulation of a pendulum.
+
+Yes, it takes a long time to decide on a watering place, and when at
+last you do make up your mind you have to change it again very soon
+because you find all your "sisters, cousins, and aunts" have chosen
+the same resort; and really you have quite enough of your relations in
+town without their following you wherever you go. You require a little
+variety when you go away. An old lady I used to know always kept it a
+profound secret where she intended spending her summer holiday,
+"otherwise, my dear," she said, "I should have the whole family at my
+heels!" A most disagreeable old lady she was; and I know for a fact
+that her relatives always avoided her when possible (she was not
+blessed with very great possessions!) so that her caution was quite
+unnecessary. Oh, vanity of vanities, how little we know of the world's
+true opinion of us!
+
+When you have fixed on your locality, there is even a greater
+difficulty to go through. You have to choose your residence; and this
+takes up even more thought and time.
+
+There are the lodging-houses, monotonous in their similarity. The same
+gilt-edged mirrors protected from the dust by green perforated paper;
+the same jar of wax flowers, standing on a mat which is composed of
+floral designs in Berlin wool--designs to which you can give any name
+you like--"You pays your money and you takes your choice." They
+represent anything, the whole concern hiding its modest head under a
+glass case; the same shavings in the grate, with long trails of roses
+gently slumbering on the top; yes, and the same voluble landlady, the
+whole of whose private concerns you are in possession of five minutes
+after you have taken the apartments.
+
+There is the boarding-house, advertised as "Directly facing the sea;"
+and when you have engaged your rooms, and arrive with all your
+luggage, you find the establishment is at the far end of a side
+street; and "Directly facing the sea" is interpreted by the fact that
+by hanging half-way out of the sitting-room widow, and screwing your
+head round violently to the left, you can see the place where that
+watery monarch ought to be.
+
+"A boarding-house is so much nicer than an hotel, because you get to
+know the people so much easier," I heard a girl remark once. This is
+my chief objection to a boarding-house. Because you are staying under
+the same roof, all the inhabitants consider they have a right to
+address you, and, what is more, they will not be repulsed, which, as
+most of them by no means move in the best society, is not at all
+palatable. The women you can tolerate, but the men are not to be
+endured. You are always coming across them, too. On whatever drive,
+excursion, or trip you take you invariably meet "boarding-houseites,"
+who are only too ready to recognize you. You can never get away from
+them; there is only the public drawing-room, and there they come in
+and out, talking to you, interrupting you, or else causing your ears
+to ache by their attempts at music.(?)
+
+The meals are somewhat amusing, as you can watch all your
+fellow-boarders without being disturbed. They cannot talk and eat at
+the same time, and so philosophically devote all their energies to
+their dinner.
+
+There is the girl who scrapes up acquaintances with everybody. She has
+had the good luck to be placed near a man, and the demure way in which
+she prattles and smiles at him convinces you that she is trying to
+make the best use of her time. Sometimes he is absent, and then the
+smiles give way to the gloomiest expression. Finally, on the arrival
+of new-comers, when there is a sort of general post all round, she is
+placed at the farthest extreme to her late partner, and oh! the
+wistful little glances she passes up the table to the gourmand who,
+oblivious to all but his dinner, scarcely notices her departure.
+
+There are the three old maids, intent on capturing a husband. They
+have come here as a last resource. But with the usual fickleness of
+fortune, they seem to be more shunned by the male sex than attracted
+to it.
+
+There is the newly-married couple, looking very conscious and silly,
+as if they were the only people in the world who had ever committed
+matrimony.
+
+There is one old lady grumbling, and objecting to the back of a
+chicken. Poor birds, they have only two wings each, and really cannot
+provide everybody with them! There is another furious, because on
+asking for a favorite dish, that is down in the _menu_, is told that
+"it is all served!" The best things always are, unless you manage to
+get into the good graces of the waiter or waitress.
+
+Young men and maidens, old men and children, all here, offering plenty
+of material for students of human nature!
+
+Hotel life is very different. Even if you find the _parvenu_ and
+_nouveau riche_ as equally objectionable as the boarding-house
+species, at least they do not force their acquaintance upon
+you. The _table d'hote_ is much more entertaining, and you are
+altogether more independent. Characters you come across occasionally
+that are most interesting to study. There are the girls who are taking
+the round of hotels by their mothers, in the hopes of getting them
+"off." There are the men who astonish everybody by their generosity
+and apparent display of riches, and finally decamp without paying
+their bill.
+
+A man was telling me the other day of a certain "black sheep" who had
+run into difficulty; how his family after a great deal of trouble
+managed to raise £200 between them, and sent him off to America with
+the money to start afresh in a new country. In a month's time he was
+back again, penniless as ever, and cursing his luck and bad fortune.
+It was only by accident they discovered the bills of the best hotels
+in New York in his pocket, and found that he had been living like a
+prince while his £200 lasted, nor had tried at all to obtain any
+occupation.
+
+With such consummate cheek, a man ought to get on in the world, I
+think, for after all it is self-confidence and "bluffing" that seems
+to succeed most. However down in the world you are, however bad your
+"hand," you only have to "bluff" a little to make it all right. There
+are many foolish people in the world ready to be your dupes, and
+luckily they never think of asking to "see" you. Even the best of us
+try it on a little; we strive to hide our skeletons under the cloak of
+cheerfulness, and entirely disguise our real feelings--
+
+    "Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
+    For, such as we are made of, such we be."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl, by Jenny Wren
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl, by Jenny Wren.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl, by Jenny Wren
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl
+       Sister of that "Idle Fellow."
+
+Author: Jenny Wren
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2005 [EBook #16507]
+Last updated: January 17, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAZY THOUGHTS OF A LAZY GIRL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+
+<h1>                     LAZY THOUGHTS OF A LAZY GIRL.</h1>
+
+              <h3>(Sister of that "<span class="smcap">Idle Fellow</span>.")</h3>
+
+
+
+                              <h4>&nbsp;</h4>
+                              <h4>BY</h4>
+                              <h3>JENNY WREN.</h3>
+                              <h3>&nbsp;</h3>
+                              <h3>&nbsp;</h3>
+                              <h4>&nbsp;</h4>
+                              <h4>NEW YORK
+                                <br />
+                                HURST AND COMPANY
+                                <br />
+                              PUBLISHERS</h4>
+                              <h4>1891</h4>
+
+<h2>&nbsp;</h2>
+<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>[5]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<table summary="Contents">
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Chapter.
+    </span></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><span class="smcap">Page.
+    </span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">I.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">ON LOVE.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">II.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">ON BILLS.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">III.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">ON POLITICS.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">IV.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">ON AFTERNOON TEA.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">V.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">ON DRESS.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">VI.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">ON CHRISTMAS.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">VII.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">ON THE COUNTRY.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">VIII.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">ON TOWN.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">IX.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">ON CHILDREN AND DOGS.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">X.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">ON CONCERTS.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">XI.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">ON DANCING.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tocch">XII.</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">ON WATERING PLACES.</a></td>
+    <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON LOVE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Love is of man's life a thing apart;</span><br />
+<span class="i4">'Tis woman's whole existence."</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>So sings the poet, and so agrees the world. Humiliating as it is to
+make the confession, it is undeniably true. "Men and Dress are all
+women think about," cry the lords of creation in their unbounded
+vanity. And again, we must submit&mdash;and agree&mdash;to the truth of the
+accusation; at any rate, in nine cases out of ten. Fortunately I am a
+tenth case; at least, I consider myself so. I don't dispute the
+"dress" imputation. I am very fond of dress. Nearly as fond of it as
+the twenty-year old youth, and saying that, I allow a good deal. But
+very few of my thoughts are given to the creature "man"! I do not
+think him worth it. As my old nurse used to say, "I never 'ad no
+opinion of the sex!"</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Do not conclude, however, that because of my statement that I am a
+disappointed, soured old maid, for I am nothing of the sort. I am on
+the right side of twenty-five, and I have never been crossed in love;
+indeed, I have never even experienced the tender passion, and only
+write from my observations of other people; thus taking a perfectly
+neutral ground in speaking of it at all.</p>
+
+<p>One never hears that Adam fell in love with Eve, or that Eve was
+passionately attached to Adam. But then, poor things, they had so
+little choice&mdash;it was either that or nothing. Besides, there was no
+opposition to the match, so it was bound to be rather a tame affair.
+For my part, I pity Eve, for Adam was, I think, the very meanest of
+men. When he was turned out of the garden, what a wretch he must have
+felt himself! and how he must have taunted his poor wife! Weak men are
+always bullies.</p>
+
+<p>But "<i>revenons &agrave; nos moutons</i>," I am wondering who was the first
+person to fall in love! Cain <i>might</i> have done so with his mysterious
+wife; history does not say. But certainly there is always some
+attraction in mystery, so such a  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> thing is possible. I wonder whence
+that extraordinary woman sprang!</p>
+
+<p>Neither do we hear much of Noah's domestic experiences, but I should
+conclude on the whole that they were not happy. No man could be
+endured for forty days shut up in the house, no business to go to,
+nothing to do, always hanging about, his idle hands at some mischief
+or other, and last, but not least, a diabolical temper, displayed at
+every turn! Why, I cannot endure one for a week! My only wonder is
+that the female population of the Ark did not rise up in a body and
+consign their lords and masters to the floods.</p>
+
+<p>Poor men, they deserve a little of our pity too, perhaps; for if Mrs.
+Noah and her daughters-in-law at all resembled their effigies in the
+Noah's Arks of the present day, they were women to be avoided, <i>I</i>
+think.</p>
+
+<p>So that, after all, it must have been Jacob who set such a very
+foolish example; because we could not count Isaac, his being so
+extraordinary and isolated a case, when he fell in love with his own
+wife!</p>
+
+<p>Therefore I think we owe Jacob a great many  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> grudges. He was the
+inventor of the tender passion, and since his time people have begun
+to follow his example long before they come to years of discretion,
+simply because their parents did so before them, and they think they
+are not grown up, that they are not men, unless they have some love
+affair on hand.</p>
+
+<p>Some get married at once, some wait a long time, and some do not marry
+at all. These last are, I think, generally the happiest, for this
+so-called love lasts for only a very short time, and neither husband
+nor wife are long before they console themselves with someone else's
+affection to make up for what is wanting on the part of the other.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I am speaking generally. As far as I can see, the majority
+act thus, though I am glad to say that many and various are the
+exceptions. It was only the other day I came across our washerwoman
+and asked her how she and her husband got on together. He used to be a
+drunkard, and used her cruelly, but two years ago he took the pledge,
+and, what is more, he kept it. "Lor', mum," she exclaimed fervently,
+"we draws nearer every day!" I am afraid  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> not many husbands and wives
+could say the same.</p>
+
+<p>People are so anxious to marry too. I cannot understand them, men
+especially. They have their clubs, they are entirely independent, and
+can go home as late as they please without being questioned as to
+their whereabouts. And yet, as soon as they can, they saddle
+themselves with a wife, who requires at least half the money&mdash;they
+have never found sufficient for themselves alone&mdash;besides a great deal
+of looking after!</p>
+
+<p>Women, on the contrary, are different. They have to make some
+provision for the future, so to speak. How do you like it, oh men! the
+idea that you, with your handsome personages and fascinating ways, are
+used only as a kind of insurance office? This is the case very often,
+however, though you may not know it!</p>
+
+<p>Yet others pursue the god Hymen merely for the sake of being married.
+As soon as they leave the school-room, sometimes before, they begin
+their search for a husband, and look out for him in the person of
+every man they meet. No matter who it is so long as they are married
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span> before So-and-So, and can triumph over all their friends.</p>
+
+<p>It must be said for men that they are falling off in the marrying
+line. This is not nearly such a proposing generation as the last. Then
+they married much younger and seemed to propose after a few days'
+acquaintance. No, this is a more cautious age altogether. Men look
+round carefully before they make their choice. They sample it well,
+they watch it in the home circle, they watch it abroad, they watch it
+with other men, and finally come to the conclusion that it is worthy
+to be allied to their noble selves, or they don't!</p>
+
+<p>Another thing. Men of the present day are so direfully afraid of a
+refusal! So fearful are they, that rather than risk one, they give up
+many chances of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>They expect that a girl should show her feeling toward them, before
+they come to the point. But you must remember that girls also have to
+be cautious, and a few&mdash;I acknowledge it is only a few&mdash;would rather
+die than show they cared for a man who after all might only "love and
+ride away."</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Not that I altogether blame man in this respect. I always admire
+pride, and am afraid I should not care for a refusal myself. I am
+intolerant of it even in the smallest matters!</p>
+
+<p>It is curious how men run in grooves. The same style of man nearly
+always marries the opposite type of girl. I mean that the
+intellectual, the clever, invariably choose the insipid brainless
+girl. Pretty, she may be, but it is in a doll-like way, with not a
+thought above her household. You would have imagined that such men
+would require some help-meet, in the fullest sense of the word; with a
+brain almost as quick as their own. But such a choice occurs very
+seldom.</p>
+
+<p>Again, why is it that little men always select the very tallest women
+they can find? You would think that a man would hesitate to show off
+his meagre inches to such bad advantage. But these pigmies appear to
+enjoy the contrast. It is evidently quantity they admire, not quality.</p>
+
+<p>I daresay a good deal of what I have written sounds very cynical, but
+perhaps my experience has been unfortunate, therefore you must forgive
+me: certainly it is sometimes very difficult to  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> distinguish between
+the real thing and its successful counterpart.</p>
+
+<p>Parents are greatly at fault in the issues of the matrimonial market.
+After all these centuries of experience you would give them credit for
+more tact than they possess. Any match they do not desire, they oppose
+at once, and thereby set alight all the contradictory elements in your
+nature. If Laban had been less obstinate, and had consented to an
+alliance between Jacob and Rachel from the first, provided Leah was
+left behind to look after him, the latter would immediately have been
+endowed with attractions innumerable to Jacob, tender eyes and all!</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere is there such a fertile soil for love as opposition!</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, if parents wish to encourage a match, young people
+are thrown together as much as possible. However big the gathering,
+you are somehow always paired off with the eligible parti until you
+grow to loathe the man, and would sooner become an "old maid" than
+marry him.</p>
+
+<p>Parents have a bad time altogether I am afraid. Their nice little
+plans are so nearly  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span> always upset by their ungrateful children, and
+then they have to be continually looking after their brood. I knew one
+mother who used to take her daughters on the pier and lose sight of
+them at once, as they paired off with their he-acquaintances. Do what
+she would she could not find them again, so many were the nooks and
+crannies near at hand. Finally she had recourse to the Camera Obscura,
+and, with the help of the views set before her there, she found the
+missing girls! "We never can escape her now," they told me in mournful
+tones, after her fatal discovery.</p>
+
+<p>Girls are degenerating sadly, it is said. They are getting too
+masculine, too independent, too different from man's ideal&mdash;the modest
+little maid who sits at home and mends her husband's socks.</p>
+
+<p>I do not dispute the fact. They <i>are</i> degenerating. Neither, though I
+dislike the ideal specimen, and have a contempt for her, do I stand up
+for the other extreme. I have a horror of fast masculine girls, and
+agree with all that is said against them. Nevertheless, I do not
+consider men have any right to complain, as they are the chief cause
+of the deterioration of our sex.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Everyone knows that a girl thinks more of a man's opinion than that of
+anyone else. If he applauds, then she is satisfied. She does not
+consider it ignominy to be termed "a jolly good fellow!" She gets
+praise, and in a way admiration, when she caps his good stories,
+smokes, and drinks brandies and sodas. Unfortunately, she does not
+hear herself discussed when he is alone with his friends, or perhaps
+she would be more cautious in her manners and conversation for the
+future, for this is not the kind of girl who is</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Rich in the grace all women desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Strong in the power that all men adore."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON BILLS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bills! Bills! Bills! Detestable sound! Obnoxious word! Why were such
+things ever invented? Why are they sent to destroy our peace of mind?</p>
+
+<p>They always come, too, when you are expecting some interesting letter.
+You hurry to meet the postman, you get impatient at the length of time
+he takes to separate his packets (I sometimes think these men find
+pleasure in tantalizing you, and keep you waiting on purpose), and
+when he at last presents you with your long-expected missive, behold,
+it turns to dust and ashes in your hand&mdash;metaphorically speaking, of
+course.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity such a metamorphosis does not occur in reality; for the
+wretched oblong envelope, with the sprawly, flourishy writing, so
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span> unmistakably suggests a bill, that you&mdash;well, I do not know what
+<i>you</i> do on such an occasion; <i>my</i> letter, which I have been so
+anxious to obtain, is flung to the other side of the room.</p>
+
+<p>How is it that bills mount up so quickly? You buy a little ribbon, a
+few pairs of gloves, some handkerchiefs&mdash;mere items in fact, and yet
+when quarter day comes round you are presented with a bill a yard
+long, which as your next instalment of money is fully mortgaged, is
+calculated to fill you with anything but extreme joy.</p>
+
+<p>Why are the paths leading to destruction always so much easier of
+access than any other? It takes so much less time to run up a bill, it
+is so much simpler to say, "Will you please enter it to my account?"
+than to pay your money down. First the bill has to be added up, and,
+strange as it may seem, these shop people appear to take <i>hours</i> over
+a simple addition sum. "Eight and elevenpence halfpenny if you please,
+ma'am." Of course you have not enough silver, and so are obliged to
+wait for change. Then someone has to be found to sign. Altogether it
+takes quite five minutes longer paying ready money; and think, how
+five minutes after each  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span> purchase would mount up in a day's shopping!
+I should say that, on an average you might call it two important hours
+regularly thrown away. "And a good job, too," perhaps our fathers,
+husbands, and brothers would say. But, then, you see, they are
+Philistines and do not understand.</p>
+
+<p>But though we suffer somewhat at the hands of these shop people, I
+think in their turn they have to endure a great deal more from their
+customers. I have seen old ladies order nearly the whole shop out,
+turn over the articles, and having entirely exhausted the patience of
+their victims, say, "Yes&mdash;all very pretty&mdash;but I don't think I will
+buy any to-day, thank you," and they move off to other counters to
+enact the same scene over again. Selfish old things!</p>
+
+<p>I was dreadfully hard up a short time ago, and of course my bills were
+ten times as big as usual. I had no money coming in, and could not
+conceive how I was to meet my debts.</p>
+
+<p>It is astonishing, when you come to try it, how few paths there are
+open for poverty-stricken ladies to make a little money, especially
+when your object is to keep your difficulties a secret from your
+mankind. I tried every  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span> imaginable way without success. What is the
+good of having an expensive education, of being taught French and
+German&mdash;neither of which languages, by the way, when brought to the
+test, a girl can ever talk, or at any rate so as to be understood.
+What is the good of it all, I say, when you want to turn your hand to
+making a little money? I felt quite angry the other day when, our cook
+being ill, we had a woman in to take her place. Fifteen shillings a
+week she made! She, who had had little or nothing spent on her
+education, could yet make more shillings in a week than I could pence!
+I began to wish I had been brought up as a scullery maid.</p>
+
+<p>I can paint rather well, but what are the advantages of art compared
+to those of cookery? Many and many a shop I went into, carrying
+specimens of my talent, and asking the owners if they would employ me
+to decorate their tambourines, bellows, &amp;c. But no, they all had their
+own especial artists, and were quite suited. It is such a dreadfully
+humiliating business. At the first place I could have slain the man
+for his impertinence in declining, and I left the shop with a haughty
+mien and my head in the air.  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span> But I grew accustomed to it in time, and
+even used to try a little persuasion, which, however, proved of no
+avail. One man offered to exhibit my wares (I felt quite like a
+peddler going his rounds), and through him I sold two tambourines.
+Then who so proud as I? though my profits only came to a few
+shillings. However small, the first taste of success is always
+exhilarating, though indeed my confidence did not last long, for this
+was my first and last experience of money-making in the painting line.</p>
+
+<p>I used to search the sale and exchange columns of the papers, and
+found once that someone wanted music transposed. I wrote directly
+offering my services, and charging a shilling per piece or song. For a
+wonder I was successful, for the person answered, asking for a
+specimen of my skill, which she was pleased to say would do very well.</p>
+
+<p>How her letters used to amuse me! She must have been a rather
+incapable singing mistress I think. Her letters though properly spelt
+were written in an uneducated hand, and she addressed me as if I were
+a servant. She used to give me very little time in which to transpose
+her songs,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> and insisted on their being finished when she wanted them.
+Sometimes I was quite tired out, for copying music is not a thing to
+be done in a hurry.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, our negotiations did not last long. Whether I grew careless,
+or she found others to do the work cheaper, I do not know, but she
+suddenly withdrew her custom, and I have never heard from her since.</p>
+
+<p>My next venture was tale writing. Who has not tried this most
+unsatisfactory method? It is a tremendously anxious time when your
+first effort is sent out. What a lot of money you expect to obtain for
+it! You do not intend to be unprepared, so you spend every penny in
+your mind beforehand. Then there is the honor and glory of it! You
+will hear everyone talking of the cleverly written tale and wondering
+who is the gifted author!</p>
+
+<p>What made me more hopeful was the possession of a cousin, who was very
+successful in this line. Indeed, she has reached the three-volume
+stage by now, and is beginning to be quite well known. I have lost my
+interest in her, however, since she took me and my family off in one
+of  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span> her books. It is such an easy thing to do. You only have to find
+out a person's peculiarities&mdash;and everyone has a peculiarity!&mdash;and
+overdraw them a little. My sisters and I, I remember, figured as
+three brainless, fast girls, which would only have amused us had she
+left the rest of the family alone. It is a foolish thing to do, for
+besides nearly always giving offence it is not by any means an
+evidence of good taste.</p>
+
+<p>It is much more difficult to write a tale than some people think; you
+get in such hopeless tangles sometimes. People you kill off in the
+first chapter, you sadly need in the last. Then, when you are
+finishing up, there are so many people to get rid of, that you are
+obliged to dispatch them in a bunch with an explosion, or something
+equally probable&mdash;three or four strangers as a rule, who have never
+seen each other before, but who considerately assemble in one place to
+meet their doom. Then the last pages will never fit in with the first.
+Your meek but lovely heroine at the beginning has been transformed
+into a beautiful vixen as you near the end, and is quite
+unrecognizable. The worst parts of all are the sensational ones. You
+think  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span> you have worked your hero up to a pitch of fiery eloquence,
+while his <i>fianc&eacute;e</i> is dying in agony close by, and when you
+complacently turn to read over the passage, you find his words imply
+no more sorrow than they would at the death of a relative from whom he
+had expectations, or&mdash;a mother-in-law!</p>
+
+<p>It is rather a difficult matter in a large family to keep your actions
+a secret. Obtuse as most men are, with things going on right under
+their eyes, it is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is
+roused. And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women!
+Though Eve <i>was</i> the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention
+of being behindhand. I know a man who always manages to get down to
+breakfast five minutes before the rest of his family, for the purpose
+of examining the correspondence all round.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately I managed to escape from these inquisitive eyes, for I met
+the postman myself when he brought back my first tale. It was returned
+with the Editor's "compliments and thanks," coupled with the regret
+that he could not make use of my contribution.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span> </p>
+
+<p>I don't know that I ever felt such keen disappointment as when that
+tale came back from its first visit. I had hoped so much from it, and
+had been so confident of its success. It depressed me for some time,
+and it was long before I ventured upon anything in the literary way
+again. But habit is second nature, they say, so after that and other
+tales had been the round of all the magazines and returned to their
+ancestral home, decidedly the worse for their outings (change of air
+evidently does not agree with MSS.), they affected me no more than the
+receipt of a tradesman's circular. In fact I grew quite to welcome
+them as old friends, and no one would have been more astonished than I
+had they been converted into <i>&pound; s. d.</i></p>
+
+<p>Apparently I am not cut out for literary work. I have not sufficient
+imagination, nor am I sceptical enough for this fanciful and
+scientific age. The world only cares for impossible adventures and
+magic stories, or stories which undermine their religion or upset it
+altogether, and I am not clever enough for this.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, in my pecuniary need I did not neglect to employ a
+"chancellor of the  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span> exchequer," as Miss. Mathers calls her; a "wardrobe
+keeper," as she terms herself. Indeed, I employed two or three, and so
+had plenty of opportunities of observing the type.</p>
+
+<p>These women certainly vary in the way they carry on business, but very
+rarely do they vary in appearance. For the fattest, ugliest, oiliest
+old creatures to be found anywhere, commend me to a Chancellor! I
+pause in astonishment sometimes, and wonder how they have the strength
+to carry so much flesh about with them.</p>
+
+<p>The first one I engaged possessed a complexion of a glowing yellow,
+like unto the petals of an alamander. She carried on the business in a
+too independent way altogether. She would take up my garments, look
+them over with a contemptuous sniff (what eloquence there is in a
+sniff!), and then begin to talk of the "ilegant costoomes she 'ad 'ad
+lately of Lady &mdash;&mdash;, of the 'ansome silks and furs purchased from the
+Countess of &mdash;&mdash;," &amp;c. It was cunningly and knowingly done.
+Immediately, as was intended, my productions began to lose value in my
+eyes, in contrast to her gorgeous descriptions. Finally  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span> she would
+state her price, and by no art or persuasion would she give way a
+penny afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>I believe she was given to fits. Anyhow she fell very ill once when
+she came, and had to be given brandy to support her. I was afraid she
+was going to die in the house, which would have been exceedingly
+unpleasant, for it is a heinous breach of gentility to be found mixed
+up in any such transactions. We are so foolish, we have such little
+minds, we try to hide our doings from our neighbors, who are all going
+through the same experiences, and are equally desirous of concealing
+them from us. If all our screens were taken away what a comedy of
+errors would be disclosed. How surprised we should be to see everyone
+committing follies of which we have been so ashamed and so anxious to
+hide from the eyes of all!</p>
+
+<p>After all the brandy had a most beneficial effect. I think it must
+have flown to her head; for never before had she given such large
+amounts. I was quite sorry to find her so well at her next advent. Her
+sniff was even more eloquent, and her prices had returned to their
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span> original low level. I regret now that I did not again try the brandy.</p>
+
+<p>Another woman I employed was even uglier than the first. She was so
+wholesomely ugly. A great red full moon represented her countenance,
+radiant with the color of the Eiffel Tower. She was altogether a more
+satisfactory chancellor than the other. She always insisted on your
+stating your own price to begin with. "Well, what d'yer think yerself,
+mum?" was her invariable ejaculation, and then, hearing your reply,
+would break in on whatever you said by "It ain't worth more than
+<i>'arf</i> that to me, mum," in the most aggrieved voice. I became used to
+her in time, and knowing she would halve whatever I said, used to
+demand double the worth of the thing. "What d'yer think yerself, mum?"
+You grow so tired of your opinion being thus asked. I wonder how many
+times she says it in a day! It is a cautious way of going about it, at
+any rate. If that woman ever appeared in a police court on a charge of
+dishonesty, and the magistrate asked her what she had to say to the
+charge, the answer would undoubtedly be, "Well, what d'yer think
+yerself, sir?"</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Some of those bills are still unpaid. Quarter day is coming round
+again, so I expect there will be some more soon. Alas! I am an unlucky
+being, born under an unlucky star.</p>
+
+<p>You may think it a strange notion, but I attribute all my ill-luck to
+spiders:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"If you wish to live and thrive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Let a spider run alive."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I am not superstitious as a rule, but I cannot help thinking that my
+wholesale massacre of this obnoxious insect has something to do with
+my misfortunes by way of retribution.</p>
+
+<p>I hate spiders! Nearly everybody has a pet aversion of some sort. I
+have heard people shriek at the sight of a caterpillar, and turn pale
+in the neighborhood of a toad. My great antipathy is a spider! Not
+that I object to its treatment of flies&mdash;nasty little worries, they
+deserve everything that happens to them. But it is the <i>appearance</i> of
+a spider that is so against it. There is a shifty expression about the
+eye, and such a leer on the upper lip. Money spinners are not so
+objectionable. I can tolerate them. It is the big, almost tarantulas,
+from  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> which I flee. Those creatures which start up suddenly, and run
+across the room close by where you are sitting; creatures so large
+that you can almost hear their footsteps as they pass.</p>
+
+<p>A man told me once he had found a spider in his room of such enormous
+dimensions that he had to open the door in order that it might get
+out!</p>
+
+<p>Overdrawn, you say? Well, it sounds a little improbable certainly; not
+so much on account of the unusual size of the spider as for the
+extraordinary consideration on the part of the man.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON POLITICS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Perhaps you don't think me competent to talk about politics? "What do
+women know about such things?" asks the superior masculine mind.</p>
+
+<p>Well, they don't know so much as men, I admit, and I earnestly hope
+they never will. A woman who is infected with politics is a positive
+pest, and should be removed at once. If I do not know anything about
+them, at any rate I ought to, as I have been brought up in a raging
+Tory household, and so have been steeped in them from my youth up.</p>
+
+<p>There is such a sameness in politicians. Whatever their opinions,
+their language and feelings are all one. They are only directed at
+different people. While one man is gloating over a Conservative
+victory you hear a mutter from the  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span> Radical to the effect that "That
+<i>brute</i> has got in for &mdash;&mdash;" Poor man, why, because he thinks
+differently to you, should he be a brute? But just the same words are
+spoken if the positions be reversed. It is only the mouths that change
+places.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid my views incline toward the Tory side. I cannot help it, I
+was bought over long ago. You <i>must</i> feel an interest as to the
+successful candidate when the result means either a tip all round or a
+thundery atmosphere for the rest of the day. Men take an adverse poll
+as a personal affront and vent their feelings on their families. The
+tipping was quite an understood thing when I was younger, now it is
+given up, and joy is shown in a less substantial way, I regret to say.
+Unfortunately the thunder storms are not events of the past as well.</p>
+
+<p>Politicians have such a narrow way of looking at things. The other
+side can do nothing right while they themselves are absolutely
+faultless! If a Tory wishes to confer an opprobrious epithet on a
+person he calls him a Radical, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>; the opposite faction
+is capable of any enormity? This reminds me of the old Scotchman  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> who
+on being asked his opinion of a man who had first murdered and then
+mutilated his victim, answered in a shocked voice, "What do I think?
+Well, I think that a maun who'd do all that would whistle on the
+Sawbuths!" "Such a man must be a Home Ruler," my father would have
+said.</p>
+
+<p>In having a guest with opposite views at your dinner table, what
+agonies do you not suffer? I have gone through those dreadful meals
+trembling at every word that drops from the man's lips. Try as you
+may, turn the conversation how you will, there is sure to be some
+allusion, some statement that sets on fire all the host's enthusiasm,
+and it does not take long before the poor guest is entirely
+annihilated and subdued&mdash;unless indeed he is as hot on his side as the
+other is on his; then indeed all we can do is to sit and hear it out.
+To attempt to stem such a torrent would be the act of a lunatic. We
+only feel thankful that "pistols for two and coffee for one" is a
+thing of the past.</p>
+
+<p>The General Elections are dreadful times; nothing but canvassing goes
+on night after night for weeks beforehand. Conversation is entirely
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> restricted to the coming event&mdash;if you mention a word about anything
+apart from it, you are considered absolutely profane, and are treated
+as a pariah for the next few days.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting, I admit, and the election day itself is positively
+exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember
+once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess,
+tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary.
+True, it was on what she considered her own side, though I don't think
+she knew enough to distinguish between the two; still her real
+annoyance was occasioned more by the look of the thing. That a pupil
+of hers should act in such a plebeian way, and in so public a place,
+certainly must have been somewhat provoking? Anyhow, she gave me a bad
+mark for disobedience, which affected me but little, as when I related
+the story to my father later on he rewarded me with a shilling for my
+prowess! Electioneering, you see, is not good for the morals!</p>
+
+<p>How tired you get, too, of seeing the names of would-be members stuck
+up all over the place. My brothers used to follow the Liberal
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> bill-sticker round, and as soon as he had turned his back pull the
+placards down, or cover them up with their own. This was found out at
+last, and the foe grew more cautious.</p>
+
+<p>Then the extravagant promises made by the candidates, which they never
+really intend to fulfil, and could not if they wished. It is like the
+man in Church who, while singing&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Were the whole realm of nature mine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That were an offering far too small,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>was rubbing his finger along the rim of a threepenny bit to make sure
+it was not a fourpenny!</p>
+
+<p>On election days all mankind goes mad. Their excitement is so great
+that they would scarcely know it did they forego their dinner. And
+this, with men, proves an absorbing interest in the matter. Anything
+placed above dinner, in their opinion, must be important indeed.</p>
+
+<p>There is such a polite element abroad on polling day. Men are so
+respectful and hurl such affectionate terms at one another. Even the
+dogs are upset, and strut about in quite a different manner than on
+ordinary days, so puffed out with vanity are they, on account of their
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> decorations. The members' wives and their friends are all taking part
+in the scene too, bringing voters along in their carriages, and
+shaking hands with everybody indiscriminately. I heard an old navvy
+protesting once that "Lady &mdash;&mdash; never troubled to shake 'ands with him
+any other time, but was generally that 'orty she'd step over you as
+soon as look at you."</p>
+
+<p>Poor old men are dragged out <i>nolens volens</i> to add their mite to the
+public voice, and are sometimes so aged that they scarcely know what
+their opinions are. I hope I shall not live to be very old. It is a
+terrible thing when you make such a prolonged stay on this earth that
+you have to be helped off it.</p>
+
+<p>It is very curious too, how exceedingly disobliging old people are. I
+know a family who have never worn anything brighter than grey for
+years. "In case we have to go into mourning soon&mdash;our poor old aunt,
+you know. It's so very sad!" and they squeeze a tear out from
+somewhere, but whether on account of their relative's illness, or her
+prolonged life, is open to opinion. The old lady is flourishing still,
+and the family is as soberly clothed as ever.  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span> When she has been dead
+a few months what rainbows they will become, to make up for lost time!</p>
+
+<p>"A disappointing man," I have heard a dutiful nephew term his uncle.
+True, he (the uncle, I mean) is ninety-four, and therefore old enough
+to know better than to rally so many times. But after all, he does
+nothing, runs into no danger, is tended as carefully as a new-born
+baby; I should not at all wonder if he still continued "disappointing"
+and took a new lease of life for seven years. But I am digressing, and
+must return to politics.</p>
+
+<p>I went to a Primrose meeting once and the experience was not so happy
+as to make me wish to try it again.</p>
+
+<p>It amused me, certainly. The conclusion I eventually arrived at, when
+I left, was that the chief element in the Primrose League was
+gratitude! This virtue seemed to be the point round which all the
+speakers rallied.</p>
+
+<p>First the secretary rose, ran off a quantity of statistics, as to what
+had been done by the great League, what it was going to do, and how
+many converts had been induced to join, which was  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span> exceedingly
+uninteresting, I think, but which elicited loud applause from the rest
+of the audience. Then some resolution was passed, at which if you
+agreed you were begged "to signify the same in the usual way." After
+which those who thought differently were asked to show their feelings
+in the same fashion. I held my hand up here, but I suppose the ruling
+councillor did not expect any opposition, for he never even looked
+round to see, but gabbled off by rote, "On the contrary? carried
+unanimously!" and my amiable attempt at running counter to the rest
+was not even noticed!</p>
+
+<p>Then the ruling councillor gave way to Mr. &mdash;&mdash; (here a sickly smile
+was directed at the great man), who had so very kindly come to speak
+to us this evening, who would, he felt sure, quite enchant us with
+his&mdash;er&mdash;great eloquence (another leer to his right).</p>
+
+<p>The great man then came forward, and with a superior smile on his
+countenance waited until the applause which greeted his entrance had
+ceased, and then began. He commenced somewhat softly, detailing all
+the advantages of the Primrose League: what it had done for  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span> England,
+the fear it arouses in the heart of the Liberal faction, how it will
+raise the country to a summit it never before has reached! No! and
+never would have reached had it not been for this flourishing, this
+powerful League! &amp;c., &amp;c., &amp;c. His voice gradually grew louder and
+louder until, with beating his hands on the table, stamping violently
+over the sins of the Radicals, and perspiring vehemently in the
+effort, he presented anything but a pleasing spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>Of course animation like this brought down the house. The applause
+nearly deafened me, and I was quite glad when he drew near the end of
+his most tedious speech. He concluded by calming down very suddenly,
+returned to his original tones, and thanking his audience for his
+exceedingly kind reception, retired to his seat looking, as Mr.
+Mantalini would say, a "dem'd damp, moist, unpleasant body."</p>
+
+<p>Then up rose the ruling councillor, and called us all to pass a vote
+of thanks to the "gifted orator." Someone seconded it, and the great
+man came forward again to thank us for thanking him. A sort of "So
+glad, I'm glad, you're glad" business, it seemed to me.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Then the ladies were thanked for being present: "Such great aids, and
+such an <i>important</i> element in the League," with a snigger, and what
+he confidently hoped was a fascinating smile, but which made him
+resemble a very placid cow with the corners of its mouth turned up.
+Such a mouth, too! The poor man could have whispered in his own ear
+had he wished. Then someone returned thanks for the ladies. The ruling
+councillor was thanked, and thanked his thankers back again, and after
+a few more people had exhibited their great faculty for gratitude the
+meeting broke up&mdash;the only moment at which I felt inclined to applaud.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to disparage my own "side" by the foregoing remarks, not
+caring in any way to emulate Balaam. It is not only the members of the
+Primrose League who are so anxious to praise each other. It is the
+case at nearly every meeting you go to. It is a weakness of human
+nature. We know that if we laud our friend he will sing an eulogy on
+us the next minute, so it is only natural we should do it, after all.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"The fault is not in our stars,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But in ourselves, that we are underlings."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON AFTERNOON TEA.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"The Muses' friend, Tea, does our fancy aid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Repress the vapors which the head invade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And keeps the palace of the soul serene."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>How I do love tea! I don't deny it, it is as necessary to me as
+smoking is to men.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard a lady accused by her doctor of being a "tea-drunkard"!
+"Tea picks you up for a little time," he said, "and you feel a great
+deal better after you have had a cup. But it is a stimulant, the
+effect of which does not last very long, and all the while it is
+ruining your nerves and constitution. I daresay it is difficult to
+give up&mdash;the poor man finds the same with his spirits. You are no
+better than he!"</p>
+
+<p>It is rather a come down, is it not? Somehow, when you are drinking
+tea, you feel so very temperate. Well, at least, the above reflection
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span> makes you sympathize with the inebriates, if it does nothing else;
+and I am afraid it does nothing else with me. In spite of the warning,
+I continue to take my favorite beverage as strong and as frequently as
+ever, and so I suppose must look forward to a cranky nervous old age.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to notice how men are invading our precincts now-a-days.
+They used to scoff at such a meal as afternoon tea, and now most of
+them take it as regularly as they stream out of the trains on Saturday
+afternoons with pink papers under their arms&mdash;such elevating
+literature! Indeed there is quite a fuss if they have to go without
+it&mdash;the tea I mean, not the paper.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange too, because they dislike it so, if we trespass on their
+preserves, <i>e.g.</i>, their outcry on ladies smoking: which is
+exceedingly unfair, for we have no equivalent for the fragrant weed.
+Still I agree with the men in a way, for nothing looks worse than a
+girl smoking in public, though a cigarette now and then with a brother
+does, I think, no harm, provided it does not grow into a habit.</p>
+
+<p>My brother once gave me a cigarette and bet me a shilling that I would
+not smoke it through.  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> It was so hard that if I had bent it, it would
+have snapped in two. He had only just found it in a corner of a
+cupboard where it had lain for years and years. But oh, the strength
+of that cigarette! It took me hours to get through, for it would not
+draw a bit. Nevertheless, with the incentive of a shilling to urge me
+on, I continued "faint but pursuing" and eventually won the bet. I
+would not do it again for ten times the amount.</p>
+
+<p>But I should be talking about tea, not smoking; and tea has other
+baneful influences besides destroying the digestion. I think that
+afternoon tea is the time that breeds more gossip and scandal than
+any other hour in the day.</p>
+
+<p>As Young exclaims:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Tea! How I tremble at thy fatal stream!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As Lethe dreadful to the love of fame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">What devastations on thy bank are seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">What shades of mighty names that once have been!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A hecatomb of characters supplies<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thy painted alters' daily sacrifice!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Acquaintances drop in. They have all the latest doings of the
+neighborhood at their  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> fingers' ends, and in a quarter of an hour have
+picked everyone of their most intimate friends to pieces, nor do they
+leave them a shred of character.</p>
+
+<p>Why do we feel such a relish in running down our friends and
+relations&mdash;the latter especially? <i>I</i> quite enjoy it, though I should
+never do so outside my own family; thus my words never come round to
+their ears. It is a necessity to relieve your feelings occasionally,
+and your family is a good, safe receptacle.</p>
+
+<p>For those who have a taste for speaking spitefully of their neighbors,
+I can suggest an amusing game which was, I believe, started in Oxford.
+It is called Photograph whist, and is played by four. Two or three
+dozen photographs are dealt round, and each person plays one, he who
+plays the ugliest portrait taking the trick. The more hideous the
+photograph, the greater its value as a trump! I have played the game
+with a man who always keeps his brother to the end, and then brings
+him out with enormous success, the said brother never failing to
+overtrump any other card in the pack! So you see it is a most amiable
+game altogether.  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> You must only be careful not to spread your doings
+abroad, or no one will present you with their portraits ever again.</p>
+
+<p>There is no sin so bad as being found out. You can say anything as
+long as you are not discovered to be the originator. But if your words
+against a person ever happen to get round to him or her (of course
+added to, and made almost unrecognizable in their progress) you make
+an enemy for life. At least, this is so as a rule. Personally, I never
+care what people say against me, so long as it is not true. But if
+they only keep to the truth, then it is aggravating. You cannot deny
+it! You cannot "tremble with indignation, and fling the words back in
+their faces," as the slandered heroine always does in the modern
+novel. You must simply submit to the accusation.</p>
+
+<p>A man I know was saying all round the place a little while ago, that
+my sisters and I "were all good looking until we opened our mouths."
+Of course we heard of it, and have never forgiven him for his "damning
+praise." But it is true. We always admit the fact. We know we show our
+teeth too much when we  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> laugh and talk. It was impossible to disclaim
+such a statement. If he had said that we squinted, not a syllable
+would have been pronounced against him. Our eyes are all exceptionally
+good, and would bear any detrimental remarks. But no, he kept to the
+truth, and consequently has suffered ever since, for ways of revenge
+have been found which were thoroughly successful. He is the ugliest
+man I ever met too, and should therefore have been the last to offend.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the tea you are invariably given on such occasions, I
+think calls&mdash;formal calls&mdash;are some of the most dreadful experiences
+Mrs. Grundy obliges you to undergo. I dislike them immensely, and
+always get out of them if possible. I hope servants do not afterwards
+record the expression of my countenance when they tell me their
+mistress is "out." It is radiant with an unholy joy!</p>
+
+<p>These dreadful "at home" days, too, are so provoking. If you know a
+dozen people in a neighborhood, you can only call on one at a time.
+They all have different days! This may seem slightly impossible; but
+it is not indeed. While  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> one lady's house is open to visitors on the
+first and third Wednesdays in the month, another is on view on the
+second and fourth, and so on. Not two people agree!</p>
+
+<p>Small talk, I think, is never so small as on these occasions. The poor
+weather is thorougly worn out, a few mutual friends are picked to
+pieces, and of course there is a discussion about dress. Sometimes you
+hear some sad account of the lady's second cousin's daughter, and you
+have immediately to clothe your countenance in a sober garb. You must
+look grieved, and all the while not caring one straw if the cousin's
+daughter has fits or gets insane, or anything else she cares to do.
+You have never heard of her before, and therefore have not the
+slightest interest in her eccentricities. I always feel so terribly
+inclined to laugh, just because I ought to be doing the other thing.</p>
+
+<p>People are so fond of talking about their troubles and griefs. The
+greater the sorrow, the greater the discussion. They call up tears to
+their eyes, as if the subject were too sacred to approach. But such
+tears are kept for the purpose. They come at their bidding, and fall
+as  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span> naturally into their place as if the exhibition had been practiced
+beforehand. It is a positive enjoyment to such people to detail their
+grievances.</p>
+
+<p>With the lower classes, this, so to speak, gloating over your losses
+is even more apparent. One comparatively well-to-do woman I know,
+seems to have a monopoly of funerals. There is always some relation
+dead, and off she goes with an important air, draped from head to foot
+in black; the picture of "loathed melancholy" outwardly; inwardly,
+glowing with pride; while all her neighbors stand outside their doors,
+literally consumed with jealousy at her good fortune! And then the
+terrible moment of her return, when you are obliged, whether you will
+or not, to listen to the whole account, the description, the progress,
+and finally the interment of "the corpse"! I hope, however dead I may
+be one day, that I shall never be described as "a corpse"! There is
+something so horrible in the word, I always think. It makes you even
+more dead than you are. It cuts you so absolutely off from the living.</p>
+
+<p>Then there are those tiresome people who talk  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> of nothing but their
+own families. The mother from whom you hear all the ailments of her
+children if they are young, all the conquests of her daughters if they
+are old. The sisters, to prevent the accusation of vanity, do not
+praise themselves, but arrive at the same end by lauding up each
+other! These "mutual admiration" families, as Wilkie Collins so aptly
+terms them, are families to be shunned.</p>
+
+<p>You do not very often come across men on these "at home" days. If they
+are in the house, they wisely avoid the drawing-room; and if you ever
+do meet one, he is sure to be a very milk-and-water young man&mdash;one who
+delights in small talk and small matters; or else a curate.</p>
+
+<p>I met one of the former class the other day. He was a dreadful
+specimen! A large head, a bland smile, a vacant stare, and an enormous
+capacity for eating!</p>
+
+<p>He came and sat by me when I first arrived; but when he made a slip of
+the tongue, and I brought it to his notice kindly, but firmly, he went
+away and sulked for the rest of the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>He was talking about the recent muzzling  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> order, and added, in quick
+little tones, "They are talking about muzzling cats, I see."</p>
+
+<p>"But cats do not bite," I objected.</p>
+
+<p>"No," in mild surprise at my ignorance; "but they scratch."</p>
+
+<p>"And do they intend to muzzle their paws?" I asked, smiling; adding a
+suggestion that two pairs of goloshes apiece would answer the purpose
+admirably, besides having the combined advantage of keeping the poor
+things from rheumatism!</p>
+
+<p>But he did not smile. He saw nothing funny in what he had said. He
+thought I was laughing at him, and so left me at the very first
+opportunity, and went and sat by himself at the tea table. I could not
+very well see what he was doing, for his back was turned; howbeit it
+was a very eloquent back&mdash;a back which appeared absorbed in bread and
+butter and cakes! He must have cleared the table, I should think,
+before he had finished!</p>
+
+<p>It certainly is not nice to be caught up suddenly and made to appear
+foolish. If you ever make a mistake, the best way is to confess it at
+once, to tell the tale yourself. It sounds very  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> different from your
+lips than from those of your dearest friends. People laugh, but it is
+a laugh that lacks the sting it would have if someone else told it at
+your expense.</p>
+
+<p>I remember making a woeful slip when I was taken over a cotton mill.
+The man who was conducting us pointed to what looked like a heap of
+dirty wool, and explained that it was the raw material. "And is that
+just as it comes off the sheep's back?" I asked, unthinkingly. If a
+thunderbolt had fallen in our midst the guide could not have been more
+astonished. "Cotton, Miss!" he said, with grave surprise, "<i>Cotton</i> is
+a plant!" I inquired for no further information in that cotton mill,
+but I told the story myself when I reached home, joining in the
+laughter that followed as heartily as any of my audience.</p>
+
+<p>Curates are more the rule than the exception at the five o'clock meal.
+Somehow, you always connect the two. Afternoon tea without a curate
+sounds an anomaly, a something incomplete.</p>
+
+<p>I have had great experience in curates. Ours is a large parish, and
+many clerical helps are needed. Large, small, nice, objectionable,
+ugly, handsome&mdash;I have met specimens of each and  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> all, and have come
+to the conclusion that the last kind is the worst. How rarely do you
+meet a good-looking man who thinks of anything but his appearance. It
+is strange, for the more lovely a woman is the less apparently
+conscious she is of her beauty. At any rate, she does not go about
+with an expression which seems to say, "I am that which is 'a joy
+forever'&mdash;admire me!"</p>
+
+<p>The "pale young curate" type is perhaps the most general. This poor
+thing is so depressingly shy&mdash;I say depressingly, because his shyness
+affects his company. You try to draw him out. You ask question after
+question, and have to supply the answers yourself, only obtaining, by
+way of reward, despairing upward glances, that are by no means an
+encouragement to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>The most fatal effect of this shyness, however, lies in the fact that
+he dare not get up to go! He sits toying with his hat, he picks up his
+umbrella three or four times, and lets it drop again; finally,
+starting up with a rush in the middle of a conversation, he hurries
+out, shaking hands all round with everyone but his hostess!</p>
+
+<p>Would it be a very heinous breach of etiquette, if after an hour and a
+half of this curate's  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> company, one should suggest diffidently that it
+was time to go?</p>
+
+<p>In strong contrast, there is the bold, dashing man, who only comes
+when he knows all the daughters are at home, not so much because it
+gives him pleasure to see them, as because he would not deprive them
+of the pleasure of talking to him. He has a faith in himself that
+removes mountains; no lady's heart can beat regularly in his presence,
+according to his confident opinion.</p>
+
+<p>So on the whole I do not think afternoon tea is so nice abroad as it
+is at home. It is not so pleasant with many as with a chosen few. I am
+selfish, I am afraid, but I must confess I enjoy mine most with the
+sole company of a roaring fire, a very easy chair, and a novel!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON DRESS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I do not know who was the originator of the remark, but it has often
+been said, and is generally admitted, that women do not dress to
+please the men, but to outdo one another.</p>
+
+<p>I think just the same might be said of men in their turn. It is after
+all this spirit of competition which helps to make the world go round.
+It is innate in man, and woman too, to always try to outrun each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>With clothes it is undoubtedly the case. The ancient Briton must have
+vied with his neighbor in different designs with the woad plant. An
+unusual curve, an uncommon pattern, caused, I daresay, as much
+excitement then as the fashions of our own day.</p>
+
+<p>I often wonder how they will manage some points in the histories for
+the coming generation.  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> In most of these books you see illustrations
+and descriptions of the dress of the period, the costume of the reign.
+How, oh historians! can you show forth those of Victorian times? Fifty
+years have passed already! There were four seasons in each of those
+fifty years! Two hundred illustrations must be shown in order to give
+a correct idea of the dress of the time! Perhaps it might be more
+satisfactory to devote a volume exclusively to the subject.</p>
+
+<p>If only we did not run on so quickly! We seem to get faster every
+year. In a very little time, what we wear one day will be quite out of
+date the next! When we arrive at this climax, there will be a sudden
+convulsion of nature, I should think, and we shall return once more to
+the more simple garb of the aborigines. What an amount of trouble it
+would save us! No worrying because the dressmaker has not sent our
+gowns home in time! No sending them back to be altered! No
+dressmaker's or tailor's bills; or at the least, very small ones; for
+"woad" could not ruin us <i>very</i> much.</p>
+
+<p>So on the whole it would be well perhaps if this revolution did occur.
+Some such convulsion  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> as geologists declare has already frequently
+befallen our earth; and, as they prophesy, is shortly coming again.</p>
+
+<p>I do not like talking to these scientific men. They make you feel so
+infinitesimally small. They go back such a long, long way. They make
+out that from the Creation (which by the way they do not admit, only
+considering it another great change in the world springing from
+natural causes), from the Creation until now, is the space of a moment
+on the great clock of time, is a mere "parenthesis in eternity."</p>
+
+<p>It is not nice to feel such a nonentity. What are our lives, our
+little lives in comparison? We, who each consider ourselves the one
+person upon the earth, the hero or heroine in the great drama: all the
+rest mere by-characters. We do not care to be considered of such
+little consequence; only puppets appearing on the stage for one moment
+and taken off the next. We are like the clergyman in the small island
+off the North of Scotland, who prayed for the inhabitants "of Great
+Cumbray and Little Cumbray and the neighboring islands of Great
+Britain and Ireland!" On our small piece of land, we yet consider
+ourselves the centre of the universe.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> </p>
+
+<p>It is to be hoped if this revolution occurs, after all, that the
+climate will change likewise. We should require something more besides
+blue paint in most of our English winters!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps we take too much thought for what we shall put on. They say
+that nothing but the prevailing and forthcoming fashions fill the
+feminine mind. It is true sometimes, I daresay, and yet I always agree
+with our immortal bard in thinking that "Self-love is not so vile a
+thing as self-neglect."</p>
+
+<p>It is decidedly better to think too much than too little. It is a duty
+to your country and your nation to look your best, no matter who is
+likely to see you.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it can be overdone, <i>e.g.</i>, the lady who insisted on her
+bonnet being trimmed on the right because that was the side presented
+to the congregation! And she, I am afraid, is only a type of many.</p>
+
+<p>There is no reason why this should be the rule; yet nearly everyone
+seems to bring out their new clothes on Sunday, and exhibit them in
+Church. I suppose it is because they meet so many friends there, and
+with laudable  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> unselfishness wish them all equally to enjoy the sight.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the good of your going to church?" a man said to me once; "you
+only go to show off your gown and look about to see who has a new
+bonnet and who has not! Now, when <i>I</i> go," he went on in a superior
+way, "I don't notice a single thing anyone has on!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I answered quietly, "but you could tell me exactly how many
+pretty girls were amongst the congregation, and describe their
+features accurately!" And he not only forbore to deny the accusation,
+but admitted it with pride! No girl, he assured me, with any pretence
+to good looks, ever escaped <i>his</i> notice.</p>
+
+<p>Which was the worse, I wonder; he or I? At least I did not glory in my
+misdeeds.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Il faut souffrir pour &ecirc;tre belle</i>;" and I <i>have</i> suffered sometimes.
+How often I used to burn myself when I first began to curl my hair!
+This is such an arduous task, too, with me, for my hair is, as my old
+nurse used to call it, "like a yard o' pumpwater" (I never went to her
+when I wanted a compliment). It certainly is straight, and I find it a
+matter of great difficulty to give  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span> it the appearance of natural
+curls. But "practice makes perfect," they say, so I still persevere,
+hoping that it may come right some day. I have to be so careful in
+damp and rainy weather. It is such a shock to look at yourself after a
+day's outing, to find your "fringe" hanging in straight lines all down
+your forehead, an arrangement that is so particularly unbecoming. You
+begin to wonder at what time during the day it commenced to unbend,
+and if you have had that melancholy, damp appearance many hours.
+Perhaps it is as well that you did not know before, for it could not
+have been rectified; you cannot bring a pair of tongs and a
+spirit-lamp out of your pocket and begin operations in public! Still
+it is exceedingly aggravating if you think you have been making an
+impression, and you return home to confront such a dejected-looking
+spectacle as you find in your mirror.</p>
+
+<p>I am wandering again. Let me get back to my subject&mdash;Dress. To insure
+a good fit you must have your gown so tight that it is impossible to
+raise your arms. You are obliged to walk about stiffly, with all the
+appearance of a trussed fowl. If you wish to put on your hat  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> you must
+first unbutton your bodice! It is particularly awkward, too, in
+Church: you scarcely have the power to hold your book at seeing
+distance. But what do such trifles matter? You look as if you had been
+melted and poured into your gown. What are a few discomforts, more or
+less, when you have procured an effect such as that?</p>
+
+<p>I always like to look as tall as possible. Five feet four is not a
+very great height; so, to give the appearance of another inch I have
+my skirts made as long as possible; that is to say, they just don't
+sweep the pavement, and that is all. But, oh! the trouble of that
+extra inch! Unfortunately I have no carriage, my present pecuniary
+condition does not permit me the luxury of hansoms, and I always avoid
+an omnibus, where you have fat old men sitting nearly on the top of
+you, wet umbrellas streaming on to your boots, squalling babies, and
+disputes with the conductor continuing most of the way&mdash;not to speak
+of the time you have to wait while so many roll by "full inside!" So
+on muddy days, when I take my walks, the amount of distress I have to
+undergo on account of the length of my  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> gown is inconceivable. I grow
+weary with holding it up, and have to stop in the middle of the street
+to change hands, and when you have an umbrella as well, and sometimes
+a small parcel besides, this performance is anything but a momentary
+matter. You drop your gown, the umbrella changes hands, and the parcel
+generally falls in the mud! While picking it up, four impatient, wet,
+mackintoshed pedestrians knock against you, and go off uttering
+imprecations on your head. And when you are once again comfortably
+settled, your satisfaction does not last long. Your left hand tires as
+soon as your right, and the scene has all to be acted over again.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of "<i>savoir faire</i>" in holding up. Your gown
+must be high enough to quite clear the ground, but then comes the
+danger of holding it too high. There has been no license yet granted
+for the exhibition of ankles in the great metropolis either by Mrs.
+Grundy or the County Councils; therefore "holding up" becomes a very
+delicate performance.</p>
+
+<p>Though we do not dress only to please the men, I always prefer their
+criticisms on a  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> costume to those of my own sex. You can never tell if
+the latter speak the truth. They may be jealous, and run it down from
+spite; they may want to gain something from you, and so call yours "a
+perfection of a gown, and suits you admirably, my dear!" disliking it
+exceedingly in their inmost hearts.</p>
+
+<p>But a man never gives his approbation unless he really means what he
+says, and he is not difficult to please as a rule. So long as the
+costume is neat and well-fitting, he does not care about anything
+else. It is the <i>tout ensemble</i> he thinks of, not the thousand and one
+details that go to make up the whole.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder why so many men dislike large hats! It is a pity, for they
+are so very becoming to some faces, and give a picturesque effect
+altogether. Perhaps this last is a reason for their disapproval. They
+never like their womankind to attract attention.</p>
+
+<p>The most unpardonable sin one woman can commit against another, is to
+copy her clothes and bring the style out as her own idea. It is
+intensely irritating! If she admits she has copied or asks your leave
+beforehand, it is a  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> different matter. You are even gratified then,
+for "imitation is the sincerest flattery." But to have your ideas
+stolen and brought out in such a way as to convey the impression that
+you are the imitator, to say the least, arouses murderous intentions
+in your heart!</p>
+
+<p>There are times, too, when you receive a shock to your vanity; times
+when you are quite satisfied with your appearance, and find to your
+dismay that everyone is not of the same opinion.</p>
+
+<p>I remember once when I was dining out and feeling very pleased with my
+<i>tout ensemble</i>, I was disillusioned in a way that not only upset my
+self-confidence, but my gravity at the same time. To heighten the
+general effect, I had stuck a patch near my mouth. (Oh, the minds of
+the last century! From whose fertile brain did it emanate, I wonder,
+the fact that a piece of black plaster on the face, should be so
+eminently becoming!) Imagine my horror when the maid, an old servant I
+knew very well, took me aside and whispered confidentially, "Oh, Miss!
+you've got <i>such</i> a big smut on your chin!"</p>
+
+<p>Clothes are altogether a great nuisance, I think. How tired you get of
+the regular routine of the  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> morning toilet; always the same, never any
+variety. Why are we not born, like dogs, with nice cosy rugs all over
+us, so that we should just have to get out of bed in the morning,
+shake ourselves, and be ready at once to go down to breakfast and do
+the business of the day?</p>
+
+<p>"Ah well! God knows what's best for us all," as an old charwoman said
+to me, years ago, when she was remarking on how I had grown. I never
+saw the application of the remark, and do not think I ever shall.
+Whether my growth was a subject to deplore, and she tried to comfort
+me, or not, I cannot say; but she was evidently proud of the remark,
+for she repeated it three times!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON CHRISTMAS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is such a prickly time. Not only everything but everybody is
+positively bristling with prickles. Go where you will, you cannot
+avoid these pointed, jagged edges. You come across them everywhere,
+and have to suffer accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, there is the holly. Now you could not find anything
+lovelier in the way of foliage than holly, only such a little
+suffices. At Christmas time you are literally saturated with it. In
+every house you enter, in everything you eat, at every step you take,
+nothing but holly, holly, holly.</p>
+
+<p>Then there are the Church decorations, begun generally a week
+beforehand. All the ladies of the place assemble in the vestry,
+attracted there by divers reasons. Some, by the desire to have  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> a
+finger in every pie; some, because it is an opportunity to meet the
+curates; and some, but a very few, from real love of the work. I
+cannot understand these latter, I must confess. It is the most
+disagreeable work I have ever undertaken. Such dirty work, too! Your
+hands or your gloves grow perfectly black under the operation; and it
+is a curious thing, that when this stage is reached, your nose
+invariably begins to itch, and you forget the condition of your
+fingers, and&mdash;well, the result is anything but becoming! It is so
+comfortable, too, walking about the vestry, isn't it? The holly grows
+so affectionate to your ankles, and at every step squash goes a berry,
+and all its middle oozes out and sticks to the sole of your boot. When
+you go home, you find you are at least an inch taller by reason of the
+many corpses of berries you have collected!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Christmas decorations are delightful altogether. And so the
+clergymen think, when they become excited in their sermons, and bring
+their fists down sharply on some charming arrangement of holly round
+the pulpit. They do not actually swear then, but their faces express
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> sufficiently all they would like to say; it rather spoils the effect
+of the discourse, especially if the text be on the virtue of patience.</p>
+
+<p>As I said before, everybody is prickly at Christmas time, especially
+one's relations. And so, to make the season as festive as possible,
+we, in our sensible way, collect as many of these cheerful, sociable
+beings together as we can; and, in short, make a delightful family
+party. Holly? it is an insult to the tree to compare it in any way.
+No, I think the whole gathering resembles a hedgehog more than
+anything else. It is one <i>mass</i> of prickles. Ah, these happy family
+parties! Is there ever one member that agrees with another, I wonder?</p>
+
+<p>There is the crabbed old maiden aunt, always on the defensive, never
+without the idea that someone is waging war against her. Yet she has
+to be treated civilly, and humored. Has she not that which some people
+term "filthy lucre," but never really think so? Have these old ladies
+ever had any youth? Have they ever danced and enjoyed themselves like
+other people? What has made them so sour, so bitter? Is it
+disappointment or regret? Poor  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> old souls! In spite of their money,
+they never seem happy. They are to be pitied, I think, though they do
+try to make themselves as disagreeable as possible. They are so
+independent, too, they will not be interfered with. They know
+everything better than any one else. One old lady I used to know
+declined altogether to have a lawyer, insisting on making her will
+herself. It was found afterwards, fortunately not too late, that she
+had appointed herself her own executor!</p>
+
+<p>Then there is the maternal grandmother; to whom, of course, the host
+is openly rude. This wears you out more than anything, for you have
+always to be ready to smooth over and soften every sentence that is
+said. And she never helps you at all, either. If she can possibly put
+her foot in it, and unconsciously irritate her son-in-law more than
+ever, she does it.</p>
+
+<p>Then the uncle who spends his life in making the most villainous puns
+you ever heard. Not a remark, not a word in any assembly, which this
+witty specimen of humanity does not at once garnish with a pun of the
+poorest description. It generally has to be repeated twice,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> too, for
+it is never noticed the first time. The poor pun, indeed, has a most
+melancholy existence, for it is greeted with no other applause than
+that emanating from the author of its being, and stirs up a torrent of
+abuse from the maiden aunt, who thinks the laughter is directed at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Why were punsters ever invented, or family parties either? They are
+our thorns in the flesh, I suppose, and so must be endured.</p>
+
+<p>After dancing attendance upon these lively old people during the day,
+the least you expect is a good night's rest to support and invigorate
+you for the battles on the following day. But no, at Christmas time
+any repose is denied you.</p>
+
+<p>You are just off to sleep, forgetful of all troubles and strife, when
+you are rudely awakened and brought back to the present by the most
+awful screechings under your window. Morpheus flies, he has a musical
+ear has that god, and when once, "Oh, come let us adore him," with a
+concertina accompaniment, both voices and instrument woefully out of
+tune; when once these harmonious strains have started, that good old
+deity goes, to return no more that night.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Where does the pleasure come in, I wonder? Certainly not to us fuming
+inside; and surely not to those poor deluded people squalling outside!
+It must be so cold, so raw; and they never get appreciated, these
+so-called "waits"&mdash;oh, if they only would <i>not</i> wait, but go away
+somewhere else, how much more satisfactory for us all!</p>
+
+<p>No, Christmas is not a soothing time. It does not altogether improve
+your temper. How glad I am when the festive season draws to a close,
+and the last petitioner for Christmas-boxes goes on his way rejoicing.
+To me it always realizes that period so often referred to by the lower
+classes, "a month o' Sundays." So much church and so few posts!</p>
+
+<p>It certainly is a little more interesting when the presents come in.
+There is a kind of excitement about them; and it is not until the
+following day, when you find yourself with a dozen letters of
+gratitude to indite, that you feel that perhaps, after all, you might
+have done without them.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing so annoying as being obliged to write letters when
+you do not feel inclined.  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> It is a great art, this letter writing, and
+very few possess it. People often think they do, and they write for
+writing's sake; but these letters are most wearying to read. Between
+every line you seem to see the words, "Is not this a charming letter?"
+and in reality you are so bored it is all you can do to reach the end.
+Then those dreadful persons who "cross and recross" their epistles in
+every direction! Paper is not so dear but that they could at least
+afford a fly-leaf. They defeat their own ends, too, for their letters
+are never legible, and they have to write again to explain their
+meaning, thus paying another penny away in postage.</p>
+
+<p>Why do we not make a stand against the old forms? Why should we always
+tread in the footmarks of our ancestors, instead of making tracks of
+our own? "Dear Mr. So-and-So," we write to a man almost a stranger to
+us. Imagine his surprise if we addressed him so to his face! And we
+end in just such a foolish and unreasonable way, "Yours obediently,
+faithfully, truly!" Where is the sense? Your signature should be quite
+enough. You have to be so careful, too, in saying whether you are
+obedient, faithful, or  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span> affectionate to your correspondent. If you end
+too warmly, by mistake, the whole letter has to be written again. It
+is not a thing you can scratch out or correct. It would look so very
+bad.</p>
+
+<p>People have different ideas of "Christmasing." Some prefer to adopt an
+unsteady gait, and to spend the night in a ditch or a police-station;
+some have a taste for family parties; some like it better by
+themselves, and some go right away and spend the time at a different
+place every year. These last are, I think, by far the most sensible.
+It is a mistake to have land-marks to remind you how time is running
+on, how friends have left, how the loved ones have passed away. The
+vacant place appears even more empty. The old happy times show out
+even happier in contrast to the present. You cannot enjoy yourself or
+forget the past, for</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is far better to go away somewhere to places which recall no
+sorrows or recollections and have no associations with the years gone
+by.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span> </p>
+
+<p>He is growing such a foolish old man is Father Christmas. He rarely
+visits us now with hoary head, his garments sparkling with frost and
+snow. He is tired of all that. He likes a change of fashion, like
+everybody else. He either comes so thickly enveloped in yellow fog
+that you can scarcely distinguish the old man, or else he arrives so
+drenched with rain and splashed up to the beard in mud that we
+scarcely like to open our doors to him.</p>
+
+<p>He is growing old, I suppose, and trembling on the brink of second
+childhood, so we must not blame him. But still he is not a very great
+favorite of mine, and I cannot refrain from echoing the complaint in
+one of the comic papers&mdash;"<i>Why doesn't he strike, like the rest?</i>"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON THE COUNTRY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>At which season, I wonder, is the country most lovely, most enjoyable!
+Is it in the spring, with its richly-colored carpet, its young green
+leaves, its delicious perfumes, its glorious freshness? Ah, why cannot
+we, like the trees, put off our old sinful world-steeped habits, and
+year by year bud out in purest innocence once again? The hedges, but a
+week ago barren and bare, are now clothed in brightest apparel, the
+greenest of cloaks thrown over them, lifting up their heads and
+sharing in the general rejoicing, in the glory of their annual
+resurrection. Is it in summer, with its myriads of blooms, and its
+thousand thousand happy voices, the silent torpid river, basking in
+the light of the sun, and responding only to the fishes as they frisk
+near the surface? Or is it in the autumn, with its many shades,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span> with
+its long avenues on which nature has lavished whole tubes of burnt
+sienna and vermilion; when you tread on gorgeous paths heavy with
+golden leaves? Oh, why are we not as lovely in our autumn of life as
+nature is in hers? Why, when she decks herself in the gayest coloring,
+do we don our soberest garb? <i>We</i> do not gain in splendor as we grow
+older. We lose our beauties and our charms one by one, till at last we
+stand destitute. Oh, cruel Time to treat us so!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Time that doth transfix the flourish set on youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And delves the parallels in Beauty's brow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And yet "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." While He takes from
+us our youth He also takes away the inclination to be young. We pine
+for the happy days of childhood; yet, if the power were given us, who
+would wish himself back in the past? We feel we should always like to
+be young, but should we not get very weary of the world, should we not
+wish for some kind of change?</p>
+
+<p>Or is nature at her best when the year is dead and the earth puts on
+her spotless white shroud,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> when everything around has fallen asleep,
+and only robins are left to join in the wake?</p>
+
+<p>Unanswerable question. There are too many opinions. Some prefer
+winter, some summer; some like the heat, some like the cold. Only in
+one thing do we agree, and that is, in our taste for variety, for
+change. Much as we admire the country, lovely as it is, it would not
+suit many to live there all the year round. The peace and quiet of our
+woodland scenes make us enjoy the town life all the more, while the
+unceasing turmoil of the season makes us hail with delight the idea of
+once more being</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Far from the madding crowd."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The very thought refreshes you. There is something exhilarating in our
+journey country-wards, long and tiring though it may be. Few people
+care about a railway journey, and yet with one or two kindred spirits
+I think it most enjoyable.</p>
+
+<p>Traveling alone in the midst of strangers, you do feel rather
+melancholy. You try to read, and when you are tired of chasing the
+words up and down the page, you look out of the window and  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span> admire the
+scenery as you flit past until your eyes ache to such an extent you
+are obliged to withdraw your gaze and be satisfied with the study of
+human nature, as far as it can be procured from the inmates of your
+compartment. Finally you go to sleep, only to wake up after a few
+minutes, to find the eyes of all your fellow passengers upon you, and
+this serves to make you nervous and uncomfortable. You dare not close
+your eyes again. You feel sure it is the signal for everyone to turn
+in your direction, and you will not gratify them.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes luncheon time, when we all begin to grow fidgety, and take
+surreptitious looks at our watches, and then glance round at our
+companions to see if anyone is taking the first plunge. Hopeless
+quest! Nobody ever <i>will</i> be the first to begin to eat in a railway
+carriage. Why is it, I wonder? Are they afraid none of the others will
+follow suit, and they be left to eat all alone? It would be nervous
+work, certainly. You would feel so dreadfully greedy, and yet if you
+offered any of your fellow travelers even a sandwich, they would peek
+up their heads, give you an astonished look, and decline  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span> shortly but
+with decision. You are made to feel you have insulted them, and yet
+they had such a hungry expression! Rarely indeed, though, do you
+undergo such an experience. You only have to rise, and reach down your
+basket, and behold! the next moment all the carriage is feeding. We
+are nothing but sheep after all. One leads the way, and we all follow.</p>
+
+<p>When you have once made a start, eating on a railway journey is easy
+enough work; it is when you grow thirsty that the difficulty comes in.
+You pour the sherry, claret, whatever you have (some take milk in a
+green bottle&mdash;not a very tempting beverage to look at!) on to the
+floor, over your gown, on your neighbor's foot (thereby eliciting a
+most unholy frown from the recipient of your bounty), anywhere,
+indeed, except in your glass. Even if you are fortunate enough to
+catch a few drops, it is another Hercul&aelig;an effort to take it to your
+mouth. No, drinking in the train, while it is in motion, requires
+years of practice.</p>
+
+<p>Then again, your fellow passengers are not always all that can be
+desired. Often they are neither pleasant in themselves nor interesting
+as  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span> a study. I traveled with an awful old lady the other day. She had
+six small packages with her in the carriage, besides her hand-bag and
+umbrellas and half the contents of an extra luggage van. The
+long-suffering porter who had looked after her boxes and finally put
+her in the train, was crimson with his exertions. The generous lady,
+having searched several pockets before finding the necessary coin,
+bestowed on him a threepenny piece for his trouble! "Thank yer, mum,"
+he went off muttering grimly, "I'll bore a 'ole in the middle and 'ang
+it round my neck."</p>
+
+<p>This good dame never ceased to worry all through the journey. She
+pulled her things from under the seat and put them up in the rack, and
+then reversed their locality. At each station she called frantically
+to the guard to know where she was and if she ought to change.
+Finally, when we reached our destination, it was proved that she had
+taken her ticket to one place and had her luggage labelled to another;
+and there she was, standing on the platform gesticulating violently,
+while the train was steaming off with her belongings. What happened I
+do not know, for I was hurried off by my friends; but I  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span> should think
+it would be long before she and her luggage met again.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately she never knew how near she was to her death. If ever I
+had murderous intentions in my heart, it was on that journey north.</p>
+
+<p>You do not feel very affectionate toward the country on a wet day.
+Indeed, it is a most mournful affair altogether, unless you have a
+particularly merry house party. There is absolutely nothing to do. The
+heavens weep at such inopportune moments too. There is sure to be some
+large picnic, some delightful gathering on the "tapis," when they
+choose to exhibit their griefs. And they never notice how unwelcome
+such a display of feelings is, but go on weeping, weeping, weeping all
+day long, until at last you catch the malady yourself, and are obliged
+perforce to mingle a few of your own tears with theirs.</p>
+
+<p>No, there is simply nothing to be done, and Satan has quite a
+difficulty to find enough work for all the idle hands. Some can be
+perfectly happy in spending all their time in solving the intricacies
+of those many wonderful puzzles which have appeared lately as a sort
+of antidote  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span> to the mischief generally supposed to be perpetrated by
+the aforesaid gentleman. Unfortunately, an entirely contrary effect is
+produced on me. They did not look far enough ahead when they made me.
+They could not conceive the wonderful minds of this time, and so did
+not endow me with a sufficient quantity of patience. If they could
+have imagined those marvelous little tin saucers, with shot running in
+and out of horse-shoes, &amp;c., with <i>me</i> in the perspective, well, I
+think they would have gone about their work more carefully, and
+perhaps brought about a happier result. As it is, the puzzles are
+always swept away now at my approach. I have smashed so many.</p>
+
+<p>It is base ingratitude, too, on my part, to bring them to so speedy an
+end; for what I owe to those dear little things I am powerless to
+express. Those entertaining people who sit speechless, and only answer
+yes and no with an eternal smile on their faces: give them a puzzle.
+There is no further effort to amuse them required on your part. They
+are at once absorbed in "shot." Their only idea is to successfully get
+them into their places. They never do; but being good  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span> thorough-going
+characters will never give up the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>You meet several of these people in the country, but they never get
+very friendly. You shock them too much with your "London manners."
+They vote you "fast," and turn aside, fearful of contamination for
+their daughters.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the dreariness, the heaviness of a country dinner party! It seems
+to last four times as long as any other&mdash;parish, horses, or crops the
+only topic of conversation. How can you be interested in old Jane
+Smith's rheumatism when you have never heard of her before; in the
+swelling of a favorite mare's hock, when you did not know it possessed
+such a thing. People's views grow so dreadfully narrow, shut up in
+their small parish. Their stock of conversation is so very small. It
+is wise to find out your dinner partner at once, and avoid that man as
+you would a disease until the meal is announced. If not, if you
+accidentally get in his neighborhood, and he talks to you, all his
+conversation is at once exhausted, and you are obliged to hear it over
+again at table, or submit to an interesting silence.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Dinner parties anywhere are, I think, a mistake. It is a wicked waste
+of time to spend nearly three hours over eating and drinking. And you
+require such a very interesting "taker-in" to make it bearable at all.</p>
+
+<p>The river is the nicest way of spending a holiday, in my opinion; you
+are so free and untrammeled. Mrs. Grundy even waives some of her laws
+on the river. The smaller the cottage, the more primitive the place,
+the more enjoyable it is. You can spend your time on the water, and
+when you are tired of that, you can hire a pony and trap and drive
+through some of the loveliest bits of English scenery, to your heart's
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Only be careful before engaging your pony to find out its previous
+occupations. It is a necessary caution, I assure you. It once took me
+nearly an hour to drive out of one of the smallest villages
+imaginable. And why? Because my pony had formerly belonged to the
+butcher, and insisted on first going his rounds! I coaxed, I
+persuaded, I lashed him, but it was all of no avail. On he trotted
+until he reached the familiar doors of his late customers, and then he
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span> stopped and <i>would</i> not go on for at least five minutes. One place
+was worse than any. I could not get him away for over a
+quarter-of-an-hour. This rather mystified me until I was told later
+that the butcher was on "walking out" terms with the cook residing
+there!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON TOWN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>There is not much difference of opinion as to when Town is at its
+best. Perhaps a few misanthropists, wrapped up in their little selves
+and their narrow thoughts, would shut themselves up during the season,
+in order to escape the pain of witnessing us all in our ungodly
+career. Shallow butterflies they call us. And what do they know about
+our lives? They judge from appearances; and because we wear a cheerful
+expression, shutting down our cares and struggles in our inmost
+hearts, and not burdening other people with them, we are called
+shallow and worldly. No, you good and godly people, what do you know
+about us? You are no more capable of judging than the ephemera, which
+lives but for a day, and so must consider the world all sunshine, all
+light. How can it imagine the  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span> night which closes round later on, when
+neither it nor any of its ancestors have ever lived to see it?</p>
+
+<p>You ought to be punished for your ignorant mutterings. You complain of
+the well-dressed happy throng. You should be turned out in the streets
+in August and September, and if the utter destitution does not shortly
+turn your brains back in the right direction I am afraid your case is
+hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>Does any place come up to London I wonder? Having never been out of
+England I cannot give an opinion. Unfortunately I have not the gift,
+like some people, of either imagining or describing places I have
+never seen&mdash;descriptions generally gleaned from other books and
+compiled under one authorship as original compositions. Why cannot
+they be content with laying their English stories in English scenery:
+places they know well and can write about. Some save up their money in
+order to go abroad and visit one particular place, so as to bring new
+scenes into their new books. But ah, how weary you get of this one
+place! It is brought into at least three of their next novels.
+Everything, past,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> present and future seems to happen there. Your one
+prayer, as you lay down the book, is to the effect that they may soon
+be able to save up a little more and visit another spot.</p>
+
+<p>There is so much going on in May, June, and July, that it is a
+difficulty to get through all your engagements and yet see everything
+there is to be seen. Then there is the Park. Two or three hours of the
+day must at least be spent in the Park. There we all come out to show
+ourselves and to look at others. There the equestrians canter up and
+down the Row. Such equestrians too! If foreigners take their ideas of
+English riding from the Row, they must form a high opinion of our
+horsemanship.</p>
+
+<p>There are the loungers flocking around their friends or walking up and
+down in the hope of admiration. And they get it too, for who could
+help admiring such master-pieces of a tailor's skill? Are these really
+the descendants of that Adam whose posterity had all to earn their
+bread by the sweat of their brow? These automatons, whose only
+business in life seems to be to look after pretty women and
+themselves? Men are supposed to be bread winners, but  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span> they have a
+very easy time of it, I think, though they generally try to make
+themselves out so overworked. Go into that great centre of business,
+the City, and you find everyone of these busy men out and about,
+always apparently in a great hurry, never seeming to arrive at any
+destination, running about and hustling each other, occasionally
+meeting an acquaintance, which proves a good opportunity for one to
+stand the other a "drink." A funny way men have of showing their
+affection, have they not? "Ah! how de do, old fellow? Come and have a
+drink," is their invariable salutation to an intimate friend. After
+all it is better than the mutual kissing on the part of women, which
+is the more emphatic the more they dislike one another. Men are less
+demonstrative and therefore more sincere in their friendships. Anyhow
+there cannot be many at work in their offices, or where could this
+idle crowd come from?</p>
+
+<p>In spite of their haste, though, they generally find time to stare at
+any woman who crosses their path. Why should not a woman go to the
+City? She has as much right there as man, and yet if she is in the
+least degree superior to  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span> the flower girls (?) who surround the Royal
+Exchange, she is looked on as a freak of nature, a positive curiosity,
+and is followed by every pair of male eyes within reach!</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Grundy is inclined to rather overdo her season, I think. There is
+so much she might leave undone, so many things that "never would be
+missed." Imagine the gratitude that would be displayed to anyone who
+would put down and demolish those dreadful crushes, so called "at
+homes," where nobody ever is at home; where you have neither space nor
+air from the moment you arrive until the glad time comes for
+departing. Does anyone enjoy them, I wonder! Does anybody like being
+literally baked with heat, which I am sure must exceed even that at
+Mexico; where one of the inhabitants of that delightful climate, when
+he died and went to perdition, found the contrast so striking that he
+was obliged to send home for his greatcoat!</p>
+
+<p>Still, I suppose such entertainments will continue to exist. They are
+a good deal cheaper than balls or dinners, and you can "knock off"
+ever so many people at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>It is well, at any rate, to consider economy in  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> some matters in these
+wofully extravagant days. When the shops are decked out in their
+gayest colors to lure us on to destruction, why is it that "just the
+very thing you want" is placed so conspicuously in the front of the
+window, put cunningly near a mirror too, so that you see it all the
+way round, and it appears doubly precious?</p>
+
+<p>How convenient it is, by the way, when they have mirrors in the shop
+windows. You can look to see if your hat is straight, or your veil
+nicely arranged, without being credited with vanity. You are supposed
+to be admiring the bonnets displayed to view, not yourself. Girls make
+a great mistake when they take little surreptitious glances at any
+mirror they come across. The action is always noticed and condemned;
+while if they, instead, went up boldly, ostensibly to smooth their
+hair or alter a pin, it would be taken as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>It so soon grows into a habit, this always looking about for your
+reflection, and one that is very difficult to get out of. Not that the
+men are at all behind us in this respect. There are not many of our
+little follies that the lords  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span> of creation do not take up and
+cultivate. You see them at dinner, addressing nearly all their
+conversation opposite&mdash;where hangs a mirror. At dances they are
+admiring and smiling at their reflections the whole evening, finding
+far more satisfaction in gazing there than at their partner, even
+though she be the loveliest in the land.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to my subject. (I seem to be always wandering away.) You
+need never be idle in town. A wet day even makes no difference, when a
+place teems with picture galleries, as London does. They are such good
+places to meet your friends. You always see someone you know. You
+might as well be there as anywhere else. Of course you do not look at
+the pictures. You glance at the few you have heard talked about, just
+so as to say you have seen them. But you do not go to a picture
+gallery to look at <i>pictures</i>! "We always go the wrong way round. You
+avoid the crowd like that, you know," I have heard people say.
+"<i>Avoid</i> the crowd!" It is the crowd they want to see! There is less
+chance of missing your friends if you go in the opposite direction!
+There is  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span> one real advantage though in beginning at the other end. You
+don't have the same people following you all the time, nor have to
+listen to ignorant remarks. "Who's that? She don't look very happy, to
+be sure," I once heard one woman ask of another as they were going
+round. "That? why that's Adam and Eve, o' course, and the serpent in
+the distance. I never 'eard of anyone else who went about without
+their clothes on, though why they put chains on her I can't think: it
+says nothing about 'em in the Bible."</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at the picture. It was "Andromeda!" And they talk of the
+strides education has been making of late years!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON CHILDREN AND DOGS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Are you very shocked that I should couple these two subjects? An
+insult to the children, do you say? Well, do you know, I am afraid I
+consider it an insult to the dogs. I am not fond of children, and I
+love dogs. A man may be a superior animal to a dog, but a puppy is
+decidedly more intelligent than a baby. What can you find more
+helpless, more utterly incapable, than a baby? Look at a puppy in
+comparison. At a month old it is trotting about, and growing quite
+independent; more sensible altogether than a child aged a year.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid I shock people often by my opinions, but they are really
+genuine. I am always more interested in the canine race than in the
+blossoms of humanity. Very likely it is the behavior of each that
+makes me so. Children  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> never take to me, nor come near me if they can
+help it. I do not understand them, or know what to talk to them about.
+On the other hand, dogs will come to me at once, and, what is more,
+keep to me. I have never been growled at in my life, and I have come
+across a good many dogs, too.</p>
+
+<p>"You were a baby yourself once!" How often has this been said to me
+when I have aired the above opinions. It is put before me as an
+unanswerable argument, a sort of annihilating finale to the
+conversation. Yet I really don't see what it has to do with the
+matter. I suppose I was a baby once. At least they say so. Which
+protestation, by the way, rather leaves it open to doubt, for "on
+dits" like weather forecasts are nice reliable institutions if you do
+but follow the opposite of what they tell you. Still, as there is more
+than one witness to the effect, I will give in and admit it; I was a
+baby.</p>
+
+<p>But the admission makes me no fonder of the species. If anything it
+makes me admire them the less; for if I at all resembled the
+photographs that were taken of me&mdash;"before my eyes were open," I was
+going to say; at any rate  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span> before I could stand&mdash;I wonder a stone was
+not put round my neck, and they did not drown me in the first bucket
+of water they came across.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that ugly babies grow up the best looking, and <i>vice
+versa</i>. This is a pleasant and comforting thought for the ugly baby.
+It can bear a little depreciation now, because it can look forward to
+the time when it will far outdo its successful rival. And the pretty
+baby's glory is soon over. It becomes only a memory which rather
+irritates than soothes. For after all, retrospection is not so
+pleasant as anticipation.</p>
+
+<p>The above remark was said before a child about four years old, the
+other day. She must have been listening intently, and having taken in
+the sense she inwardly digested it; for the next time she quarrelled
+with her sister, she broke in spitefully, "You must have been the
+beautifullest baby that ever was born."</p>
+
+<p>Children should never be seen until they are over two. Until then they
+are neither pretty nor entertaining. But at this age they begin to say
+funny things, and so are interesting. "You only care for them when
+they amuse you!" cried a young mother once, indignant at my
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span> selfishness. I suppose it is a selfish way of looking at it; but if
+modern children were brought up as we were brought up I should not
+object to them in the least. We were always kept strictly in the
+nursery, only appearing down-stairs on the rarest occasions: and when
+we arrived there we behaved properly&mdash;we were seen and not heard. We
+did not run noisily up and down the room, taking up the whole
+conversation of the party. We did not try to make the most
+disagreeable personal remarks; or if we did we were sent up-stairs at
+once, and not laughed at for our "sharpness."</p>
+
+<p>There are no children, now-a-days; they are mimic men and women. They
+dine late, they stay up until the small hours, and are altogether as
+objectionable a faction as can be. They respect their father and
+mother not a whit. It was only two or three days ago I heard a child
+of five allude to her father as "the fat old governor," and simply get
+laughed at for her remark, no one joining more heartily than the said
+parent himself. Of course, with such applause, the child repeats it
+again and again.</p>
+
+<p>They have such dreadfully sharp eyes, too,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span> these children. Not a
+defect escapes their notice. You tremble to hear what will come out
+next. They ask Mr. Jones what makes his nose so red. They want to know
+why Mrs. Smith puts flour on her face. In spite of a thick veil, they
+discover at once that Miss. Blank has a moustache, and inquire of her
+with interest if she is a man!</p>
+
+<p>There are some nice children, of course&mdash;there are exceptions to every
+rule&mdash;and if they are pretty I cannot help admiring them. It is
+fortunate that I have never had anything to do with children. If I
+were a governess I should be so dreadfully unjust, I should always
+favor the pretty ones. I love beauty in any form. There are girls I
+could sit and look at all day, if they would let me. Only they are
+most of them so self-conscious; they expect to be admired, and when I
+see girls laying themselves out for admiration, however beautiful they
+may be, however strong my inclination to gaze, I will not gratify
+their vanity. For it is certainly true, that though we prefer the
+praise of men, we do not disdain any like offering from our own sex.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span> </p>
+
+<p>That is the best of very young children. They do not notice you, they
+are not yet awake to the power of their charms, so that you are able
+to look your full. I say "very" young, because it is a knowledge that
+comes to them only too soon, and a little of this knowledge is, at any
+rate, "a dangerous thing."</p>
+
+<p>Children sometimes set you thinking more than any philosopher who ever
+existed. Their ideas are so fresh, so unsophisticated, so original.
+The atmosphere of the great unknown still seems to cling to their
+souls. They are not yet tainted with the world's impure air. They ask
+you questions impossible to answer, but which you are obliged to parry
+in an underhand manner, so as not to expose your ignorance. They solve
+problems and reach conclusions after a way of their own, which, at any
+rate, have plenty of reason about them. I remember being very much
+struck by a little boy's idea once when his mother was remarking on
+the strange appearance of a man who, while his whiskers were black as
+ebony, possessed hair of a snowy white. "But why, mother, should it
+seem funny?" broke in the child. "Aren't his whiskers twenty years
+younger than his hair?"</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span> </p>
+
+<p>Dogs certainly cannot talk or say quaint things, but they can do
+nearly everything else. At any rate they can understand you and
+distinguish between the words, as the following instance proves.</p>
+
+<p>We have family prayers at home, and have had them ever since we were
+quite little things. What an ordeal they used to be too! We used to be
+watched so strictly, and the moment our eyes wavered from our books,
+attention would at once be drawn to the culprits and cover them with
+confusion. Woe be to him, too, who forgot to turn over the leaf of his
+book with the rest! It is such an unkind thing to do to print all the
+books alike. If you forget and turn over later, you are at once
+detected. Being sharp children, however, we used to make this our
+first care, so that whatever we were doing&mdash;laughing, pinching,
+winking, our pages all went over together, so we <i>sounded</i> attentive.</p>
+
+<p>Our little dog was even more cunning than ourselves. He was never
+permitted, on any plea, to lie before the fire. "It enlarged his
+liver," his master said. Now this decree is a great deprivation to
+dogs. They like warmth  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span> and comfort just as much as we do; indeed,
+they love the fire to such an extent that if all the terrors of Hades
+were put before them, they would by no means have a salutary effect.
+The dogs would try to be as naughty as possible in the hopes of
+getting there.</p>
+
+<p>But this particular little animal was made of most obstinate
+materials, and had no intention of being baulked; so directly we knelt
+down for prayers, he scrambled from under the table, and stretched his
+full length before the fire. He knew he would not be spoken to until
+we had finished, and felt quite safe until we all joined in the Lord's
+Prayer at the end, when he would immediately decamp, and thus escape
+any scolding for his disobedience. It was more especially clever of
+him because we all joined in the Confession as well, but he never took
+any notice of that, and always put off his departure until the last
+minute.</p>
+
+<p>We had this dog twelve years altogether, and a sad night it was,
+indeed, when he had a fit and died. The breakfast-table next morning
+presented a most distressing spectacle. We were all positively
+swimming in tears. The whole  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span> family was upset at his death; and when,
+later on in the day, he was wrapped up in a fish basket and buried in
+the garden, next door to a favorite rabbit&mdash;on whose grave a cabbage
+had been planted, most unkindly reminding him of the sweets of life he
+had left behind&mdash;we all lifted up our voices and wept again.</p>
+
+<p>I often wonder if we shall meet our faithful dumb friends hereafter!
+Sages say no; but I cannot believe they are so entirely blotted out,
+and like to think they have some happy sugary existence somewhere, and
+that we shall see them again some day.</p>
+
+<p>Dogs are very human after all; they have a great many of our virtues
+and nearly all our vices. I expect it is this that endears them to us,
+for "One touch of nature makes all the world kin." They are just as
+contradictory, as disappointing, as ourselves. Why will they always
+show off to such bad advantage? After spending weeks in teaching them,
+and fortunes on pieces of sugar, why, before an audience, will they
+insist on ringing the bell when they are told to shut the door? and
+when you ask them to sit up and beg, <i>why</i> do they die for the Queen?</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span> </p>
+
+<p>A little while ago we used to have grand steeplechases with our dogs.
+We put up fences and water jumps, all of which&mdash;with the aid of sugar
+again&mdash;they were able to master in time. I think they used to get
+quite excited themselves at last. Our old gardener, who used to watch
+the races with great interest, told me once that he "'ad seen one of
+the little dawgs a'jumpin' backwards and forwards over that 'ere bit
+of wood (the highest and most perilous jump), and a'practisin' by
+hisself!" He <i>was</i> a very clever "little dawg," but I don't think he
+ever reached such a pitch of intelligence as to practice "by hisself."</p>
+
+<p>We had to fill up the fences down to the ground, or, to save
+themselves the trouble of getting over, they would run under or
+scramble through in some extraordinary fashion, which in the end took
+much the most time and pains. Humanity again! Lazy people always take
+the most trouble!</p>
+
+<p>When I was a little girl I had every morning to learn and repeat to my
+governess three verses from a French Bible. I thought I had hit upon
+an easy way of getting over this, and of reducing  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span> the quantity I had
+to commit to memory; so I chose the cxxxvi. Psalm, in which you will
+find, if you care to look it up (I have just had to do the same to
+find out the number, not being by any means a living concordance to
+the Psalms!)&mdash;you will find that half of each verse is composed of the
+words, "For His mercy endureth for ever." Ingenuity wasted! Trouble
+increased! Not one whit the better off was I. Until that Psalm was
+finished I had to learn six verses instead of three. I retired
+anything but satisfied, and heartily wishing I had left that Psalm
+alone. It was very mean of my governess all the same. She should
+better have appreciated the craftiness of her pupil. But, poor things,
+they have to be very sharp and always on the look-out, or the children
+will take them in; they will not let any opportunity escape them, and,
+indeed, I pity anyone who has the care of these unraveled Sphinxes,
+these uncut Gordian knots.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON CONCERTS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I am not thinking about the Albert Hall Concerts, where the highest in
+the musical world go time after time, always singing the same songs.</p>
+
+<p>Neither am I thinking of "Monday Pops," and purely classical concerts,
+to which at least half the audience listens with closed eyes and
+thoughts somewhere in dreamland. They like to be thought musical; they
+know they ought to appreciate <i>such</i> renderings of <i>such</i>
+compositions; and after all, when they describe "the treat they had!
+such a perfect touch, my dear! and the execution!!&mdash;" no one knows
+they have never heard a note, so what does their inattention matter.
+They have been seen there, and that is all they care about.</p>
+
+<p>No, my thoughts take a much lower range.  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> They are intent on only
+amateur productions, from penny readings upwards, to those
+superintended by the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of the neighborhood, when the seats rise
+in price to five shillings each.</p>
+
+<p>They are such nice cheery entertainments, so much life, such a great
+deal of energy about them! You are called on by four separate people
+to take tickets. In desperation you have to yield at last; paying
+extra for having your seat reserved, or else you must start
+half-an-hour beforehand, and scramble in with the crowd. There is
+generally a series of them too, and you are obliged to go to them all.
+They are so considerate, these concert-makers, they would not allow
+you to miss one for worlds.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of novelty and variety about the artists
+themselves. All the musical members in the neighborhood are routed
+out, and each is persuaded to contribute to the public pleasure&mdash;by
+the way, there is never very much persuasion needed. It is such a
+treat to listen to people you know, and whom you have heard perform
+dozens and dozens of times before in every drawing-room in the place.
+At least, you know what to expect. You recognize each song,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> each
+piece. You wait in suspense until Miss. Brown has passed her high
+A&mdash;always half a tone too flat. You take it as a matter of course that
+Mr. Black&mdash;the first violinist in the place&mdash;after tuning up for ten
+minutes, will break a string directly he begins to play. I should have
+thought he would be pretty well used to it by now, but he never gets
+in tune again for the rest of the evening. You would be quite
+disappointed if Mrs. Green ever concluded her most finished and
+spirited pianoforte solo on the right chord.</p>
+
+<p>These concerts always begin with a pianoforte solo, and the performers
+ought to feel very flattered at the way in which they are received.
+We, the audience, regard them no more than we do the mounted policemen
+in the Lord Mayor's Show. They are not part of the procession. They
+are only meant to clear the way and let us know that the concert is
+going to begin, and then we must leave off our chatter. Naturally, we
+make the most of our time, and try to get all our talking done at
+once. In fact, we are so taken up with what we are saying that we
+actually forget to applaud when the performance is over.</p><p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span> </p>
+
+<p>After the introduction in this form, the chief moving spirit of the
+entertainment comes forward, and, after bowing right and left,
+stammers out (the chief moving spirit is never a good speaker) that he
+much regrets that, on account of Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith, and Miss. Blank
+having been prevented by illness from turning up, he is afraid there
+will be a little change in the programme. Now as Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith,
+and Miss. Blank are down for seven things between them there is likely
+to be a very great change in the programme. Why is it that people
+never know they cannot come until the last moment, I wonder? Perhaps
+they think that the more often they disappoint the more they emulate
+the "stars" in the musical world. Only the force of example, you see.
+And, after all, what does it matter? The other performers are most
+kind and sympathetic, and ready to help all they can. They are
+delighted to sing four times each instead of twice. Selfish people!
+they have no consideration for the audience, they only think of their
+own enjoyment!</p>
+
+<p>There is the youth who looks as if he were going to favor us with a
+sweet treble. Lo, and  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span> behold! he opens his mouth, and out comes a
+loud double bass voice that seems to spring somewhere from the region
+of his boots. It is not a pretty sound by any means.</p>
+
+<p>There is the smiling, simpering girl who comes forward gorgeously
+arrayed in light blue satin. She chooses a song, all trills and little
+scales, running up and down, shaking at last upon a high note for
+nearly two minutes, and then coming down with a rush. This brings down
+the house. We applaud lustily; we begin the encoring business here,
+which, having once started, we do not intend to give up again. We like
+to get as much as we can for our money, we Britons. She keeps us
+waiting some time, too&mdash;taking a little refreshment in between,
+perhaps&mdash;and then comes back beaming with smiles and, under the
+impression that she is a second Patti, shrieks out in plaintive tones,
+"Home, sweet home!" A cat might as well try to emulate a thrush! And
+we never find it "sweet" either. Never do you dislike "Home" more than
+when you hear it sung thus.</p>
+
+<p>There is the sentimental man, who gets into  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span> position while the
+introduction to his song is being played. He sticks his finger down
+his collar (the object of which I can never understand), pulls both
+cuffs out, stretches out his music a yard or two in front of him and
+gazes above the audience with a hungry yearning look. His is always a
+love song, an unhappy love song, that should bring tears to our eyes,
+only we are so taken up with his expression, and the fear that he is
+going to die or have a fit, that we have no time for weeping. True to
+our instincts, he is greeted with deafening applause, and coming back,
+he generously treats us to the last verse over again.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone is not so fortunate in receiving an encore, though. It
+depends on how well they are known, not on their desserts.
+The newcomer in the neighborhood tries her hardest and does her best,
+but as we have never seen her before we scarcely take the trouble to
+applaud her, which must be rather disappointing, especially when her
+mother is sitting among the audience with the encore song on her lap,
+ready to hand it up.</p>
+
+<p>The best exhibition of all is made by the  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span> flutist. He is the only one
+who plays that instrument for miles round, and so the swagger with
+which he steps on to the platform is perhaps excusable.</p>
+
+<p>How anyone <i>can</i> play it I do not know. It is such a singularly
+unbecoming instrument. But the wretched owner never seems to think so.
+When he once commences he gives us a good dose of it. We begin to
+think he is going on all night. Suddenly there comes a pause, and
+applause is started at once, we being only too delighted to make a
+little noise on our own account. But no&mdash;it is a mistake, a delusion,
+after all. The pause was only an interval between an Andante and a
+Scherzo; and, with a bland smile at his ovation, on he goes again for
+another quarter of an hour. We&mdash;the audience&mdash;are disappointed, we
+feel we have been tricked, and we therefore sulk for a season. But the
+Scherzo is so long, it gives us time to get over our ill-humor, though
+we are mutually resolved that we will not have him back again. Vain
+hope! From the far end of the room comes thundering applause, which
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span> never dies away until the talented flutist appears on the platform
+again. We find out afterwards that he treats the whole of his
+establishment to the cheap seats; so, of course, poor things, we
+cannot blame them. They are only earning their wages. Perhaps they are
+presented with an extra shilling each when their master returns home.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious thing how we all like applauding and making a noise.
+If you notice, at organ recitals in the Church we feel quite
+uncomfortable. We think we ought to do something at the conclusion of
+the pieces; so, as we may not clap our hands, we all give a little
+rustle and cough. This is to show our approbation. <i>Every</i>one coughs.
+It is astonishing how many people have bad colds. For my part I think
+it is a pity applause is not allowed. It is infinitely preferable to
+the coughing at any rate.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the comic singer goes down best. He is called back three,
+sometimes four times. The schoolboys behind grow excited, and greet
+him with a whistle that would do credit to the "gods." This is too
+much for decently-clad minds, anything so profane as that whistle. The
+clergyman, who is in the chair (the proceeds  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span> are always to be devoted
+to some charitable object), rises and insists "that if that most
+objectionable noise does not cease, the boys will have to be turned
+out."</p>
+
+<p>Where the "objectionable" comes in I cannot think. The boys are very
+clever to be able to do it. I have often tried it, and cannot succeed,
+and so conclude it must be a difficult accomplishment. They stick
+about four fingers in their mouths, and thereby make quite a different
+sound to any ordinary whistle. However, it is no wonder the chairman
+discourages it. When he was reading a few minutes before, reading out
+some dry little tale with a moral, in which the humorous parts were
+the heaviest, no encore whistle was accorded him. He was clapped
+loudly, of course&mdash;is he not one of the chief men in the parish? But
+no one wished to hear him read again, so we stopped our applause just
+in time to prevent him from re-appearing.</p>
+
+<p>We go home glad at heart, and two mornings later read an account of
+the evening's performance in the local paper.</p>
+
+<p>We find there a few statements which agree  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span> with our own feelings.
+They say that "Mr. Jones sang in a pure and cultured manner, and
+deserves special attention for his sweet tenor voice and the
+refinement of the sentiment in his songs" (whatever that may mean!)
+"Mr. Smith played two violin solos with remarkable precision of touch
+and with the greatest ease;" while "Miss. Blank, with a good contralto,
+was all that could be desired in both her songs!" They were none of
+them there, but that does not matter. They were praised up more than
+anyone else, which must be very discouraging to those who <i>did</i>
+perform. But on account of their non-appearance alone we feel they
+deserve some approbation, and so do not grudge it them. It is of no
+consequence to a newspaper reporter who is there and who is not. He
+takes the programme, ticks off the names, and writes his remarks and
+criticisms just as he likes. It would be wiser, all the same, on his
+part, if he found out the absentees, for otherwise his little hints
+rather lose their effect.</p>
+
+<p>He writes that this one wants a little "animation," that one "sings
+out of tune." Miss So-and-So plays the piano "with faultless
+manipulation,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span> the only drawback being a slight preponderance of
+pedal," and so on. He generally has as good an ear for music as a
+parish priest who only knew two tunes: one of which was "God save the
+Queen," and the other wasn't. And once, when a brass band was playing
+a selection outside the vicarage, he went on to his balcony, hat in
+hand, and waved it vigorously as he commenced to sing the first line
+of "God save the Queen."</p>
+
+<p>Well, it does not matter after all. The only object is to appear
+learned, and to use long words. If the artists do not like being
+ignorantly criticized they must forbear to appear in public, a result
+which would incline us to go and shake hands with the reporters all
+round in the exuberance of our gratitude.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span> </p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON DANCING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I was looking through a "Querist Album" the other day; one of those
+dreadful confession books in which you are required to answer the most
+absurd questions. Dreadful indeed they are to write in, but not
+altogether uninteresting to peruse, though the interest comes not so
+much in the answers themselves as in the manner in which they are
+written.</p>
+
+<p>Some go in for it seriously, and describe their inmost feelings on the
+pages; some take a witty strain, and put down the most ridiculous
+things they can think of; while others write just what comes first.</p>
+
+<p>Some are such hypocrites, too. Here is a man who describes his wife as
+his ideal woman; and when we know that he scarcely ever  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span> addresses a
+civil word to the poor little woman, his admission is, to say the
+least of it, amusing.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever been in love? and if so, how often?" This is one of the
+questions. The answers to it are of doubtful veracity. All the single
+ladies reply "Never!" underlining the word three times. "Yes, only
+once," is the statement of the married ones. According to the Querist
+Album, "The course of true love <i>always</i> runs smooth." No one seems to
+be attacked by Cupid but they must immediately marry the object of
+their choice, and "all goes merrily as a marriage bell." The men, on
+the contrary, like to appear somewhat inflammable. It is generally the
+masculine writers who adopt the sprightly key. Twenty&mdash;forty&mdash;thousands
+of times they admit falling in love. Such one-sided affairs they must
+have been, too; for the girls, according to their own confessions, never
+reciprocated any attachment until their rightful lords and masters appeared
+on the scene. I am afraid we must be a very hard-hearted race!</p>
+
+<p>But it is the question relating to your idea of "the greatest earthly
+happiness" that struck me most. "Never being called in the morning,"
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span> was one lazy person's reply. "To write M.P. after my name," was the
+ambition of another. "Married life," wrote the bride on the completion
+of her honeymoon. Ah, little bride, you have been married some years
+now. Are your ideas still the same, I wonder? "A good partner, a good
+floor, and good music," said a fourth, and it is this one that has my
+entire sympathy. I agree with her. It is my idea also of "the greatest
+earthly happiness." I do not require much, you see. These are not very
+difficult things to procure now-a-days; and yet I am often taunted
+with my love of dancing. If I express disapproval of a man, "I suppose
+he can't dance," they say with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>Now though that accomplishment is a necessity in a ball-room, I do
+<i>not</i> consider it indispensable in a husband. Unfortunately you cannot
+dance through life. I wish you could for many reasons. A continual
+change of partners, for instance, would it not be refreshing? You
+would scarcely have time to grow tired of them. And how much more
+polite our husbands would be if they thought we were only fleeting
+joys! What am I saying? I am shocking everyone I  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span> am afraid; the
+little matron who advocates married life, the newly-made brides whose
+ideal men are realized in their husbands&mdash;I am shocking them all! I
+humbly plead forgiveness. You see, I am not married myself. I can only
+give my impressions as a looker-on, and, as Thackeray says, "One is
+bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, and a deal of
+disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an
+undertaking."</p>
+
+<p>But dancing <i>is</i> indispensable in a ball-room. If a man cannot dance
+he should stay away, and not make an object of himself. Unfortunately,
+so many think they excel in the art when they have not the least idea
+of it. Again, with girls, dancing (in a ball-room only, of course)
+comes before charm of manner, before wit, even before beauty. I know
+girls, absolutely plain, with not a word to say for themselves, who
+dance every dance, while the walls of the room are lined with pretty
+faces, and dismal-looking enough they are too, which is very foolish
+of them. They should have too much pride to show their discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>Men have so much the best of it at dances&mdash;so  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span> everybody says. I am
+afraid I do not agree. I would not change our positions for anything.
+After all, a girl can nearly always dance with anyone she likes, and
+pick and choose as well as the men&mdash;provided, of course, that she is
+an adept on the "light fantastic toe" herself.</p>
+
+<p>And think, on the other hand, what men go through! Reverse the order
+of things, as you are supposed to do at leap year dances&mdash;which
+system, however, is never properly carried out. But suppose you go up
+to a man and ask him for a dance, and he tells you with a smile that
+"he is very sorry, but really he has not one left." Suppose that the
+next minute you see him give three to another girl, would you speak to
+that man ever again? <i>Never!</i> And yet this is what they constantly
+endure and, what is more, forgive.</p>
+
+<p>After all, if you analyze it, what an absurd thing dancing is. Close
+your ears to the music and look around you when a ball is at its
+height. What motive, you foolishly wonder, could induce all these
+people&mdash;who are supposed to possess an average amount of brains&mdash;to
+assemble together to clasp each other round the waist,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span> twirl round
+and round up and down the room, suddenly stop, and hurry one after
+another outside the dancing hall, seeking dark corners, secret
+retreats, anywhere away from the eyes of other men? "Ah, what a mad
+world it is, my masters!"</p>
+
+<p>How our grandmothers exclaim at the present mode of dancing!&mdash;they who
+used to consider round dances almost improper. How the programmes must
+astonish them, too; those engagement cards that did not exist fifty
+years ago, and in their infancy were quite content to bear only two or
+three names on their paper countenances. But now times have changed,
+and as they grow older they become most greedy little cards. They are
+not only not content with being scribbled all over, but require two
+names on the top of one another, and thus causing dissensions to
+ensue.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great deal of art in making up a programme. It is a mistake
+to be full up before you arrive. Someone may come whom you did not
+expect, and then you have no dance to give him. Arrangement of a
+programme requires two or three seasons' practice. There are the  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span> duty
+dances to be got through first; put them up early, so that they shall
+be soon over, and then you have the good ones at the end to look
+forward to.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone has duty dances. There are your father's constituents,
+clients, patients, someone you are obliged to ingratiate, and these
+are generally the worst dancers in the room! One is so fat he shakes
+the hall as he walks, and yet is just as eager to join the giddy
+throng, and alas! to take you with him! Another resembles the little
+tin soldiers which schoolboys have such an affection for, in that he
+has been gifted with large flat stands, twice the length of himself,
+instead of feet. And oh, <i>how</i> he kicks! Then there is the
+complimentary man, a creature who never opens his mouth without making
+or implying a compliment. Does he ever find anyone whom this system
+pleases, I wonder! The only antidote I can find is to take no notice,
+and pretend not to understand that the pretty speeches are directed at
+you. This discourages him after a time.</p>
+
+<p>It is amusing to get hold of a man's programme, and find out how you
+are represented  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span> there. They do not put down names, but describe
+costumes, hoping thus to find their partners easier, but in reality
+plunging themselves into most hopeless perplexities. They scribble
+down "pearl necklace," and find later that there are at least sixteen
+in the room, and so are worse off than if they had written the name.</p>
+
+<p>Some describe the personal appearance, but this is a very risky thing
+to do. A man the other day wrote down his partner as "Miss blue dress,
+with the nose," and subsequently dropped his programme, which, of
+course, was picked up by the lady mentioned. Now I do not know why you
+should dislike being told that you have a nose&mdash;you would feel very
+much worse without one&mdash;but when your nasal organ takes up double its
+share of room in your face, and is, moreover, prettily tinted with
+scarlet, which you try to conceal under a little pearl powder, and
+only succeed in making it purple&mdash;well, perhaps you would not like to
+be told you have a nose. At any rate, this lady did not, and hers very
+much resembled this description, I believe. But she was a wise woman.
+Not a word did she say on the subject, and he went home happily
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span> unconscious of her fatal discovery, until a few days later he
+received his programme back as a Christmas card, with "Miss blue dress
+with the nose's compliments." How very comfortable he must have felt
+when he met her next!</p>
+
+<p>What a great many different styles of dancing there are! You have to
+change your step with nearly every partner. The girl should always
+suit hers to the man's, he has quite enough to do with the steering.
+You require about five good partners altogether, and can then spend an
+enjoyable evening. A different man for every dance is tiring. You
+never get beyond the theatres and the weather; you have not time to
+say much more, and grow quite weary of the same style of conversation.
+I always think I must be a most uninteresting partner when I am asked
+what theatres I have been to lately, or what is my opinion of the
+Academy, &amp;c., &amp;c. I never begin this kind of talk myself except as a
+last resource, when I can get nothing else out of a man. Someone says,
+I forget who, that "a woman can always know in what opinion she is
+held by the conversation addressed to her," and is it not true?  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span> The
+foolish compliments paid to the pretty, but silly little <i>d&eacute;butante</i>;
+the small talk to the fools; the sparring with the witty; the <i>risqu&eacute;</i>
+tales enjoyed by those of a more rapid style. Men find out first what
+are our tastes, and then dish up their conversation accordingly, and
+they do not often make mistakes.</p>
+
+<p>Some girls dance with one man the whole evening. How weary they must
+get of each other! Engaged people invariably pass the evening
+together, and sometimes do not dance at all, but sit out in some
+secluded corner. They have to endure one another for years to come, I
+wonder they do not get as much variety as possible now. At any rate,
+they might just as well stop at home.</p>
+
+<p>Like everything else, dancing is hurrying along, and growing faster
+every year. The <i>deux-temps</i>, they say is coming back. May the day be
+far ahead when that step reigns once more! Perhaps before then I shall
+be converted into a chaperone, and shall sit watching others dance,
+not being able to do so myself; or, perhaps worse, not being <i>asked</i>
+myself. I am afraid I should not make a nice chaperone. I should look
+very cross, and should hurry away as early as possible. Ah, sad indeed
+will the day be when I give up dancing, when only the remembrance of
+my past enjoyments will be brought back to me through the scent of
+gardenias and tube-roses, dear dissipated-smelling flowers!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>On Watering Places.</h3>
+
+
+<p>What a great deal of trouble and time it takes to choose a
+watering-place! And yet there are many and various kinds of resorts,
+some for one season, some for another.</p>
+
+<p>If you could be carried sufficiently high above the earth so as to
+have a bird's-eye view of the whole of Great Britain, what a strange
+sight it would present during the months of August and September! The
+county would appear surrounded with a human fringe, the outer edge
+more resembling a disturbed ants' hill than anything else. I don't
+suppose we should appear more significant than ants at that distance.</p>
+
+<p>There are those places teeming with shop-keepers and children, when
+you can scarcely see the beach so covered is it with those who are
+making the most of their one holiday in the year.</p>
+
+<p>There is the primitive little village, discovered by few, which is
+welcomed by the city man who wants rest and entire seclusion from
+business matters and the world for a month or two. And oh, what
+language he uses! and how annoyed he is to find absolutely nothing to
+do&mdash;one post a  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span> day, and, worst of all, no newspaper until late in the
+afternoon! And this is the man who wishes to be shut out from the
+world and from his acquaintances! There is no pier, there are no
+amusements. The esplanade is composed of nothing more than a plank of
+wood, on which, in walking you have to observe much caution in order
+to keep your balance; and sometimes the butcher from the neighboring
+village forgets to call! In desperation, the unfortunate creature digs
+sand-castles with his children, and, after a few days of his
+banishment, grows quite excited as the waves wash up and undermine
+their foundations. He picks acquaintance with anybody he comes across,
+be he peer or peasant&mdash;anything to make the time pass a little quicker
+until he can return to the stir of his business life again.</p>
+
+<p>Someone remarks somewhere that "a man works one-half of his life in
+order that he may rest the other." I wonder if those who are
+successful ever appreciate their rest when they get it! I wonder if it
+comes up to their expectations! if the goal toward which they have
+been looking almost since they began to exist is worth the trouble and
+energy spent on it! Ah, I am afraid they very rarely find it so! They
+have become so immured in their busy lives, that it is difficult to
+grow accustomed to any other. Unless one is brought up to it, the
+<i>Dolce far niente</i> is not an existence we enjoy. We are made the wrong
+way about somehow. We ought to be born old and gradually grow younger
+as the years roll on. Still, I daresay there would  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span> be something to
+complain of even then, and perhaps it would not be very dignified to
+go off the stage as a baby!</p>
+
+<p>To go to the opposite extreme, there are the fashionable water-places;
+little Londons, or rather little imitations of London; for beside that
+great capital itself they are like pieces of glass to a diamond. And
+yet fashion and folly are all here, sunning themselves by the sea
+instead of in the park; driving up and down in the same way, in
+equally charming toilets. But still there seems to be something
+lacking, something wanting. They are too small, these towns; you so
+soon know everyone by sight, and grow tired both of them and their
+costumes. There is a good deal of stir and life about all the same.
+There are bands, niggers, clairvoyantes, fire-eaters; plenty indeed
+for you to see and hear when you are weary of strutting up and down
+and nodding to your friends. And yet, in spite of all, you grow tired
+of "London by the sea," after a few weeks, even in that dead season of
+the year&mdash;November.</p>
+
+<p>Have you ever visited one of these places in the midst of a tennis
+week, when the grand tournaments take place? Lawn tennis is a
+delightful recreation for a time, provided you have a good partner and
+good antagonists, and you are playing under a moderately warm sun; but
+when you hear, see, and play nothing else for a week, when the
+conversation is "tennis," when no one appears without a racquet in his
+hand, when all you have to listen to are criticisms on the courts and
+balls,  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span> grumblings against the handicapping, imprecations on
+"bisques"&mdash;well, you begin to hate the very name, and wish you could
+injure the man who invented it. You grow tired of watching the same
+thing day after day, the men who spend their lives in tossing balls
+across to each other, the sea of faces; turning backwards and forwards
+at each stroke with the regulation of a pendulum.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it takes a long time to decide on a watering place, and when at
+last you do make up your mind you have to change it again very soon
+because you find all your "sisters, cousins, and aunts" have chosen
+the same resort; and really you have quite enough of your relations in
+town without their following you wherever you go. You require a little
+variety when you go away. An old lady I used to know always kept it a
+profound secret where she intended spending her summer holiday,
+"otherwise, my dear," she said, "I should have the whole family at my
+heels!" A most disagreeable old lady she was; and I know for a fact
+that her relatives always avoided her when possible (she was not
+blessed with very great possessions!) so that her caution was quite
+unnecessary. Oh, vanity of vanities, how little we know of the world's
+true opinion of us!</p>
+
+<p>When you have fixed on your locality, there is even a greater
+difficulty to go through. You have to choose your residence; and this
+takes up even more thought and time.</p>
+
+<p>There are the lodging-houses, monotonous in their similarity. The same
+gilt-edged mirrors  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span> protected from the dust by green perforated paper;
+the same jar of wax flowers, standing on a mat which is composed of
+floral designs in Berlin wool&mdash;designs to which you can give any name
+you like&mdash;"You pays your money and you takes your choice." They
+represent anything, the whole concern hiding its modest head under a
+glass case; the same shavings in the grate, with long trails of roses
+gently slumbering on the top; yes, and the same voluble landlady, the
+whole of whose private concerns you are in possession of five minutes
+after you have taken the apartments.</p>
+
+<p>There is the boarding-house, advertised as "Directly facing the sea;"
+and when you have engaged your rooms, and arrive with all your
+luggage, you find the establishment is at the far end of a side
+street; and "Directly facing the sea" is interpreted by the fact that
+by hanging half-way out of the sitting-room widow, and screwing your
+head round violently to the left, you can see the place where that
+watery monarch ought to be.</p>
+
+<p>"A boarding-house is so much nicer than an hotel, because you get to
+know the people so much easier," I heard a girl remark once. This is
+my chief objection to a boarding-house. Because you are staying under
+the same roof, all the inhabitants consider they have a right to
+address you, and, what is more, they will not be repulsed, which, as
+most of them by no means move in the best society, is not at all
+palatable. The women you can tolerate, but the men are not to be
+ <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span> endured. You are always coming across them, too. On whatever drive,
+excursion, or trip you take you invariably meet "boarding-houseites,"
+who are only too ready to recognize you. You can never get away from
+them; there is only the public drawing-room, and there they come in
+and out, talking to you, interrupting you, or else causing your ears
+to ache by their attempts at music.(?)</p>
+
+<p>The meals are somewhat amusing, as you can watch all your
+fellow-boarders without being disturbed. They cannot talk and eat at
+the same time, and so philosophically devote all their energies to
+their dinner.</p>
+
+<p>There is the girl who scrapes up acquaintances with everybody. She has
+had the good luck to be placed near a man, and the demure way in which
+she prattles and smiles at him convinces you that she is trying to
+make the best use of her time. Sometimes he is absent, and then the
+smiles give way to the gloomiest expression. Finally, on the arrival
+of new-comers, when there is a sort of general post all round, she is
+placed at the farthest extreme to her late partner, and oh! the
+wistful little glances she passes up the table to the gourmand who,
+oblivious to all but his dinner, scarcely notices her departure.</p>
+
+<p>There are the three old maids, intent on capturing a husband. They
+have come here as a last resource. But with the usual fickleness of
+fortune, they seem to be more shunned by the male sex than attracted
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>There is the newly-married couple, looking very  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span> conscious and silly,
+as if they were the only people in the world who had ever committed
+matrimony.</p>
+
+<p>There is one old lady grumbling, and objecting to the back of a
+chicken. Poor birds, they have only two wings each, and really cannot
+provide everybody with them! There is another furious, because on
+asking for a favorite dish, that is down in the <i>menu</i>, is told that
+"it is all served!" The best things always are, unless you manage to
+get into the good graces of the waiter or waitress.</p>
+
+<p>Young men and maidens, old men and children, all here, offering plenty
+of material for students of human nature!</p>
+
+<p>Hotel life is very different. Even if you find the <i>parvenu</i> and
+<i>nouveau riche</i> as equally objectionable as the boarding-house
+species, at least they do not force their acquaintance upon
+you. The <i>table d'hote</i> is much more entertaining, and you are
+altogether more independent. Characters you come across occasionally
+that are most interesting to study. There are the girls who are taking
+the round of hotels by their mothers, in the hopes of getting them
+"off." There are the men who astonish everybody by their generosity
+and apparent display of riches, and finally decamp without paying
+their bill.</p>
+
+<p>A man was telling me the other day of a certain "black sheep" who had
+run into difficulty; how his family after a great deal of trouble
+managed to raise &pound;200 between them, and sent him off to America with
+the money to start afresh in a new  <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span> country. In a month's time he was
+back again, penniless as ever, and cursing his luck and bad fortune.
+It was only by accident they discovered the bills of the best hotels
+in New York in his pocket, and found that he had been living like a
+prince while his &pound;200 lasted, nor had tried at all to obtain any
+occupation.</p>
+
+<p>With such consummate cheek, a man ought to get on in the world, I
+think, for after all it is self-confidence and "bluffing" that seems
+to succeed most. However down in the world you are, however bad your
+"hand," you only have to "bluff" a little to make it all right. There
+are many foolish people in the world ready to be your dupes, and
+luckily they never think of asking to "see" you. Even the best of us
+try it on a little; we strive to hide our skeletons under the cloak of
+cheerfulness, and entirely disguise our real feelings&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For, such as we are made of, such we be."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<h4>THE END.</h4>
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p>Transcriber's Note: Pagination for blank pages is omitted in the margin numbering.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl, by Jenny Wren
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+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl
+       Sister of that "Idle Fellow."
+
+Author: Jenny Wren
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2005 [EBook #16507]
+Last updated: January 17, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAZY THOUGHTS OF A LAZY GIRL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     LAZY THOUGHTS OF A LAZY GIRL.
+
+                    (Sister of that "IDLE FELLOW.")
+
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+                             JENNY WREN.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+                          HURST AND COMPANY
+                             PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+    CHAPTER.
+
+    I.    ON LOVE.
+
+    II.   ON BILLS.
+
+    III.  ON POLITICS.
+
+    IV.   ON AFTERNOON TEA.
+
+    V.    ON DRESS.
+
+    VI.   ON CHRISTMAS.
+
+    VII.  ON THE COUNTRY.
+
+    VIII. ON TOWN.
+
+    IX.   ON CHILDREN AND DOGS.
+
+    X.    ON CONCERTS.
+
+    XI.   ON DANCING.
+
+    XII.  ON WATERING PLACES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ON LOVE.
+
+    "Love is of man's life a thing apart;
+    'Tis woman's whole existence."
+
+
+So sings the poet, and so agrees the world. Humiliating as it is to
+make the confession, it is undeniably true. "Men and Dress are all
+women think about," cry the lords of creation in their unbounded
+vanity. And again, we must submit--and agree--to the truth of the
+accusation; at any rate, in nine cases out of ten. Fortunately I am a
+tenth case; at least, I consider myself so. I don't dispute the
+"dress" imputation. I am very fond of dress. Nearly as fond of it as
+the twenty-year old youth, and saying that, I allow a good deal. But
+very few of my thoughts are given to the creature "man"! I do not
+think him worth it. As my old nurse used to say, "I never 'ad no
+opinion of the sex!"
+
+Do not conclude, however, that because of my statement that I am a
+disappointed, soured old maid, for I am nothing of the sort. I am on
+the right side of twenty-five, and I have never been crossed in love;
+indeed, I have never even experienced the tender passion, and only
+write from my observations of other people; thus taking a perfectly
+neutral ground in speaking of it at all.
+
+One never hears that Adam fell in love with Eve, or that Eve was
+passionately attached to Adam. But then, poor things, they had so
+little choice--it was either that or nothing. Besides, there was no
+opposition to the match, so it was bound to be rather a tame affair.
+For my part, I pity Eve, for Adam was, I think, the very meanest of
+men. When he was turned out of the garden, what a wretch he must have
+felt himself! and how he must have taunted his poor wife! Weak men are
+always bullies.
+
+But "_revenons a nos moutons_," I am wondering who was the first
+person to fall in love! Cain _might_ have done so with his mysterious
+wife; history does not say. But certainly there is always some
+attraction in mystery, so such a thing is possible. I wonder whence
+that extraordinary woman sprang!
+
+Neither do we hear much of Noah's domestic experiences, but I should
+conclude on the whole that they were not happy. No man could be
+endured for forty days shut up in the house, no business to go to,
+nothing to do, always hanging about, his idle hands at some mischief
+or other, and last, but not least, a diabolical temper, displayed at
+every turn! Why, I cannot endure one for a week! My only wonder is
+that the female population of the Ark did not rise up in a body and
+consign their lords and masters to the floods.
+
+Poor men, they deserve a little of our pity too, perhaps; for if Mrs.
+Noah and her daughters-in-law at all resembled their effigies in the
+Noah's Arks of the present day, they were women to be avoided, _I_
+think.
+
+So that, after all, it must have been Jacob who set such a very
+foolish example; because we could not count Isaac, his being so
+extraordinary and isolated a case, when he fell in love with his own
+wife!
+
+Therefore I think we owe Jacob a great many grudges. He was the
+inventor of the tender passion, and since his time people have begun
+to follow his example long before they come to years of discretion,
+simply because their parents did so before them, and they think they
+are not grown up, that they are not men, unless they have some love
+affair on hand.
+
+Some get married at once, some wait a long time, and some do not marry
+at all. These last are, I think, generally the happiest, for this
+so-called love lasts for only a very short time, and neither husband
+nor wife are long before they console themselves with someone else's
+affection to make up for what is wanting on the part of the other.
+
+Of course I am speaking generally. As far as I can see, the majority
+act thus, though I am glad to say that many and various are the
+exceptions. It was only the other day I came across our washerwoman
+and asked her how she and her husband got on together. He used to be a
+drunkard, and used her cruelly, but two years ago he took the pledge,
+and, what is more, he kept it. "Lor', mum," she exclaimed fervently,
+"we draws nearer every day!" I am afraid not many husbands and wives
+could say the same.
+
+People are so anxious to marry too. I cannot understand them, men
+especially. They have their clubs, they are entirely independent, and
+can go home as late as they please without being questioned as to
+their whereabouts. And yet, as soon as they can, they saddle
+themselves with a wife, who requires at least half the money--they
+have never found sufficient for themselves alone--besides a great deal
+of looking after!
+
+Women, on the contrary, are different. They have to make some
+provision for the future, so to speak. How do you like it, oh men! the
+idea that you, with your handsome personages and fascinating ways, are
+used only as a kind of insurance office? This is the case very often,
+however, though you may not know it!
+
+Yet others pursue the god Hymen merely for the sake of being married.
+As soon as they leave the school-room, sometimes before, they begin
+their search for a husband, and look out for him in the person of
+every man they meet. No matter who it is so long as they are married
+before So-and-So, and can triumph over all their friends.
+
+It must be said for men that they are falling off in the marrying
+line. This is not nearly such a proposing generation as the last. Then
+they married much younger and seemed to propose after a few days'
+acquaintance. No, this is a more cautious age altogether. Men look
+round carefully before they make their choice. They sample it well,
+they watch it in the home circle, they watch it abroad, they watch it
+with other men, and finally come to the conclusion that it is worthy
+to be allied to their noble selves, or they don't!
+
+Another thing. Men of the present day are so direfully afraid of a
+refusal! So fearful are they, that rather than risk one, they give up
+many chances of happiness.
+
+They expect that a girl should show her feeling toward them, before
+they come to the point. But you must remember that girls also have to
+be cautious, and a few--I acknowledge it is only a few--would rather
+die than show they cared for a man who after all might only "love and
+ride away."
+
+Not that I altogether blame man in this respect. I always admire
+pride, and am afraid I should not care for a refusal myself. I am
+intolerant of it even in the smallest matters!
+
+It is curious how men run in grooves. The same style of man nearly
+always marries the opposite type of girl. I mean that the
+intellectual, the clever, invariably choose the insipid brainless
+girl. Pretty, she may be, but it is in a doll-like way, with not a
+thought above her household. You would have imagined that such men
+would require some help-meet, in the fullest sense of the word; with a
+brain almost as quick as their own. But such a choice occurs very
+seldom.
+
+Again, why is it that little men always select the very tallest women
+they can find? You would think that a man would hesitate to show off
+his meagre inches to such bad advantage. But these pigmies appear to
+enjoy the contrast. It is evidently quantity they admire, not quality.
+
+I daresay a good deal of what I have written sounds very cynical, but
+perhaps my experience has been unfortunate, therefore you must forgive
+me: certainly it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish between
+the real thing and its successful counterpart.
+
+Parents are greatly at fault in the issues of the matrimonial market.
+After all these centuries of experience you would give them credit for
+more tact than they possess. Any match they do not desire, they oppose
+at once, and thereby set alight all the contradictory elements in your
+nature. If Laban had been less obstinate, and had consented to an
+alliance between Jacob and Rachel from the first, provided Leah was
+left behind to look after him, the latter would immediately have been
+endowed with attractions innumerable to Jacob, tender eyes and all!
+
+Nowhere is there such a fertile soil for love as opposition!
+
+On the other hand, if parents wish to encourage a match, young people
+are thrown together as much as possible. However big the gathering,
+you are somehow always paired off with the eligible parti until you
+grow to loathe the man, and would sooner become an "old maid" than
+marry him.
+
+Parents have a bad time altogether I am afraid. Their nice little
+plans are so nearly always upset by their ungrateful children, and
+then they have to be continually looking after their brood. I knew one
+mother who used to take her daughters on the pier and lose sight of
+them at once, as they paired off with their he-acquaintances. Do what
+she would she could not find them again, so many were the nooks and
+crannies near at hand. Finally she had recourse to the Camera Obscura,
+and, with the help of the views set before her there, she found the
+missing girls! "We never can escape her now," they told me in mournful
+tones, after her fatal discovery.
+
+Girls are degenerating sadly, it is said. They are getting too
+masculine, too independent, too different from man's ideal--the modest
+little maid who sits at home and mends her husband's socks.
+
+I do not dispute the fact. They _are_ degenerating. Neither, though I
+dislike the ideal specimen, and have a contempt for her, do I stand up
+for the other extreme. I have a horror of fast masculine girls, and
+agree with all that is said against them. Nevertheless, I do not
+consider men have any right to complain, as they are the chief cause
+of the deterioration of our sex.
+
+Everyone knows that a girl thinks more of a man's opinion than that of
+anyone else. If he applauds, then she is satisfied. She does not
+consider it ignominy to be termed "a jolly good fellow!" She gets
+praise, and in a way admiration, when she caps his good stories,
+smokes, and drinks brandies and sodas. Unfortunately, she does not
+hear herself discussed when he is alone with his friends, or perhaps
+she would be more cautious in her manners and conversation for the
+future, for this is not the kind of girl who is
+
+    "Rich in the grace all women desire,
+    Strong in the power that all men adore."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ON BILLS.
+
+
+BILLS! BILLS! BILLS! Detestable sound! Obnoxious word! Why were such
+things ever invented? Why are they sent to destroy our peace of mind?
+
+They always come, too, when you are expecting some interesting letter.
+You hurry to meet the postman, you get impatient at the length of time
+he takes to separate his packets (I sometimes think these men find
+pleasure in tantalizing you, and keep you waiting on purpose), and
+when he at last presents you with your long-expected missive, behold,
+it turns to dust and ashes in your hand--metaphorically speaking, of
+course.
+
+It is a pity such a metamorphosis does not occur in reality; for the
+wretched oblong envelope, with the sprawly, flourishy writing, so
+unmistakably suggests a bill, that you--well, I do not know what
+_you_ do on such an occasion; _my_ letter, which I have been so
+anxious to obtain, is flung to the other side of the room.
+
+How is it that bills mount up so quickly? You buy a little ribbon, a
+few pairs of gloves, some handkerchiefs--mere items in fact, and yet
+when quarter day comes round you are presented with a bill a yard
+long, which as your next instalment of money is fully mortgaged, is
+calculated to fill you with anything but extreme joy.
+
+Why are the paths leading to destruction always so much easier of
+access than any other? It takes so much less time to run up a bill, it
+is so much simpler to say, "Will you please enter it to my account?"
+than to pay your money down. First the bill has to be added up, and,
+strange as it may seem, these shop people appear to take _hours_ over
+a simple addition sum. "Eight and elevenpence halfpenny if you please,
+ma'am." Of course you have not enough silver, and so are obliged to
+wait for change. Then someone has to be found to sign. Altogether it
+takes quite five minutes longer paying ready money; and think, how
+five minutes after each purchase would mount up in a day's shopping!
+I should say that, on an average you might call it two important hours
+regularly thrown away. "And a good job, too," perhaps our fathers,
+husbands, and brothers would say. But, then, you see, they are
+Philistines and do not understand.
+
+But though we suffer somewhat at the hands of these shop people, I
+think in their turn they have to endure a great deal more from their
+customers. I have seen old ladies order nearly the whole shop out,
+turn over the articles, and having entirely exhausted the patience of
+their victims, say, "Yes--all very pretty--but I don't think I will
+buy any to-day, thank you," and they move off to other counters to
+enact the same scene over again. Selfish old things!
+
+I was dreadfully hard up a short time ago, and of course my bills were
+ten times as big as usual. I had no money coming in, and could not
+conceive how I was to meet my debts.
+
+It is astonishing, when you come to try it, how few paths there are
+open for poverty-stricken ladies to make a little money, especially
+when your object is to keep your difficulties a secret from your
+mankind. I tried every imaginable way without success. What is the
+good of having an expensive education, of being taught French and
+German--neither of which languages, by the way, when brought to the
+test, a girl can ever talk, or at any rate so as to be understood.
+What is the good of it all, I say, when you want to turn your hand to
+making a little money? I felt quite angry the other day when, our cook
+being ill, we had a woman in to take her place. Fifteen shillings a
+week she made! She, who had had little or nothing spent on her
+education, could yet make more shillings in a week than I could pence!
+I began to wish I had been brought up as a scullery maid.
+
+I can paint rather well, but what are the advantages of art compared
+to those of cookery? Many and many a shop I went into, carrying
+specimens of my talent, and asking the owners if they would employ me
+to decorate their tambourines, bellows, &c. But no, they all had their
+own especial artists, and were quite suited. It is such a dreadfully
+humiliating business. At the first place I could have slain the man
+for his impertinence in declining, and I left the shop with a haughty
+mien and my head in the air. But I grew accustomed to it in time, and
+even used to try a little persuasion, which, however, proved of no
+avail. One man offered to exhibit my wares (I felt quite like a
+peddler going his rounds), and through him I sold two tambourines.
+Then who so proud as I? though my profits only came to a few
+shillings. However small, the first taste of success is always
+exhilarating, though indeed my confidence did not last long, for this
+was my first and last experience of money-making in the painting line.
+
+I used to search the sale and exchange columns of the papers, and
+found once that someone wanted music transposed. I wrote directly
+offering my services, and charging a shilling per piece or song. For a
+wonder I was successful, for the person answered, asking for a
+specimen of my skill, which she was pleased to say would do very well.
+
+How her letters used to amuse me! She must have been a rather
+incapable singing mistress I think. Her letters though properly spelt
+were written in an uneducated hand, and she addressed me as if I were
+a servant. She used to give me very little time in which to transpose
+her songs, and insisted on their being finished when she wanted them.
+Sometimes I was quite tired out, for copying music is not a thing to
+be done in a hurry.
+
+Somehow, our negotiations did not last long. Whether I grew careless,
+or she found others to do the work cheaper, I do not know, but she
+suddenly withdrew her custom, and I have never heard from her since.
+
+My next venture was tale writing. Who has not tried this most
+unsatisfactory method? It is a tremendously anxious time when your
+first effort is sent out. What a lot of money you expect to obtain for
+it! You do not intend to be unprepared, so you spend every penny in
+your mind beforehand. Then there is the honor and glory of it! You
+will hear everyone talking of the cleverly written tale and wondering
+who is the gifted author!
+
+What made me more hopeful was the possession of a cousin, who was very
+successful in this line. Indeed, she has reached the three-volume
+stage by now, and is beginning to be quite well known. I have lost my
+interest in her, however, since she took me and my family off in one
+of her books. It is such an easy thing to do. You only have to find
+out a person's peculiarities--and everyone has a peculiarity!--and
+overdraw them a little. My sisters and I, I remember, figured as
+three brainless, fast girls, which would only have amused us had she
+left the rest of the family alone. It is a foolish thing to do, for
+besides nearly always giving offence it is not by any means an
+evidence of good taste.
+
+It is much more difficult to write a tale than some people think; you
+get in such hopeless tangles sometimes. People you kill off in the
+first chapter, you sadly need in the last. Then, when you are
+finishing up, there are so many people to get rid of, that you are
+obliged to dispatch them in a bunch with an explosion, or something
+equally probable--three or four strangers as a rule, who have never
+seen each other before, but who considerately assemble in one place to
+meet their doom. Then the last pages will never fit in with the first.
+Your meek but lovely heroine at the beginning has been transformed
+into a beautiful vixen as you near the end, and is quite
+unrecognizable. The worst parts of all are the sensational ones. You
+think you have worked your hero up to a pitch of fiery eloquence,
+while his _fiancee_ is dying in agony close by, and when you
+complacently turn to read over the passage, you find his words imply
+no more sorrow than they would at the death of a relative from whom he
+had expectations, or--a mother-in-law!
+
+It is rather a difficult matter in a large family to keep your actions
+a secret. Obtuse as most men are, with things going on right under
+their eyes, it is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is
+roused. And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women!
+Though Eve _was_ the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention
+of being behindhand. I know a man who always manages to get down to
+breakfast five minutes before the rest of his family, for the purpose
+of examining the correspondence all round.
+
+Fortunately I managed to escape from these inquisitive eyes, for I met
+the postman myself when he brought back my first tale. It was returned
+with the Editor's "compliments and thanks," coupled with the regret
+that he could not make use of my contribution.
+
+I don't know that I ever felt such keen disappointment as when that
+tale came back from its first visit. I had hoped so much from it, and
+had been so confident of its success. It depressed me for some time,
+and it was long before I ventured upon anything in the literary way
+again. But habit is second nature, they say, so after that and other
+tales had been the round of all the magazines and returned to their
+ancestral home, decidedly the worse for their outings (change of air
+evidently does not agree with MSS.), they affected me no more than the
+receipt of a tradesman's circular. In fact I grew quite to welcome
+them as old friends, and no one would have been more astonished than I
+had they been converted into L s. d.
+
+Apparently I am not cut out for literary work. I have not sufficient
+imagination, nor am I sceptical enough for this fanciful and
+scientific age. The world only cares for impossible adventures and
+magic stories, or stories which undermine their religion or upset it
+altogether, and I am not clever enough for this.
+
+Of course, in my pecuniary need I did not neglect to employ a
+"chancellor of the exchequer," as Miss. Mathers calls her; a "wardrobe
+keeper," as she terms herself. Indeed, I employed two or three, and so
+had plenty of opportunities of observing the type.
+
+These women certainly vary in the way they carry on business, but very
+rarely do they vary in appearance. For the fattest, ugliest, oiliest
+old creatures to be found anywhere, commend me to a Chancellor! I
+pause in astonishment sometimes, and wonder how they have the strength
+to carry so much flesh about with them.
+
+The first one I engaged possessed a complexion of a glowing yellow,
+like unto the petals of an alamander. She carried on the business in a
+too independent way altogether. She would take up my garments, look
+them over with a contemptuous sniff (what eloquence there is in a
+sniff!), and then begin to talk of the "ilegant costoomes she 'ad 'ad
+lately of Lady ----, of the 'ansome silks and furs purchased from the
+Countess of ----," &c. It was cunningly and knowingly done.
+Immediately, as was intended, my productions began to lose value in my
+eyes, in contrast to her gorgeous descriptions. Finally she would
+state her price, and by no art or persuasion would she give way a
+penny afterwards.
+
+I believe she was given to fits. Anyhow she fell very ill once when
+she came, and had to be given brandy to support her. I was afraid she
+was going to die in the house, which would have been exceedingly
+unpleasant, for it is a heinous breach of gentility to be found mixed
+up in any such transactions. We are so foolish, we have such little
+minds, we try to hide our doings from our neighbors, who are all going
+through the same experiences, and are equally desirous of concealing
+them from us. If all our screens were taken away what a comedy of
+errors would be disclosed. How surprised we should be to see everyone
+committing follies of which we have been so ashamed and so anxious to
+hide from the eyes of all!
+
+After all the brandy had a most beneficial effect. I think it must
+have flown to her head; for never before had she given such large
+amounts. I was quite sorry to find her so well at her next advent. Her
+sniff was even more eloquent, and her prices had returned to their
+original low level. I regret now that I did not again try the brandy.
+
+Another woman I employed was even uglier than the first. She was so
+wholesomely ugly. A great red full moon represented her countenance,
+radiant with the color of the Eiffel Tower. She was altogether a more
+satisfactory chancellor than the other. She always insisted on your
+stating your own price to begin with. "Well, what d'yer think yerself,
+mum?" was her invariable ejaculation, and then, hearing your reply,
+would break in on whatever you said by "It ain't worth more than
+_'arf_ that to me, mum," in the most aggrieved voice. I became used to
+her in time, and knowing she would halve whatever I said, used to
+demand double the worth of the thing. "What d'yer think yerself, mum?"
+You grow so tired of your opinion being thus asked. I wonder how many
+times she says it in a day! It is a cautious way of going about it, at
+any rate. If that woman ever appeared in a police court on a charge of
+dishonesty, and the magistrate asked her what she had to say to the
+charge, the answer would undoubtedly be, "Well, what d'yer think
+yerself, sir?"
+
+Some of those bills are still unpaid. Quarter day is coming round
+again, so I expect there will be some more soon. Alas! I am an unlucky
+being, born under an unlucky star.
+
+You may think it a strange notion, but I attribute all my ill-luck to
+spiders:
+
+    "If you wish to live and thrive,
+    Let a spider run alive."
+
+I am not superstitious as a rule, but I cannot help thinking that my
+wholesale massacre of this obnoxious insect has something to do with
+my misfortunes by way of retribution.
+
+I hate spiders! Nearly everybody has a pet aversion of some sort. I
+have heard people shriek at the sight of a caterpillar, and turn pale
+in the neighborhood of a toad. My great antipathy is a spider! Not
+that I object to its treatment of flies--nasty little worries, they
+deserve everything that happens to them. But it is the _appearance_ of
+a spider that is so against it. There is a shifty expression about the
+eye, and such a leer on the upper lip. Money spinners are not so
+objectionable. I can tolerate them. It is the big, almost tarantulas,
+from which I flee. Those creatures which start up suddenly, and run
+across the room close by where you are sitting; creatures so large
+that you can almost hear their footsteps as they pass.
+
+A man told me once he had found a spider in his room of such enormous
+dimensions that he had to open the door in order that it might get
+out!
+
+Overdrawn, you say? Well, it sounds a little improbable certainly; not
+so much on account of the unusual size of the spider as for the
+extraordinary consideration on the part of the man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ON POLITICS.
+
+
+Perhaps you don't think me competent to talk about politics? "What do
+women know about such things?" asks the superior masculine mind.
+
+Well, they don't know so much as men, I admit, and I earnestly hope
+they never will. A woman who is infected with politics is a positive
+pest, and should be removed at once. If I do not know anything about
+them, at any rate I ought to, as I have been brought up in a raging
+Tory household, and so have been steeped in them from my youth up.
+
+There is such a sameness in politicians. Whatever their opinions,
+their language and feelings are all one. They are only directed at
+different people. While one man is gloating over a Conservative
+victory you hear a mutter from the Radical to the effect that "That
+_brute_ has got in for ----" Poor man, why, because he thinks
+differently to you, should he be a brute? But just the same words are
+spoken if the positions be reversed. It is only the mouths that change
+places.
+
+I am afraid my views incline toward the Tory side. I cannot help it, I
+was bought over long ago. You _must_ feel an interest as to the
+successful candidate when the result means either a tip all round or a
+thundery atmosphere for the rest of the day. Men take an adverse poll
+as a personal affront and vent their feelings on their families. The
+tipping was quite an understood thing when I was younger, now it is
+given up, and joy is shown in a less substantial way, I regret to say.
+Unfortunately the thunder storms are not events of the past as well.
+
+Politicians have such a narrow way of looking at things. The other
+side can do nothing right while they themselves are absolutely
+faultless! If a Tory wishes to confer an opprobrious epithet on a
+person he calls him a Radical, and _vice versa_; the opposite faction
+is capable of any enormity? This reminds me of the old Scotchman who
+on being asked his opinion of a man who had first murdered and then
+mutilated his victim, answered in a shocked voice, "What do I think?
+Well, I think that a maun who'd do all that would whistle on the
+Sawbuths!" "Such a man must be a Home Ruler," my father would have
+said.
+
+In having a guest with opposite views at your dinner table, what
+agonies do you not suffer? I have gone through those dreadful meals
+trembling at every word that drops from the man's lips. Try as you
+may, turn the conversation how you will, there is sure to be some
+allusion, some statement that sets on fire all the host's enthusiasm,
+and it does not take long before the poor guest is entirely
+annihilated and subdued--unless indeed he is as hot on his side as the
+other is on his; then indeed all we can do is to sit and hear it out.
+To attempt to stem such a torrent would be the act of a lunatic. We
+only feel thankful that "pistols for two and coffee for one" is a
+thing of the past.
+
+The General Elections are dreadful times; nothing but canvassing goes
+on night after night for weeks beforehand. Conversation is entirely
+restricted to the coming event--if you mention a word about anything
+apart from it, you are considered absolutely profane, and are treated
+as a pariah for the next few days.
+
+It is interesting, I admit, and the election day itself is positively
+exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember
+once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess,
+tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary.
+True, it was on what she considered her own side, though I don't think
+she knew enough to distinguish between the two; still her real
+annoyance was occasioned more by the look of the thing. That a pupil
+of hers should act in such a plebeian way, and in so public a place,
+certainly must have been somewhat provoking? Anyhow, she gave me a bad
+mark for disobedience, which affected me but little, as when I related
+the story to my father later on he rewarded me with a shilling for my
+prowess! Electioneering, you see, is not good for the morals!
+
+How tired you get, too, of seeing the names of would-be members stuck
+up all over the place. My brothers used to follow the Liberal
+bill-sticker round, and as soon as he had turned his back pull the
+placards down, or cover them up with their own. This was found out at
+last, and the foe grew more cautious.
+
+Then the extravagant promises made by the candidates, which they never
+really intend to fulfil, and could not if they wished. It is like the
+man in Church who, while singing--
+
+    "Were the whole realm of nature mine,
+    That were an offering far too small,"
+
+was rubbing his finger along the rim of a threepenny bit to make sure
+it was not a fourpenny!
+
+On election days all mankind goes mad. Their excitement is so great
+that they would scarcely know it did they forego their dinner. And
+this, with men, proves an absorbing interest in the matter. Anything
+placed above dinner, in their opinion, must be important indeed.
+
+There is such a polite element abroad on polling day. Men are so
+respectful and hurl such affectionate terms at one another. Even the
+dogs are upset, and strut about in quite a different manner than on
+ordinary days, so puffed out with vanity are they, on account of their
+decorations. The members' wives and their friends are all taking part
+in the scene too, bringing voters along in their carriages, and
+shaking hands with everybody indiscriminately. I heard an old navvy
+protesting once that "Lady ---- never troubled to shake 'ands with him
+any other time, but was generally that 'orty she'd step over you as
+soon as look at you."
+
+Poor old men are dragged out _nolens volens_ to add their mite to the
+public voice, and are sometimes so aged that they scarcely know what
+their opinions are. I hope I shall not live to be very old. It is a
+terrible thing when you make such a prolonged stay on this earth that
+you have to be helped off it.
+
+It is very curious too, how exceedingly disobliging old people are. I
+know a family who have never worn anything brighter than grey for
+years. "In case we have to go into mourning soon--our poor old aunt,
+you know. It's so very sad!" and they squeeze a tear out from
+somewhere, but whether on account of their relative's illness, or her
+prolonged life, is open to opinion. The old lady is flourishing still,
+and the family is as soberly clothed as ever. When she has been dead
+a few months what rainbows they will become, to make up for lost time!
+
+"A disappointing man," I have heard a dutiful nephew term his uncle.
+True, he (the uncle, I mean) is ninety-four, and therefore old enough
+to know better than to rally so many times. But after all, he does
+nothing, runs into no danger, is tended as carefully as a new-born
+baby; I should not at all wonder if he still continued "disappointing"
+and took a new lease of life for seven years. But I am digressing, and
+must return to politics.
+
+I went to a Primrose meeting once and the experience was not so happy
+as to make me wish to try it again.
+
+It amused me, certainly. The conclusion I eventually arrived at, when
+I left, was that the chief element in the Primrose League was
+gratitude! This virtue seemed to be the point round which all the
+speakers rallied.
+
+First the secretary rose, ran off a quantity of statistics, as to what
+had been done by the great League, what it was going to do, and how
+many converts had been induced to join, which was exceedingly
+uninteresting, I think, but which elicited loud applause from the rest
+of the audience. Then some resolution was passed, at which if you
+agreed you were begged "to signify the same in the usual way." After
+which those who thought differently were asked to show their feelings
+in the same fashion. I held my hand up here, but I suppose the ruling
+councillor did not expect any opposition, for he never even looked
+round to see, but gabbled off by rote, "On the contrary? carried
+unanimously!" and my amiable attempt at running counter to the rest
+was not even noticed!
+
+Then the ruling councillor gave way to Mr. ---- (here a sickly smile
+was directed at the great man), who had so very kindly come to speak
+to us this evening, who would, he felt sure, quite enchant us with
+his--er--great eloquence (another leer to his right).
+
+The great man then came forward, and with a superior smile on his
+countenance waited until the applause which greeted his entrance had
+ceased, and then began. He commenced somewhat softly, detailing all
+the advantages of the Primrose League: what it had done for England,
+the fear it arouses in the heart of the Liberal faction, how it will
+raise the country to a summit it never before has reached! No! and
+never would have reached had it not been for this flourishing, this
+powerful League! &c., &c., &c. His voice gradually grew louder and
+louder until, with beating his hands on the table, stamping violently
+over the sins of the Radicals, and perspiring vehemently in the
+effort, he presented anything but a pleasing spectacle.
+
+Of course animation like this brought down the house. The applause
+nearly deafened me, and I was quite glad when he drew near the end of
+his most tedious speech. He concluded by calming down very suddenly,
+returned to his original tones, and thanking his audience for his
+exceedingly kind reception, retired to his seat looking, as Mr.
+Mantalini would say, a "dem'd damp, moist, unpleasant body."
+
+Then up rose the ruling councillor, and called us all to pass a vote
+of thanks to the "gifted orator." Someone seconded it, and the great
+man came forward again to thank us for thanking him. A sort of "So
+glad, I'm glad, you're glad" business, it seemed to me.
+
+Then the ladies were thanked for being present: "Such great aids, and
+such an _important_ element in the League," with a snigger, and what
+he confidently hoped was a fascinating smile, but which made him
+resemble a very placid cow with the corners of its mouth turned up.
+Such a mouth, too! The poor man could have whispered in his own ear
+had he wished. Then someone returned thanks for the ladies. The ruling
+councillor was thanked, and thanked his thankers back again, and after
+a few more people had exhibited their great faculty for gratitude the
+meeting broke up--the only moment at which I felt inclined to applaud.
+
+I do not wish to disparage my own "side" by the foregoing remarks, not
+caring in any way to emulate Balaam. It is not only the members of the
+Primrose League who are so anxious to praise each other. It is the
+case at nearly every meeting you go to. It is a weakness of human
+nature. We know that if we laud our friend he will sing an eulogy on
+us the next minute, so it is only natural we should do it, after all.
+
+    "The fault is not in our stars,
+    But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ON AFTERNOON TEA.
+
+    "The Muses' friend, Tea, does our fancy aid,
+    Repress the vapors which the head invade,
+    And keeps the palace of the soul serene."
+
+
+How I do love tea! I don't deny it, it is as necessary to me as
+smoking is to men.
+
+I have heard a lady accused by her doctor of being a "tea-drunkard"!
+"Tea picks you up for a little time," he said, "and you feel a great
+deal better after you have had a cup. But it is a stimulant, the
+effect of which does not last very long, and all the while it is
+ruining your nerves and constitution. I daresay it is difficult to
+give up--the poor man finds the same with his spirits. You are no
+better than he!"
+
+It is rather a come down, is it not? Somehow, when you are drinking
+tea, you feel so very temperate. Well, at least, the above reflection
+makes you sympathize with the inebriates, if it does nothing else;
+and I am afraid it does nothing else with me. In spite of the warning,
+I continue to take my favorite beverage as strong and as frequently as
+ever, and so I suppose must look forward to a cranky nervous old age.
+
+It is curious to notice how men are invading our precincts now-a-days.
+They used to scoff at such a meal as afternoon tea, and now most of
+them take it as regularly as they stream out of the trains on Saturday
+afternoons with pink papers under their arms--such elevating
+literature! Indeed there is quite a fuss if they have to go without
+it--the tea I mean, not the paper.
+
+It is strange too, because they dislike it so, if we trespass on their
+preserves, _e.g._, their outcry on ladies smoking: which is
+exceedingly unfair, for we have no equivalent for the fragrant weed.
+Still I agree with the men in a way, for nothing looks worse than a
+girl smoking in public, though a cigarette now and then with a brother
+does, I think, no harm, provided it does not grow into a habit.
+
+My brother once gave me a cigarette and bet me a shilling that I would
+not smoke it through. It was so hard that if I had bent it, it would
+have snapped in two. He had only just found it in a corner of a
+cupboard where it had lain for years and years. But oh, the strength
+of that cigarette! It took me hours to get through, for it would not
+draw a bit. Nevertheless, with the incentive of a shilling to urge me
+on, I continued "faint but pursuing" and eventually won the bet. I
+would not do it again for ten times the amount.
+
+But I should be talking about tea, not smoking; and tea has other
+baneful influences besides destroying the digestion. I think that
+afternoon tea is the time that breeds more gossip and scandal than
+any other hour in the day.
+
+As Young exclaims:--
+
+    "Tea! How I tremble at thy fatal stream!
+    As Lethe dreadful to the love of fame.
+    What devastations on thy bank are seen,
+    What shades of mighty names that once have been!
+    A hecatomb of characters supplies
+    Thy painted alters' daily sacrifice!"
+
+Acquaintances drop in. They have all the latest doings of the
+neighborhood at their fingers' ends, and in a quarter of an hour have
+picked everyone of their most intimate friends to pieces, nor do they
+leave them a shred of character.
+
+Why do we feel such a relish in running down our friends and
+relations--the latter especially? _I_ quite enjoy it, though I should
+never do so outside my own family; thus my words never come round to
+their ears. It is a necessity to relieve your feelings occasionally,
+and your family is a good, safe receptacle.
+
+For those who have a taste for speaking spitefully of their neighbors,
+I can suggest an amusing game which was, I believe, started in Oxford.
+It is called Photograph whist, and is played by four. Two or three
+dozen photographs are dealt round, and each person plays one, he who
+plays the ugliest portrait taking the trick. The more hideous the
+photograph, the greater its value as a trump! I have played the game
+with a man who always keeps his brother to the end, and then brings
+him out with enormous success, the said brother never failing to
+overtrump any other card in the pack! So you see it is a most amiable
+game altogether. You must only be careful not to spread your doings
+abroad, or no one will present you with their portraits ever again.
+
+There is no sin so bad as being found out. You can say anything as
+long as you are not discovered to be the originator. But if your words
+against a person ever happen to get round to him or her (of course
+added to, and made almost unrecognizable in their progress) you make
+an enemy for life. At least, this is so as a rule. Personally, I never
+care what people say against me, so long as it is not true. But if
+they only keep to the truth, then it is aggravating. You cannot deny
+it! You cannot "tremble with indignation, and fling the words back in
+their faces," as the slandered heroine always does in the modern
+novel. You must simply submit to the accusation.
+
+A man I know was saying all round the place a little while ago, that
+my sisters and I "were all good looking until we opened our mouths."
+Of course we heard of it, and have never forgiven him for his "damning
+praise." But it is true. We always admit the fact. We know we show our
+teeth too much when we laugh and talk. It was impossible to disclaim
+such a statement. If he had said that we squinted, not a syllable
+would have been pronounced against him. Our eyes are all exceptionally
+good, and would bear any detrimental remarks. But no, he kept to the
+truth, and consequently has suffered ever since, for ways of revenge
+have been found which were thoroughly successful. He is the ugliest
+man I ever met too, and should therefore have been the last to offend.
+
+In spite of the tea you are invariably given on such occasions, I
+think calls--formal calls--are some of the most dreadful experiences
+Mrs. Grundy obliges you to undergo. I dislike them immensely, and
+always get out of them if possible. I hope servants do not afterwards
+record the expression of my countenance when they tell me their
+mistress is "out." It is radiant with an unholy joy!
+
+These dreadful "at home" days, too, are so provoking. If you know a
+dozen people in a neighborhood, you can only call on one at a time.
+They all have different days! This may seem slightly impossible; but
+it is not indeed. While one lady's house is open to visitors on the
+first and third Wednesdays in the month, another is on view on the
+second and fourth, and so on. Not two people agree!
+
+Small talk, I think, is never so small as on these occasions. The poor
+weather is thorougly worn out, a few mutual friends are picked to
+pieces, and of course there is a discussion about dress. Sometimes you
+hear some sad account of the lady's second cousin's daughter, and you
+have immediately to clothe your countenance in a sober garb. You must
+look grieved, and all the while not caring one straw if the cousin's
+daughter has fits or gets insane, or anything else she cares to do.
+You have never heard of her before, and therefore have not the
+slightest interest in her eccentricities. I always feel so terribly
+inclined to laugh, just because I ought to be doing the other thing.
+
+People are so fond of talking about their troubles and griefs. The
+greater the sorrow, the greater the discussion. They call up tears to
+their eyes, as if the subject were too sacred to approach. But such
+tears are kept for the purpose. They come at their bidding, and fall
+as naturally into their place as if the exhibition had been practiced
+beforehand. It is a positive enjoyment to such people to detail their
+grievances.
+
+With the lower classes, this, so to speak, gloating over your losses
+is even more apparent. One comparatively well-to-do woman I know,
+seems to have a monopoly of funerals. There is always some relation
+dead, and off she goes with an important air, draped from head to foot
+in black; the picture of "loathed melancholy" outwardly; inwardly,
+glowing with pride; while all her neighbors stand outside their doors,
+literally consumed with jealousy at her good fortune! And then the
+terrible moment of her return, when you are obliged, whether you will
+or not, to listen to the whole account, the description, the progress,
+and finally the interment of "the corpse"! I hope, however dead I may
+be one day, that I shall never be described as "a corpse"! There is
+something so horrible in the word, I always think. It makes you even
+more dead than you are. It cuts you so absolutely off from the living.
+
+Then there are those tiresome people who talk of nothing but their
+own families. The mother from whom you hear all the ailments of her
+children if they are young, all the conquests of her daughters if they
+are old. The sisters, to prevent the accusation of vanity, do not
+praise themselves, but arrive at the same end by lauding up each
+other! These "mutual admiration" families, as Wilkie Collins so aptly
+terms them, are families to be shunned.
+
+You do not very often come across men on these "at home" days. If they
+are in the house, they wisely avoid the drawing-room; and if you ever
+do meet one, he is sure to be a very milk-and-water young man--one who
+delights in small talk and small matters; or else a curate.
+
+I met one of the former class the other day. He was a dreadful
+specimen! A large head, a bland smile, a vacant stare, and an enormous
+capacity for eating!
+
+He came and sat by me when I first arrived; but when he made a slip of
+the tongue, and I brought it to his notice kindly, but firmly, he went
+away and sulked for the rest of the afternoon.
+
+He was talking about the recent muzzling order, and added, in quick
+little tones, "They are talking about muzzling cats, I see."
+
+"But cats do not bite," I objected.
+
+"No," in mild surprise at my ignorance; "but they scratch."
+
+"And do they intend to muzzle their paws?" I asked, smiling; adding a
+suggestion that two pairs of goloshes apiece would answer the purpose
+admirably, besides having the combined advantage of keeping the poor
+things from rheumatism!
+
+But he did not smile. He saw nothing funny in what he had said. He
+thought I was laughing at him, and so left me at the very first
+opportunity, and went and sat by himself at the tea table. I could not
+very well see what he was doing, for his back was turned; howbeit it
+was a very eloquent back--a back which appeared absorbed in bread and
+butter and cakes! He must have cleared the table, I should think,
+before he had finished!
+
+It certainly is not nice to be caught up suddenly and made to appear
+foolish. If you ever make a mistake, the best way is to confess it at
+once, to tell the tale yourself. It sounds very different from your
+lips than from those of your dearest friends. People laugh, but it is
+a laugh that lacks the sting it would have if someone else told it at
+your expense.
+
+I remember making a woeful slip when I was taken over a cotton mill.
+The man who was conducting us pointed to what looked like a heap of
+dirty wool, and explained that it was the raw material. "And is that
+just as it comes off the sheep's back?" I asked, unthinkingly. If a
+thunderbolt had fallen in our midst the guide could not have been more
+astonished. "Cotton, Miss!" he said, with grave surprise, "_Cotton_ is
+a plant!" I inquired for no further information in that cotton mill,
+but I told the story myself when I reached home, joining in the
+laughter that followed as heartily as any of my audience.
+
+Curates are more the rule than the exception at the five o'clock meal.
+Somehow, you always connect the two. Afternoon tea without a curate
+sounds an anomaly, a something incomplete.
+
+I have had great experience in curates. Ours is a large parish, and
+many clerical helps are needed. Large, small, nice, objectionable,
+ugly, handsome--I have met specimens of each and all, and have come
+to the conclusion that the last kind is the worst. How rarely do you
+meet a good-looking man who thinks of anything but his appearance. It
+is strange, for the more lovely a woman is the less apparently
+conscious she is of her beauty. At any rate, she does not go about
+with an expression which seems to say, "I am that which is 'a joy
+forever'--admire me!"
+
+The "pale young curate" type is perhaps the most general. This poor
+thing is so depressingly shy--I say depressingly, because his shyness
+affects his company. You try to draw him out. You ask question after
+question, and have to supply the answers yourself, only obtaining, by
+way of reward, despairing upward glances, that are by no means an
+encouragement to proceed.
+
+The most fatal effect of this shyness, however, lies in the fact that
+he dare not get up to go! He sits toying with his hat, he picks up his
+umbrella three or four times, and lets it drop again; finally,
+starting up with a rush in the middle of a conversation, he hurries
+out, shaking hands all round with everyone but his hostess!
+
+Would it be a very heinous breach of etiquette, if after an hour and a
+half of this curate's company, one should suggest diffidently that it
+was time to go?
+
+In strong contrast, there is the bold, dashing man, who only comes
+when he knows all the daughters are at home, not so much because it
+gives him pleasure to see them, as because he would not deprive them
+of the pleasure of talking to him. He has a faith in himself that
+removes mountains; no lady's heart can beat regularly in his presence,
+according to his confident opinion.
+
+So on the whole I do not think afternoon tea is so nice abroad as it
+is at home. It is not so pleasant with many as with a chosen few. I am
+selfish, I am afraid, but I must confess I enjoy mine most with the
+sole company of a roaring fire, a very easy chair, and a novel!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ON DRESS.
+
+
+I do not know who was the originator of the remark, but it has often
+been said, and is generally admitted, that women do not dress to
+please the men, but to outdo one another.
+
+I think just the same might be said of men in their turn. It is after
+all this spirit of competition which helps to make the world go round.
+It is innate in man, and woman too, to always try to outrun each
+other.
+
+With clothes it is undoubtedly the case. The ancient Briton must have
+vied with his neighbor in different designs with the woad plant. An
+unusual curve, an uncommon pattern, caused, I daresay, as much
+excitement then as the fashions of our own day.
+
+I often wonder how they will manage some points in the histories for
+the coming generation. In most of these books you see illustrations
+and descriptions of the dress of the period, the costume of the reign.
+How, oh historians! can you show forth those of Victorian times? Fifty
+years have passed already! There were four seasons in each of those
+fifty years! Two hundred illustrations must be shown in order to give
+a correct idea of the dress of the time! Perhaps it might be more
+satisfactory to devote a volume exclusively to the subject.
+
+If only we did not run on so quickly! We seem to get faster every
+year. In a very little time, what we wear one day will be quite out of
+date the next! When we arrive at this climax, there will be a sudden
+convulsion of nature, I should think, and we shall return once more to
+the more simple garb of the aborigines. What an amount of trouble it
+would save us! No worrying because the dressmaker has not sent our
+gowns home in time! No sending them back to be altered! No
+dressmaker's or tailor's bills; or at the least, very small ones; for
+"woad" could not ruin us _very_ much.
+
+So on the whole it would be well perhaps if this revolution did occur.
+Some such convulsion as geologists declare has already frequently
+befallen our earth; and, as they prophesy, is shortly coming again.
+
+I do not like talking to these scientific men. They make you feel so
+infinitesimally small. They go back such a long, long way. They make
+out that from the Creation (which by the way they do not admit, only
+considering it another great change in the world springing from
+natural causes), from the Creation until now, is the space of a moment
+on the great clock of time, is a mere "parenthesis in eternity."
+
+It is not nice to feel such a nonentity. What are our lives, our
+little lives in comparison? We, who each consider ourselves the one
+person upon the earth, the hero or heroine in the great drama: all the
+rest mere by-characters. We do not care to be considered of such
+little consequence; only puppets appearing on the stage for one moment
+and taken off the next. We are like the clergyman in the small island
+off the North of Scotland, who prayed for the inhabitants "of Great
+Cumbray and Little Cumbray and the neighboring islands of Great
+Britain and Ireland!" On our small piece of land, we yet consider
+ourselves the centre of the universe.
+
+It is to be hoped if this revolution occurs, after all, that the
+climate will change likewise. We should require something more besides
+blue paint in most of our English winters!
+
+Perhaps we take too much thought for what we shall put on. They say
+that nothing but the prevailing and forthcoming fashions fill the
+feminine mind. It is true sometimes, I daresay, and yet I always agree
+with our immortal bard in thinking that "Self-love is not so vile a
+thing as self-neglect."
+
+It is decidedly better to think too much than too little. It is a duty
+to your country and your nation to look your best, no matter who is
+likely to see you.
+
+Of course it can be overdone, _e.g._, the lady who insisted on her
+bonnet being trimmed on the right because that was the side presented
+to the congregation! And she, I am afraid, is only a type of many.
+
+There is no reason why this should be the rule; yet nearly everyone
+seems to bring out their new clothes on Sunday, and exhibit them in
+Church. I suppose it is because they meet so many friends there, and
+with laudable unselfishness wish them all equally to enjoy the sight.
+
+"What's the good of your going to church?" a man said to me once; "you
+only go to show off your gown and look about to see who has a new
+bonnet and who has not! Now, when _I_ go," he went on in a superior
+way, "I don't notice a single thing anyone has on!"
+
+"No," I answered quietly, "but you could tell me exactly how many
+pretty girls were amongst the congregation, and describe their
+features accurately!" And he not only forbore to deny the accusation,
+but admitted it with pride! No girl, he assured me, with any pretence
+to good looks, ever escaped _his_ notice.
+
+Which was the worse, I wonder; he or I? At least I did not glory in my
+misdeeds.
+
+"_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_;" and I _have_ suffered sometimes.
+How often I used to burn myself when I first began to curl my hair!
+This is such an arduous task, too, with me, for my hair is, as my old
+nurse used to call it, "like a yard o' pumpwater" (I never went to her
+when I wanted a compliment). It certainly is straight, and I find it a
+matter of great difficulty to give it the appearance of natural
+curls. But "practice makes perfect," they say, so I still persevere,
+hoping that it may come right some day. I have to be so careful in
+damp and rainy weather. It is such a shock to look at yourself after a
+day's outing, to find your "fringe" hanging in straight lines all down
+your forehead, an arrangement that is so particularly unbecoming. You
+begin to wonder at what time during the day it commenced to unbend,
+and if you have had that melancholy, damp appearance many hours.
+Perhaps it is as well that you did not know before, for it could not
+have been rectified; you cannot bring a pair of tongs and a
+spirit-lamp out of your pocket and begin operations in public! Still
+it is exceedingly aggravating if you think you have been making an
+impression, and you return home to confront such a dejected-looking
+spectacle as you find in your mirror.
+
+I am wandering again. Let me get back to my subject--Dress. To insure
+a good fit you must have your gown so tight that it is impossible to
+raise your arms. You are obliged to walk about stiffly, with all the
+appearance of a trussed fowl. If you wish to put on your hat you must
+first unbutton your bodice! It is particularly awkward, too, in
+Church: you scarcely have the power to hold your book at seeing
+distance. But what do such trifles matter? You look as if you had been
+melted and poured into your gown. What are a few discomforts, more or
+less, when you have procured an effect such as that?
+
+I always like to look as tall as possible. Five feet four is not a
+very great height; so, to give the appearance of another inch I have
+my skirts made as long as possible; that is to say, they just don't
+sweep the pavement, and that is all. But, oh! the trouble of that
+extra inch! Unfortunately I have no carriage, my present pecuniary
+condition does not permit me the luxury of hansoms, and I always avoid
+an omnibus, where you have fat old men sitting nearly on the top of
+you, wet umbrellas streaming on to your boots, squalling babies, and
+disputes with the conductor continuing most of the way--not to speak
+of the time you have to wait while so many roll by "full inside!" So
+on muddy days, when I take my walks, the amount of distress I have to
+undergo on account of the length of my gown is inconceivable. I grow
+weary with holding it up, and have to stop in the middle of the street
+to change hands, and when you have an umbrella as well, and sometimes
+a small parcel besides, this performance is anything but a momentary
+matter. You drop your gown, the umbrella changes hands, and the parcel
+generally falls in the mud! While picking it up, four impatient, wet,
+mackintoshed pedestrians knock against you, and go off uttering
+imprecations on your head. And when you are once again comfortably
+settled, your satisfaction does not last long. Your left hand tires as
+soon as your right, and the scene has all to be acted over again.
+
+There is a great deal of "_savoir faire_" in holding up. Your gown
+must be high enough to quite clear the ground, but then comes the
+danger of holding it too high. There has been no license yet granted
+for the exhibition of ankles in the great metropolis either by Mrs.
+Grundy or the County Councils; therefore "holding up" becomes a very
+delicate performance.
+
+Though we do not dress only to please the men, I always prefer their
+criticisms on a costume to those of my own sex. You can never tell if
+the latter speak the truth. They may be jealous, and run it down from
+spite; they may want to gain something from you, and so call yours "a
+perfection of a gown, and suits you admirably, my dear!" disliking it
+exceedingly in their inmost hearts.
+
+But a man never gives his approbation unless he really means what he
+says, and he is not difficult to please as a rule. So long as the
+costume is neat and well-fitting, he does not care about anything
+else. It is the _tout ensemble_ he thinks of, not the thousand and one
+details that go to make up the whole.
+
+I wonder why so many men dislike large hats! It is a pity, for they
+are so very becoming to some faces, and give a picturesque effect
+altogether. Perhaps this last is a reason for their disapproval. They
+never like their womankind to attract attention.
+
+The most unpardonable sin one woman can commit against another, is to
+copy her clothes and bring the style out as her own idea. It is
+intensely irritating! If she admits she has copied or asks your leave
+beforehand, it is a different matter. You are even gratified then,
+for "imitation is the sincerest flattery." But to have your ideas
+stolen and brought out in such a way as to convey the impression that
+you are the imitator, to say the least, arouses murderous intentions
+in your heart!
+
+There are times, too, when you receive a shock to your vanity; times
+when you are quite satisfied with your appearance, and find to your
+dismay that everyone is not of the same opinion.
+
+I remember once when I was dining out and feeling very pleased with my
+_tout ensemble_, I was disillusioned in a way that not only upset my
+self-confidence, but my gravity at the same time. To heighten the
+general effect, I had stuck a patch near my mouth. (Oh, the minds of
+the last century! From whose fertile brain did it emanate, I wonder,
+the fact that a piece of black plaster on the face, should be so
+eminently becoming!) Imagine my horror when the maid, an old servant I
+knew very well, took me aside and whispered confidentially, "Oh, Miss!
+you've got _such_ a big smut on your chin!"
+
+Clothes are altogether a great nuisance, I think. How tired you get of
+the regular routine of the morning toilet; always the same, never any
+variety. Why are we not born, like dogs, with nice cosy rugs all over
+us, so that we should just have to get out of bed in the morning,
+shake ourselves, and be ready at once to go down to breakfast and do
+the business of the day?
+
+"Ah well! God knows what's best for us all," as an old charwoman said
+to me, years ago, when she was remarking on how I had grown. I never
+saw the application of the remark, and do not think I ever shall.
+Whether my growth was a subject to deplore, and she tried to comfort
+me, or not, I cannot say; but she was evidently proud of the remark,
+for she repeated it three times!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+It is such a prickly time. Not only everything but everybody is
+positively bristling with prickles. Go where you will, you cannot
+avoid these pointed, jagged edges. You come across them everywhere,
+and have to suffer accordingly.
+
+To begin with, there is the holly. Now you could not find anything
+lovelier in the way of foliage than holly, only such a little
+suffices. At Christmas time you are literally saturated with it. In
+every house you enter, in everything you eat, at every step you take,
+nothing but holly, holly, holly.
+
+Then there are the Church decorations, begun generally a week
+beforehand. All the ladies of the place assemble in the vestry,
+attracted there by divers reasons. Some, by the desire to have a
+finger in every pie; some, because it is an opportunity to meet the
+curates; and some, but a very few, from real love of the work. I
+cannot understand these latter, I must confess. It is the most
+disagreeable work I have ever undertaken. Such dirty work, too! Your
+hands or your gloves grow perfectly black under the operation; and it
+is a curious thing, that when this stage is reached, your nose
+invariably begins to itch, and you forget the condition of your
+fingers, and--well, the result is anything but becoming! It is so
+comfortable, too, walking about the vestry, isn't it? The holly grows
+so affectionate to your ankles, and at every step squash goes a berry,
+and all its middle oozes out and sticks to the sole of your boot. When
+you go home, you find you are at least an inch taller by reason of the
+many corpses of berries you have collected!
+
+Yes, Christmas decorations are delightful altogether. And so the
+clergymen think, when they become excited in their sermons, and bring
+their fists down sharply on some charming arrangement of holly round
+the pulpit. They do not actually swear then, but their faces express
+sufficiently all they would like to say; it rather spoils the effect
+of the discourse, especially if the text be on the virtue of patience.
+
+As I said before, everybody is prickly at Christmas time, especially
+one's relations. And so, to make the season as festive as possible,
+we, in our sensible way, collect as many of these cheerful, sociable
+beings together as we can; and, in short, make a delightful family
+party. Holly? it is an insult to the tree to compare it in any way.
+No, I think the whole gathering resembles a hedgehog more than
+anything else. It is one _mass_ of prickles. Ah, these happy family
+parties! Is there ever one member that agrees with another, I wonder?
+
+There is the crabbed old maiden aunt, always on the defensive, never
+without the idea that someone is waging war against her. Yet she has
+to be treated civilly, and humored. Has she not that which some people
+term "filthy lucre," but never really think so? Have these old ladies
+ever had any youth? Have they ever danced and enjoyed themselves like
+other people? What has made them so sour, so bitter? Is it
+disappointment or regret? Poor old souls! In spite of their money,
+they never seem happy. They are to be pitied, I think, though they do
+try to make themselves as disagreeable as possible. They are so
+independent, too, they will not be interfered with. They know
+everything better than any one else. One old lady I used to know
+declined altogether to have a lawyer, insisting on making her will
+herself. It was found afterwards, fortunately not too late, that she
+had appointed herself her own executor!
+
+Then there is the maternal grandmother; to whom, of course, the host
+is openly rude. This wears you out more than anything, for you have
+always to be ready to smooth over and soften every sentence that is
+said. And she never helps you at all, either. If she can possibly put
+her foot in it, and unconsciously irritate her son-in-law more than
+ever, she does it.
+
+Then the uncle who spends his life in making the most villainous puns
+you ever heard. Not a remark, not a word in any assembly, which this
+witty specimen of humanity does not at once garnish with a pun of the
+poorest description. It generally has to be repeated twice, too, for
+it is never noticed the first time. The poor pun, indeed, has a most
+melancholy existence, for it is greeted with no other applause than
+that emanating from the author of its being, and stirs up a torrent of
+abuse from the maiden aunt, who thinks the laughter is directed at
+her.
+
+Why were punsters ever invented, or family parties either? They are
+our thorns in the flesh, I suppose, and so must be endured.
+
+After dancing attendance upon these lively old people during the day,
+the least you expect is a good night's rest to support and invigorate
+you for the battles on the following day. But no, at Christmas time
+any repose is denied you.
+
+You are just off to sleep, forgetful of all troubles and strife, when
+you are rudely awakened and brought back to the present by the most
+awful screechings under your window. Morpheus flies, he has a musical
+ear has that god, and when once, "Oh, come let us adore him," with a
+concertina accompaniment, both voices and instrument woefully out of
+tune; when once these harmonious strains have started, that good old
+deity goes, to return no more that night.
+
+Where does the pleasure come in, I wonder? Certainly not to us fuming
+inside; and surely not to those poor deluded people squalling outside!
+It must be so cold, so raw; and they never get appreciated, these
+so-called "waits"--oh, if they only would _not_ wait, but go away
+somewhere else, how much more satisfactory for us all!
+
+No, Christmas is not a soothing time. It does not altogether improve
+your temper. How glad I am when the festive season draws to a close,
+and the last petitioner for Christmas-boxes goes on his way rejoicing.
+To me it always realizes that period so often referred to by the lower
+classes, "a month o' Sundays." So much church and so few posts!
+
+It certainly is a little more interesting when the presents come in.
+There is a kind of excitement about them; and it is not until the
+following day, when you find yourself with a dozen letters of
+gratitude to indite, that you feel that perhaps, after all, you might
+have done without them.
+
+There is nothing so annoying as being obliged to write letters when
+you do not feel inclined. It is a great art, this letter writing, and
+very few possess it. People often think they do, and they write for
+writing's sake; but these letters are most wearying to read. Between
+every line you seem to see the words, "Is not this a charming letter?"
+and in reality you are so bored it is all you can do to reach the end.
+Then those dreadful persons who "cross and recross" their epistles in
+every direction! Paper is not so dear but that they could at least
+afford a fly-leaf. They defeat their own ends, too, for their letters
+are never legible, and they have to write again to explain their
+meaning, thus paying another penny away in postage.
+
+Why do we not make a stand against the old forms? Why should we always
+tread in the footmarks of our ancestors, instead of making tracks of
+our own? "Dear Mr. So-and-So," we write to a man almost a stranger to
+us. Imagine his surprise if we addressed him so to his face! And we
+end in just such a foolish and unreasonable way, "Yours obediently,
+faithfully, truly!" Where is the sense? Your signature should be quite
+enough. You have to be so careful, too, in saying whether you are
+obedient, faithful, or affectionate to your correspondent. If you end
+too warmly, by mistake, the whole letter has to be written again. It
+is not a thing you can scratch out or correct. It would look so very
+bad.
+
+People have different ideas of "Christmasing." Some prefer to adopt an
+unsteady gait, and to spend the night in a ditch or a police-station;
+some have a taste for family parties; some like it better by
+themselves, and some go right away and spend the time at a different
+place every year. These last are, I think, by far the most sensible.
+It is a mistake to have land-marks to remind you how time is running
+on, how friends have left, how the loved ones have passed away. The
+vacant place appears even more empty. The old happy times show out
+even happier in contrast to the present. You cannot enjoy yourself or
+forget the past, for
+
+    "A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
+
+It is far better to go away somewhere to places which recall no
+sorrows or recollections and have no associations with the years gone
+by.
+
+He is growing such a foolish old man is Father Christmas. He rarely
+visits us now with hoary head, his garments sparkling with frost and
+snow. He is tired of all that. He likes a change of fashion, like
+everybody else. He either comes so thickly enveloped in yellow fog
+that you can scarcely distinguish the old man, or else he arrives so
+drenched with rain and splashed up to the beard in mud that we
+scarcely like to open our doors to him.
+
+He is growing old, I suppose, and trembling on the brink of second
+childhood, so we must not blame him. But still he is not a very great
+favorite of mine, and I cannot refrain from echoing the complaint in
+one of the comic papers--"_Why doesn't he strike, like the rest?_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ON THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+At which season, I wonder, is the country most lovely, most enjoyable!
+Is it in the spring, with its richly-colored carpet, its young green
+leaves, its delicious perfumes, its glorious freshness? Ah, why cannot
+we, like the trees, put off our old sinful world-steeped habits, and
+year by year bud out in purest innocence once again? The hedges, but a
+week ago barren and bare, are now clothed in brightest apparel, the
+greenest of cloaks thrown over them, lifting up their heads and
+sharing in the general rejoicing, in the glory of their annual
+resurrection. Is it in summer, with its myriads of blooms, and its
+thousand thousand happy voices, the silent torpid river, basking in
+the light of the sun, and responding only to the fishes as they frisk
+near the surface? Or is it in the autumn, with its many shades, with
+its long avenues on which nature has lavished whole tubes of burnt
+sienna and vermilion; when you tread on gorgeous paths heavy with
+golden leaves? Oh, why are we not as lovely in our autumn of life as
+nature is in hers? Why, when she decks herself in the gayest coloring,
+do we don our soberest garb? _We_ do not gain in splendor as we grow
+older. We lose our beauties and our charms one by one, till at last we
+stand destitute. Oh, cruel Time to treat us so!
+
+    "Time that doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
+    And delves the parallels in Beauty's brow."
+
+And yet "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." While He takes from
+us our youth He also takes away the inclination to be young. We pine
+for the happy days of childhood; yet, if the power were given us, who
+would wish himself back in the past? We feel we should always like to
+be young, but should we not get very weary of the world, should we not
+wish for some kind of change?
+
+Or is nature at her best when the year is dead and the earth puts on
+her spotless white shroud, when everything around has fallen asleep,
+and only robins are left to join in the wake?
+
+Unanswerable question. There are too many opinions. Some prefer
+winter, some summer; some like the heat, some like the cold. Only in
+one thing do we agree, and that is, in our taste for variety, for
+change. Much as we admire the country, lovely as it is, it would not
+suit many to live there all the year round. The peace and quiet of our
+woodland scenes make us enjoy the town life all the more, while the
+unceasing turmoil of the season makes us hail with delight the idea of
+once more being
+
+    "Far from the madding crowd."
+
+The very thought refreshes you. There is something exhilarating in our
+journey country-wards, long and tiring though it may be. Few people
+care about a railway journey, and yet with one or two kindred spirits
+I think it most enjoyable.
+
+Traveling alone in the midst of strangers, you do feel rather
+melancholy. You try to read, and when you are tired of chasing the
+words up and down the page, you look out of the window and admire the
+scenery as you flit past until your eyes ache to such an extent you
+are obliged to withdraw your gaze and be satisfied with the study of
+human nature, as far as it can be procured from the inmates of your
+compartment. Finally you go to sleep, only to wake up after a few
+minutes, to find the eyes of all your fellow passengers upon you, and
+this serves to make you nervous and uncomfortable. You dare not close
+your eyes again. You feel sure it is the signal for everyone to turn
+in your direction, and you will not gratify them.
+
+Then comes luncheon time, when we all begin to grow fidgety, and take
+surreptitious looks at our watches, and then glance round at our
+companions to see if anyone is taking the first plunge. Hopeless
+quest! Nobody ever _will_ be the first to begin to eat in a railway
+carriage. Why is it, I wonder? Are they afraid none of the others will
+follow suit, and they be left to eat all alone? It would be nervous
+work, certainly. You would feel so dreadfully greedy, and yet if you
+offered any of your fellow travelers even a sandwich, they would peek
+up their heads, give you an astonished look, and decline shortly but
+with decision. You are made to feel you have insulted them, and yet
+they had such a hungry expression! Rarely indeed, though, do you
+undergo such an experience. You only have to rise, and reach down your
+basket, and behold! the next moment all the carriage is feeding. We
+are nothing but sheep after all. One leads the way, and we all follow.
+
+When you have once made a start, eating on a railway journey is easy
+enough work; it is when you grow thirsty that the difficulty comes in.
+You pour the sherry, claret, whatever you have (some take milk in a
+green bottle--not a very tempting beverage to look at!) on to the
+floor, over your gown, on your neighbor's foot (thereby eliciting a
+most unholy frown from the recipient of your bounty), anywhere,
+indeed, except in your glass. Even if you are fortunate enough to
+catch a few drops, it is another Herculaean effort to take it to your
+mouth. No, drinking in the train, while it is in motion, requires
+years of practice.
+
+Then again, your fellow passengers are not always all that can be
+desired. Often they are neither pleasant in themselves nor interesting
+as a study. I traveled with an awful old lady the other day. She had
+six small packages with her in the carriage, besides her hand-bag and
+umbrellas and half the contents of an extra luggage van. The
+long-suffering porter who had looked after her boxes and finally put
+her in the train, was crimson with his exertions. The generous lady,
+having searched several pockets before finding the necessary coin,
+bestowed on him a threepenny piece for his trouble! "Thank yer, mum,"
+he went off muttering grimly, "I'll bore a 'ole in the middle and 'ang
+it round my neck."
+
+This good dame never ceased to worry all through the journey. She
+pulled her things from under the seat and put them up in the rack, and
+then reversed their locality. At each station she called frantically
+to the guard to know where she was and if she ought to change.
+Finally, when we reached our destination, it was proved that she had
+taken her ticket to one place and had her luggage labelled to another;
+and there she was, standing on the platform gesticulating violently,
+while the train was steaming off with her belongings. What happened I
+do not know, for I was hurried off by my friends; but I should think
+it would be long before she and her luggage met again.
+
+Fortunately she never knew how near she was to her death. If ever I
+had murderous intentions in my heart, it was on that journey north.
+
+You do not feel very affectionate toward the country on a wet day.
+Indeed, it is a most mournful affair altogether, unless you have a
+particularly merry house party. There is absolutely nothing to do. The
+heavens weep at such inopportune moments too. There is sure to be some
+large picnic, some delightful gathering on the "tapis," when they
+choose to exhibit their griefs. And they never notice how unwelcome
+such a display of feelings is, but go on weeping, weeping, weeping all
+day long, until at last you catch the malady yourself, and are obliged
+perforce to mingle a few of your own tears with theirs.
+
+No, there is simply nothing to be done, and Satan has quite a
+difficulty to find enough work for all the idle hands. Some can be
+perfectly happy in spending all their time in solving the intricacies
+of those many wonderful puzzles which have appeared lately as a sort
+of antidote to the mischief generally supposed to be perpetrated by
+the aforesaid gentleman. Unfortunately, an entirely contrary effect is
+produced on me. They did not look far enough ahead when they made me.
+They could not conceive the wonderful minds of this time, and so did
+not endow me with a sufficient quantity of patience. If they could
+have imagined those marvelous little tin saucers, with shot running in
+and out of horse-shoes, &c., with _me_ in the perspective, well, I
+think they would have gone about their work more carefully, and
+perhaps brought about a happier result. As it is, the puzzles are
+always swept away now at my approach. I have smashed so many.
+
+It is base ingratitude, too, on my part, to bring them to so speedy an
+end; for what I owe to those dear little things I am powerless to
+express. Those entertaining people who sit speechless, and only answer
+yes and no with an eternal smile on their faces: give them a puzzle.
+There is no further effort to amuse them required on your part. They
+are at once absorbed in "shot." Their only idea is to successfully get
+them into their places. They never do; but being good thorough-going
+characters will never give up the attempt.
+
+You meet several of these people in the country, but they never get
+very friendly. You shock them too much with your "London manners."
+They vote you "fast," and turn aside, fearful of contamination for
+their daughters.
+
+Oh, the dreariness, the heaviness of a country dinner party! It seems
+to last four times as long as any other--parish, horses, or crops the
+only topic of conversation. How can you be interested in old Jane
+Smith's rheumatism when you have never heard of her before; in the
+swelling of a favorite mare's hock, when you did not know it possessed
+such a thing. People's views grow so dreadfully narrow, shut up in
+their small parish. Their stock of conversation is so very small. It
+is wise to find out your dinner partner at once, and avoid that man as
+you would a disease until the meal is announced. If not, if you
+accidentally get in his neighborhood, and he talks to you, all his
+conversation is at once exhausted, and you are obliged to hear it over
+again at table, or submit to an interesting silence.
+
+Dinner parties anywhere are, I think, a mistake. It is a wicked waste
+of time to spend nearly three hours over eating and drinking. And you
+require such a very interesting "taker-in" to make it bearable at all.
+
+The river is the nicest way of spending a holiday, in my opinion; you
+are so free and untrammeled. Mrs. Grundy even waives some of her laws
+on the river. The smaller the cottage, the more primitive the place,
+the more enjoyable it is. You can spend your time on the water, and
+when you are tired of that, you can hire a pony and trap and drive
+through some of the loveliest bits of English scenery, to your heart's
+content.
+
+Only be careful before engaging your pony to find out its previous
+occupations. It is a necessary caution, I assure you. It once took me
+nearly an hour to drive out of one of the smallest villages
+imaginable. And why? Because my pony had formerly belonged to the
+butcher, and insisted on first going his rounds! I coaxed, I
+persuaded, I lashed him, but it was all of no avail. On he trotted
+until he reached the familiar doors of his late customers, and then he
+stopped and _would_ not go on for at least five minutes. One place
+was worse than any. I could not get him away for over a
+quarter-of-an-hour. This rather mystified me until I was told later
+that the butcher was on "walking out" terms with the cook residing
+there!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ON TOWN.
+
+
+There is not much difference of opinion as to when Town is at its
+best. Perhaps a few misanthropists, wrapped up in their little selves
+and their narrow thoughts, would shut themselves up during the season,
+in order to escape the pain of witnessing us all in our ungodly
+career. Shallow butterflies they call us. And what do they know about
+our lives? They judge from appearances; and because we wear a cheerful
+expression, shutting down our cares and struggles in our inmost
+hearts, and not burdening other people with them, we are called
+shallow and worldly. No, you good and godly people, what do you know
+about us? You are no more capable of judging than the ephemera, which
+lives but for a day, and so must consider the world all sunshine, all
+light. How can it imagine the night which closes round later on, when
+neither it nor any of its ancestors have ever lived to see it?
+
+You ought to be punished for your ignorant mutterings. You complain of
+the well-dressed happy throng. You should be turned out in the streets
+in August and September, and if the utter destitution does not shortly
+turn your brains back in the right direction I am afraid your case is
+hopeless.
+
+Does any place come up to London I wonder? Having never been out of
+England I cannot give an opinion. Unfortunately I have not the gift,
+like some people, of either imagining or describing places I have
+never seen--descriptions generally gleaned from other books and
+compiled under one authorship as original compositions. Why cannot
+they be content with laying their English stories in English scenery:
+places they know well and can write about. Some save up their money in
+order to go abroad and visit one particular place, so as to bring new
+scenes into their new books. But ah, how weary you get of this one
+place! It is brought into at least three of their next novels.
+Everything, past, present and future seems to happen there. Your one
+prayer, as you lay down the book, is to the effect that they may soon
+be able to save up a little more and visit another spot.
+
+There is so much going on in May, June, and July, that it is a
+difficulty to get through all your engagements and yet see everything
+there is to be seen. Then there is the Park. Two or three hours of the
+day must at least be spent in the Park. There we all come out to show
+ourselves and to look at others. There the equestrians canter up and
+down the Row. Such equestrians too! If foreigners take their ideas of
+English riding from the Row, they must form a high opinion of our
+horsemanship.
+
+There are the loungers flocking around their friends or walking up and
+down in the hope of admiration. And they get it too, for who could
+help admiring such master-pieces of a tailor's skill? Are these really
+the descendants of that Adam whose posterity had all to earn their
+bread by the sweat of their brow? These automatons, whose only
+business in life seems to be to look after pretty women and
+themselves? Men are supposed to be bread winners, but they have a
+very easy time of it, I think, though they generally try to make
+themselves out so overworked. Go into that great centre of business,
+the City, and you find everyone of these busy men out and about,
+always apparently in a great hurry, never seeming to arrive at any
+destination, running about and hustling each other, occasionally
+meeting an acquaintance, which proves a good opportunity for one to
+stand the other a "drink." A funny way men have of showing their
+affection, have they not? "Ah! how de do, old fellow? Come and have a
+drink," is their invariable salutation to an intimate friend. After
+all it is better than the mutual kissing on the part of women, which
+is the more emphatic the more they dislike one another. Men are less
+demonstrative and therefore more sincere in their friendships. Anyhow
+there cannot be many at work in their offices, or where could this
+idle crowd come from?
+
+In spite of their haste, though, they generally find time to stare at
+any woman who crosses their path. Why should not a woman go to the
+City? She has as much right there as man, and yet if she is in the
+least degree superior to the flower girls (?) who surround the Royal
+Exchange, she is looked on as a freak of nature, a positive curiosity,
+and is followed by every pair of male eyes within reach!
+
+Mrs. Grundy is inclined to rather overdo her season, I think. There is
+so much she might leave undone, so many things that "never would be
+missed." Imagine the gratitude that would be displayed to anyone who
+would put down and demolish those dreadful crushes, so called "at
+homes," where nobody ever is at home; where you have neither space nor
+air from the moment you arrive until the glad time comes for
+departing. Does anyone enjoy them, I wonder! Does anybody like being
+literally baked with heat, which I am sure must exceed even that at
+Mexico; where one of the inhabitants of that delightful climate, when
+he died and went to perdition, found the contrast so striking that he
+was obliged to send home for his greatcoat!
+
+Still, I suppose such entertainments will continue to exist. They are
+a good deal cheaper than balls or dinners, and you can "knock off"
+ever so many people at the same time.
+
+It is well, at any rate, to consider economy in some matters in these
+wofully extravagant days. When the shops are decked out in their
+gayest colors to lure us on to destruction, why is it that "just the
+very thing you want" is placed so conspicuously in the front of the
+window, put cunningly near a mirror too, so that you see it all the
+way round, and it appears doubly precious?
+
+How convenient it is, by the way, when they have mirrors in the shop
+windows. You can look to see if your hat is straight, or your veil
+nicely arranged, without being credited with vanity. You are supposed
+to be admiring the bonnets displayed to view, not yourself. Girls make
+a great mistake when they take little surreptitious glances at any
+mirror they come across. The action is always noticed and condemned;
+while if they, instead, went up boldly, ostensibly to smooth their
+hair or alter a pin, it would be taken as a matter of course.
+
+It so soon grows into a habit, this always looking about for your
+reflection, and one that is very difficult to get out of. Not that the
+men are at all behind us in this respect. There are not many of our
+little follies that the lords of creation do not take up and
+cultivate. You see them at dinner, addressing nearly all their
+conversation opposite--where hangs a mirror. At dances they are
+admiring and smiling at their reflections the whole evening, finding
+far more satisfaction in gazing there than at their partner, even
+though she be the loveliest in the land.
+
+But to return to my subject. (I seem to be always wandering away.) You
+need never be idle in town. A wet day even makes no difference, when a
+place teems with picture galleries, as London does. They are such good
+places to meet your friends. You always see someone you know. You
+might as well be there as anywhere else. Of course you do not look at
+the pictures. You glance at the few you have heard talked about, just
+so as to say you have seen them. But you do not go to a picture
+gallery to look at _pictures_! "We always go the wrong way round. You
+avoid the crowd like that, you know," I have heard people say.
+"_Avoid_ the crowd!" It is the crowd they want to see! There is less
+chance of missing your friends if you go in the opposite direction!
+There is one real advantage though in beginning at the other end. You
+don't have the same people following you all the time, nor have to
+listen to ignorant remarks. "Who's that? She don't look very happy, to
+be sure," I once heard one woman ask of another as they were going
+round. "That? why that's Adam and Eve, o' course, and the serpent in
+the distance. I never 'eard of anyone else who went about without
+their clothes on, though why they put chains on her I can't think: it
+says nothing about 'em in the Bible."
+
+I glanced at the picture. It was "Andromeda!" And they talk of the
+strides education has been making of late years!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ON CHILDREN AND DOGS.
+
+
+Are you very shocked that I should couple these two subjects? An
+insult to the children, do you say? Well, do you know, I am afraid I
+consider it an insult to the dogs. I am not fond of children, and I
+love dogs. A man may be a superior animal to a dog, but a puppy is
+decidedly more intelligent than a baby. What can you find more
+helpless, more utterly incapable, than a baby? Look at a puppy in
+comparison. At a month old it is trotting about, and growing quite
+independent; more sensible altogether than a child aged a year.
+
+I am afraid I shock people often by my opinions, but they are really
+genuine. I am always more interested in the canine race than in the
+blossoms of humanity. Very likely it is the behavior of each that
+makes me so. Children never take to me, nor come near me if they can
+help it. I do not understand them, or know what to talk to them about.
+On the other hand, dogs will come to me at once, and, what is more,
+keep to me. I have never been growled at in my life, and I have come
+across a good many dogs, too.
+
+"You were a baby yourself once!" How often has this been said to me
+when I have aired the above opinions. It is put before me as an
+unanswerable argument, a sort of annihilating finale to the
+conversation. Yet I really don't see what it has to do with the
+matter. I suppose I was a baby once. At least they say so. Which
+protestation, by the way, rather leaves it open to doubt, for "on
+dits" like weather forecasts are nice reliable institutions if you do
+but follow the opposite of what they tell you. Still, as there is more
+than one witness to the effect, I will give in and admit it; I was a
+baby.
+
+But the admission makes me no fonder of the species. If anything it
+makes me admire them the less; for if I at all resembled the
+photographs that were taken of me--"before my eyes were open," I was
+going to say; at any rate before I could stand--I wonder a stone was
+not put round my neck, and they did not drown me in the first bucket
+of water they came across.
+
+It is said that ugly babies grow up the best looking, and _vice
+versa_. This is a pleasant and comforting thought for the ugly baby.
+It can bear a little depreciation now, because it can look forward to
+the time when it will far outdo its successful rival. And the pretty
+baby's glory is soon over. It becomes only a memory which rather
+irritates than soothes. For after all, retrospection is not so
+pleasant as anticipation.
+
+The above remark was said before a child about four years old, the
+other day. She must have been listening intently, and having taken in
+the sense she inwardly digested it; for the next time she quarrelled
+with her sister, she broke in spitefully, "You must have been the
+beautifullest baby that ever was born."
+
+Children should never be seen until they are over two. Until then they
+are neither pretty nor entertaining. But at this age they begin to say
+funny things, and so are interesting. "You only care for them when
+they amuse you!" cried a young mother once, indignant at my
+selfishness. I suppose it is a selfish way of looking at it; but if
+modern children were brought up as we were brought up I should not
+object to them in the least. We were always kept strictly in the
+nursery, only appearing down-stairs on the rarest occasions: and when
+we arrived there we behaved properly--we were seen and not heard. We
+did not run noisily up and down the room, taking up the whole
+conversation of the party. We did not try to make the most
+disagreeable personal remarks; or if we did we were sent up-stairs at
+once, and not laughed at for our "sharpness."
+
+There are no children, now-a-days; they are mimic men and women. They
+dine late, they stay up until the small hours, and are altogether as
+objectionable a faction as can be. They respect their father and
+mother not a whit. It was only two or three days ago I heard a child
+of five allude to her father as "the fat old governor," and simply get
+laughed at for her remark, no one joining more heartily than the said
+parent himself. Of course, with such applause, the child repeats it
+again and again.
+
+They have such dreadfully sharp eyes, too, these children. Not a
+defect escapes their notice. You tremble to hear what will come out
+next. They ask Mr. Jones what makes his nose so red. They want to know
+why Mrs. Smith puts flour on her face. In spite of a thick veil, they
+discover at once that Miss. Blank has a moustache, and inquire of her
+with interest if she is a man!
+
+There are some nice children, of course--there are exceptions to every
+rule--and if they are pretty I cannot help admiring them. It is
+fortunate that I have never had anything to do with children. If I
+were a governess I should be so dreadfully unjust, I should always
+favor the pretty ones. I love beauty in any form. There are girls I
+could sit and look at all day, if they would let me. Only they are
+most of them so self-conscious; they expect to be admired, and when I
+see girls laying themselves out for admiration, however beautiful they
+may be, however strong my inclination to gaze, I will not gratify
+their vanity. For it is certainly true, that though we prefer the
+praise of men, we do not disdain any like offering from our own sex.
+
+That is the best of very young children. They do not notice you, they
+are not yet awake to the power of their charms, so that you are able
+to look your full. I say "very" young, because it is a knowledge that
+comes to them only too soon, and a little of this knowledge is, at any
+rate, "a dangerous thing."
+
+Children sometimes set you thinking more than any philosopher who ever
+existed. Their ideas are so fresh, so unsophisticated, so original.
+The atmosphere of the great unknown still seems to cling to their
+souls. They are not yet tainted with the world's impure air. They ask
+you questions impossible to answer, but which you are obliged to parry
+in an underhand manner, so as not to expose your ignorance. They solve
+problems and reach conclusions after a way of their own, which, at any
+rate, have plenty of reason about them. I remember being very much
+struck by a little boy's idea once when his mother was remarking on
+the strange appearance of a man who, while his whiskers were black as
+ebony, possessed hair of a snowy white. "But why, mother, should it
+seem funny?" broke in the child. "Aren't his whiskers twenty years
+younger than his hair?"
+
+Dogs certainly cannot talk or say quaint things, but they can do
+nearly everything else. At any rate they can understand you and
+distinguish between the words, as the following instance proves.
+
+We have family prayers at home, and have had them ever since we were
+quite little things. What an ordeal they used to be too! We used to be
+watched so strictly, and the moment our eyes wavered from our books,
+attention would at once be drawn to the culprits and cover them with
+confusion. Woe be to him, too, who forgot to turn over the leaf of his
+book with the rest! It is such an unkind thing to do to print all the
+books alike. If you forget and turn over later, you are at once
+detected. Being sharp children, however, we used to make this our
+first care, so that whatever we were doing--laughing, pinching,
+winking, our pages all went over together, so we _sounded_ attentive.
+
+Our little dog was even more cunning than ourselves. He was never
+permitted, on any plea, to lie before the fire. "It enlarged his
+liver," his master said. Now this decree is a great deprivation to
+dogs. They like warmth and comfort just as much as we do; indeed,
+they love the fire to such an extent that if all the terrors of Hades
+were put before them, they would by no means have a salutary effect.
+The dogs would try to be as naughty as possible in the hopes of
+getting there.
+
+But this particular little animal was made of most obstinate
+materials, and had no intention of being baulked; so directly we knelt
+down for prayers, he scrambled from under the table, and stretched his
+full length before the fire. He knew he would not be spoken to until
+we had finished, and felt quite safe until we all joined in the Lord's
+Prayer at the end, when he would immediately decamp, and thus escape
+any scolding for his disobedience. It was more especially clever of
+him because we all joined in the Confession as well, but he never took
+any notice of that, and always put off his departure until the last
+minute.
+
+We had this dog twelve years altogether, and a sad night it was,
+indeed, when he had a fit and died. The breakfast-table next morning
+presented a most distressing spectacle. We were all positively
+swimming in tears. The whole family was upset at his death; and when,
+later on in the day, he was wrapped up in a fish basket and buried in
+the garden, next door to a favorite rabbit--on whose grave a cabbage
+had been planted, most unkindly reminding him of the sweets of life he
+had left behind--we all lifted up our voices and wept again.
+
+I often wonder if we shall meet our faithful dumb friends hereafter!
+Sages say no; but I cannot believe they are so entirely blotted out,
+and like to think they have some happy sugary existence somewhere, and
+that we shall see them again some day.
+
+Dogs are very human after all; they have a great many of our virtues
+and nearly all our vices. I expect it is this that endears them to us,
+for "One touch of nature makes all the world kin." They are just as
+contradictory, as disappointing, as ourselves. Why will they always
+show off to such bad advantage? After spending weeks in teaching them,
+and fortunes on pieces of sugar, why, before an audience, will they
+insist on ringing the bell when they are told to shut the door? and
+when you ask them to sit up and beg, _why_ do they die for the Queen?
+
+A little while ago we used to have grand steeplechases with our dogs.
+We put up fences and water jumps, all of which--with the aid of sugar
+again--they were able to master in time. I think they used to get
+quite excited themselves at last. Our old gardener, who used to watch
+the races with great interest, told me once that he "'ad seen one of
+the little dawgs a'jumpin' backwards and forwards over that 'ere bit
+of wood (the highest and most perilous jump), and a'practisin' by
+hisself!" He _was_ a very clever "little dawg," but I don't think he
+ever reached such a pitch of intelligence as to practice "by hisself."
+
+We had to fill up the fences down to the ground, or, to save
+themselves the trouble of getting over, they would run under or
+scramble through in some extraordinary fashion, which in the end took
+much the most time and pains. Humanity again! Lazy people always take
+the most trouble!
+
+When I was a little girl I had every morning to learn and repeat to my
+governess three verses from a French Bible. I thought I had hit upon
+an easy way of getting over this, and of reducing the quantity I had
+to commit to memory; so I chose the cxxxvi. Psalm, in which you will
+find, if you care to look it up (I have just had to do the same to
+find out the number, not being by any means a living concordance to
+the Psalms!)--you will find that half of each verse is composed of the
+words, "For His mercy endureth for ever." Ingenuity wasted! Trouble
+increased! Not one whit the better off was I. Until that Psalm was
+finished I had to learn six verses instead of three. I retired
+anything but satisfied, and heartily wishing I had left that Psalm
+alone. It was very mean of my governess all the same. She should
+better have appreciated the craftiness of her pupil. But, poor things,
+they have to be very sharp and always on the look-out, or the children
+will take them in; they will not let any opportunity escape them, and,
+indeed, I pity anyone who has the care of these unraveled Sphinxes,
+these uncut Gordian knots.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ON CONCERTS.
+
+
+I am not thinking about the Albert Hall Concerts, where the highest in
+the musical world go time after time, always singing the same songs.
+
+Neither am I thinking of "Monday Pops," and purely classical concerts,
+to which at least half the audience listens with closed eyes and
+thoughts somewhere in dreamland. They like to be thought musical; they
+know they ought to appreciate _such_ renderings of _such_
+compositions; and after all, when they describe "the treat they had!
+such a perfect touch, my dear! and the execution!!--" no one knows
+they have never heard a note, so what does their inattention matter.
+They have been seen there, and that is all they care about.
+
+No, my thoughts take a much lower range. They are intent on only
+amateur productions, from penny readings upwards, to those
+superintended by the _elite_ of the neighborhood, when the seats rise
+in price to five shillings each.
+
+They are such nice cheery entertainments, so much life, such a great
+deal of energy about them! You are called on by four separate people
+to take tickets. In desperation you have to yield at last; paying
+extra for having your seat reserved, or else you must start
+half-an-hour beforehand, and scramble in with the crowd. There is
+generally a series of them too, and you are obliged to go to them all.
+They are so considerate, these concert-makers, they would not allow
+you to miss one for worlds.
+
+There is a great deal of novelty and variety about the artists
+themselves. All the musical members in the neighborhood are routed
+out, and each is persuaded to contribute to the public pleasure--by
+the way, there is never very much persuasion needed. It is such a
+treat to listen to people you know, and whom you have heard perform
+dozens and dozens of times before in every drawing-room in the place.
+At least, you know what to expect. You recognize each song, each
+piece. You wait in suspense until Miss. Brown has passed her high
+A--always half a tone too flat. You take it as a matter of course that
+Mr. Black--the first violinist in the place--after tuning up for ten
+minutes, will break a string directly he begins to play. I should have
+thought he would be pretty well used to it by now, but he never gets
+in tune again for the rest of the evening. You would be quite
+disappointed if Mrs. Green ever concluded her most finished and
+spirited pianoforte solo on the right chord.
+
+These concerts always begin with a pianoforte solo, and the performers
+ought to feel very flattered at the way in which they are received.
+We, the audience, regard them no more than we do the mounted policemen
+in the Lord Mayor's Show. They are not part of the procession. They
+are only meant to clear the way and let us know that the concert is
+going to begin, and then we must leave off our chatter. Naturally, we
+make the most of our time, and try to get all our talking done at
+once. In fact, we are so taken up with what we are saying that we
+actually forget to applaud when the performance is over.
+
+After the introduction in this form, the chief moving spirit of the
+entertainment comes forward, and, after bowing right and left,
+stammers out (the chief moving spirit is never a good speaker) that he
+much regrets that, on account of Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith, and Miss. Blank
+having been prevented by illness from turning up, he is afraid there
+will be a little change in the programme. Now as Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith,
+and Miss. Blank are down for seven things between them there is likely
+to be a very great change in the programme. Why is it that people
+never know they cannot come until the last moment, I wonder? Perhaps
+they think that the more often they disappoint the more they emulate
+the "stars" in the musical world. Only the force of example, you see.
+And, after all, what does it matter? The other performers are most
+kind and sympathetic, and ready to help all they can. They are
+delighted to sing four times each instead of twice. Selfish people!
+they have no consideration for the audience, they only think of their
+own enjoyment!
+
+There is the youth who looks as if he were going to favor us with a
+sweet treble. Lo, and behold! he opens his mouth, and out comes a
+loud double bass voice that seems to spring somewhere from the region
+of his boots. It is not a pretty sound by any means.
+
+There is the smiling, simpering girl who comes forward gorgeously
+arrayed in light blue satin. She chooses a song, all trills and little
+scales, running up and down, shaking at last upon a high note for
+nearly two minutes, and then coming down with a rush. This brings down
+the house. We applaud lustily; we begin the encoring business here,
+which, having once started, we do not intend to give up again. We like
+to get as much as we can for our money, we Britons. She keeps us
+waiting some time, too--taking a little refreshment in between,
+perhaps--and then comes back beaming with smiles and, under the
+impression that she is a second Patti, shrieks out in plaintive tones,
+"Home, sweet home!" A cat might as well try to emulate a thrush! And
+we never find it "sweet" either. Never do you dislike "Home" more than
+when you hear it sung thus.
+
+There is the sentimental man, who gets into position while the
+introduction to his song is being played. He sticks his finger down
+his collar (the object of which I can never understand), pulls both
+cuffs out, stretches out his music a yard or two in front of him and
+gazes above the audience with a hungry yearning look. His is always a
+love song, an unhappy love song, that should bring tears to our eyes,
+only we are so taken up with his expression, and the fear that he is
+going to die or have a fit, that we have no time for weeping. True to
+our instincts, he is greeted with deafening applause, and coming back,
+he generously treats us to the last verse over again.
+
+Everyone is not so fortunate in receiving an encore, though. It
+depends on how well they are known, not on their desserts.
+The newcomer in the neighborhood tries her hardest and does her best,
+but as we have never seen her before we scarcely take the trouble to
+applaud her, which must be rather disappointing, especially when her
+mother is sitting among the audience with the encore song on her lap,
+ready to hand it up.
+
+The best exhibition of all is made by the flutist. He is the only one
+who plays that instrument for miles round, and so the swagger with
+which he steps on to the platform is perhaps excusable.
+
+How anyone _can_ play it I do not know. It is such a singularly
+unbecoming instrument. But the wretched owner never seems to think so.
+When he once commences he gives us a good dose of it. We begin to
+think he is going on all night. Suddenly there comes a pause, and
+applause is started at once, we being only too delighted to make a
+little noise on our own account. But no--it is a mistake, a delusion,
+after all. The pause was only an interval between an Andante and a
+Scherzo; and, with a bland smile at his ovation, on he goes again for
+another quarter of an hour. We--the audience--are disappointed, we
+feel we have been tricked, and we therefore sulk for a season. But the
+Scherzo is so long, it gives us time to get over our ill-humor, though
+we are mutually resolved that we will not have him back again. Vain
+hope! From the far end of the room comes thundering applause, which
+never dies away until the talented flutist appears on the platform
+again. We find out afterwards that he treats the whole of his
+establishment to the cheap seats; so, of course, poor things, we
+cannot blame them. They are only earning their wages. Perhaps they are
+presented with an extra shilling each when their master returns home.
+
+It is a curious thing how we all like applauding and making a noise.
+If you notice, at organ recitals in the Church we feel quite
+uncomfortable. We think we ought to do something at the conclusion of
+the pieces; so, as we may not clap our hands, we all give a little
+rustle and cough. This is to show our approbation. _Every_one coughs.
+It is astonishing how many people have bad colds. For my part I think
+it is a pity applause is not allowed. It is infinitely preferable to
+the coughing at any rate.
+
+Of course the comic singer goes down best. He is called back three,
+sometimes four times. The schoolboys behind grow excited, and greet
+him with a whistle that would do credit to the "gods." This is too
+much for decently-clad minds, anything so profane as that whistle. The
+clergyman, who is in the chair (the proceeds are always to be devoted
+to some charitable object), rises and insists "that if that most
+objectionable noise does not cease, the boys will have to be turned
+out."
+
+Where the "objectionable" comes in I cannot think. The boys are very
+clever to be able to do it. I have often tried it, and cannot succeed,
+and so conclude it must be a difficult accomplishment. They stick
+about four fingers in their mouths, and thereby make quite a different
+sound to any ordinary whistle. However, it is no wonder the chairman
+discourages it. When he was reading a few minutes before, reading out
+some dry little tale with a moral, in which the humorous parts were
+the heaviest, no encore whistle was accorded him. He was clapped
+loudly, of course--is he not one of the chief men in the parish? But
+no one wished to hear him read again, so we stopped our applause just
+in time to prevent him from re-appearing.
+
+We go home glad at heart, and two mornings later read an account of
+the evening's performance in the local paper.
+
+We find there a few statements which agree with our own feelings.
+They say that "Mr. Jones sang in a pure and cultured manner, and
+deserves special attention for his sweet tenor voice and the
+refinement of the sentiment in his songs" (whatever that may mean!)
+"Mr. Smith played two violin solos with remarkable precision of touch
+and with the greatest ease;" while "Miss. Blank, with a good contralto,
+was all that could be desired in both her songs!" They were none of
+them there, but that does not matter. They were praised up more than
+anyone else, which must be very discouraging to those who _did_
+perform. But on account of their non-appearance alone we feel they
+deserve some approbation, and so do not grudge it them. It is of no
+consequence to a newspaper reporter who is there and who is not. He
+takes the programme, ticks off the names, and writes his remarks and
+criticisms just as he likes. It would be wiser, all the same, on his
+part, if he found out the absentees, for otherwise his little hints
+rather lose their effect.
+
+He writes that this one wants a little "animation," that one "sings
+out of tune." Miss So-and-So plays the piano "with faultless
+manipulation, the only drawback being a slight preponderance of
+pedal," and so on. He generally has as good an ear for music as a
+parish priest who only knew two tunes: one of which was "God save the
+Queen," and the other wasn't. And once, when a brass band was playing
+a selection outside the vicarage, he went on to his balcony, hat in
+hand, and waved it vigorously as he commenced to sing the first line
+of "God save the Queen."
+
+Well, it does not matter after all. The only object is to appear
+learned, and to use long words. If the artists do not like being
+ignorantly criticized they must forbear to appear in public, a result
+which would incline us to go and shake hands with the reporters all
+round in the exuberance of our gratitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ON DANCING.
+
+
+I was looking through a "Querist Album" the other day; one of those
+dreadful confession books in which you are required to answer the most
+absurd questions. Dreadful indeed they are to write in, but not
+altogether uninteresting to peruse, though the interest comes not so
+much in the answers themselves as in the manner in which they are
+written.
+
+Some go in for it seriously, and describe their inmost feelings on the
+pages; some take a witty strain, and put down the most ridiculous
+things they can think of; while others write just what comes first.
+
+Some are such hypocrites, too. Here is a man who describes his wife as
+his ideal woman; and when we know that he scarcely ever addresses a
+civil word to the poor little woman, his admission is, to say the
+least of it, amusing.
+
+"Have you ever been in love? and if so, how often?" This is one of the
+questions. The answers to it are of doubtful veracity. All the single
+ladies reply "Never!" underlining the word three times. "Yes, only
+once," is the statement of the married ones. According to the Querist
+Album, "The course of true love _always_ runs smooth." No one seems to
+be attacked by Cupid but they must immediately marry the object of
+their choice, and "all goes merrily as a marriage bell." The men, on
+the contrary, like to appear somewhat inflammable. It is generally the
+masculine writers who adopt the sprightly key. Twenty--forty--thousands
+of times they admit falling in love. Such one-sided affairs they must
+have been, too; for the girls, according to their own confessions, never
+reciprocated any attachment until their rightful lords and masters appeared
+on the scene. I am afraid we must be a very hard-hearted race!
+
+But it is the question relating to your idea of "the greatest earthly
+happiness" that struck me most. "Never being called in the morning,"
+was one lazy person's reply. "To write M.P. after my name," was the
+ambition of another. "Married life," wrote the bride on the completion
+of her honeymoon. Ah, little bride, you have been married some years
+now. Are your ideas still the same, I wonder? "A good partner, a good
+floor, and good music," said a fourth, and it is this one that has my
+entire sympathy. I agree with her. It is my idea also of "the greatest
+earthly happiness." I do not require much, you see. These are not very
+difficult things to procure now-a-days; and yet I am often taunted
+with my love of dancing. If I express disapproval of a man, "I suppose
+he can't dance," they say with a sneer.
+
+Now though that accomplishment is a necessity in a ball-room, I do
+_not_ consider it indispensable in a husband. Unfortunately you cannot
+dance through life. I wish you could for many reasons. A continual
+change of partners, for instance, would it not be refreshing? You
+would scarcely have time to grow tired of them. And how much more
+polite our husbands would be if they thought we were only fleeting
+joys! What am I saying? I am shocking everyone I am afraid; the
+little matron who advocates married life, the newly-made brides whose
+ideal men are realized in their husbands--I am shocking them all! I
+humbly plead forgiveness. You see, I am not married myself. I can only
+give my impressions as a looker-on, and, as Thackeray says, "One is
+bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, and a deal of
+disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an
+undertaking."
+
+But dancing _is_ indispensable in a ball-room. If a man cannot dance
+he should stay away, and not make an object of himself. Unfortunately,
+so many think they excel in the art when they have not the least idea
+of it. Again, with girls, dancing (in a ball-room only, of course)
+comes before charm of manner, before wit, even before beauty. I know
+girls, absolutely plain, with not a word to say for themselves, who
+dance every dance, while the walls of the room are lined with pretty
+faces, and dismal-looking enough they are too, which is very foolish
+of them. They should have too much pride to show their discomfiture.
+
+Men have so much the best of it at dances--so everybody says. I am
+afraid I do not agree. I would not change our positions for anything.
+After all, a girl can nearly always dance with anyone she likes, and
+pick and choose as well as the men--provided, of course, that she is
+an adept on the "light fantastic toe" herself.
+
+And think, on the other hand, what men go through! Reverse the order
+of things, as you are supposed to do at leap year dances--which
+system, however, is never properly carried out. But suppose you go up
+to a man and ask him for a dance, and he tells you with a smile that
+"he is very sorry, but really he has not one left." Suppose that the
+next minute you see him give three to another girl, would you speak to
+that man ever again? _Never!_ And yet this is what they constantly
+endure and, what is more, forgive.
+
+After all, if you analyze it, what an absurd thing dancing is. Close
+your ears to the music and look around you when a ball is at its
+height. What motive, you foolishly wonder, could induce all these
+people--who are supposed to possess an average amount of brains--to
+assemble together to clasp each other round the waist, twirl round
+and round up and down the room, suddenly stop, and hurry one after
+another outside the dancing hall, seeking dark corners, secret
+retreats, anywhere away from the eyes of other men? "Ah, what a mad
+world it is, my masters!"
+
+How our grandmothers exclaim at the present mode of dancing!--they who
+used to consider round dances almost improper. How the programmes must
+astonish them, too; those engagement cards that did not exist fifty
+years ago, and in their infancy were quite content to bear only two or
+three names on their paper countenances. But now times have changed,
+and as they grow older they become most greedy little cards. They are
+not only not content with being scribbled all over, but require two
+names on the top of one another, and thus causing dissensions to
+ensue.
+
+There is a great deal of art in making up a programme. It is a mistake
+to be full up before you arrive. Someone may come whom you did not
+expect, and then you have no dance to give him. Arrangement of a
+programme requires two or three seasons' practice. There are the duty
+dances to be got through first; put them up early, so that they shall
+be soon over, and then you have the good ones at the end to look
+forward to.
+
+Everyone has duty dances. There are your father's constituents,
+clients, patients, someone you are obliged to ingratiate, and these
+are generally the worst dancers in the room! One is so fat he shakes
+the hall as he walks, and yet is just as eager to join the giddy
+throng, and alas! to take you with him! Another resembles the little
+tin soldiers which schoolboys have such an affection for, in that he
+has been gifted with large flat stands, twice the length of himself,
+instead of feet. And oh, _how_ he kicks! Then there is the
+complimentary man, a creature who never opens his mouth without making
+or implying a compliment. Does he ever find anyone whom this system
+pleases, I wonder! The only antidote I can find is to take no notice,
+and pretend not to understand that the pretty speeches are directed at
+you. This discourages him after a time.
+
+It is amusing to get hold of a man's programme, and find out how you
+are represented there. They do not put down names, but describe
+costumes, hoping thus to find their partners easier, but in reality
+plunging themselves into most hopeless perplexities. They scribble
+down "pearl necklace," and find later that there are at least sixteen
+in the room, and so are worse off than if they had written the name.
+
+Some describe the personal appearance, but this is a very risky thing
+to do. A man the other day wrote down his partner as "Miss blue dress,
+with the nose," and subsequently dropped his programme, which, of
+course, was picked up by the lady mentioned. Now I do not know why you
+should dislike being told that you have a nose--you would feel very
+much worse without one--but when your nasal organ takes up double its
+share of room in your face, and is, moreover, prettily tinted with
+scarlet, which you try to conceal under a little pearl powder, and
+only succeed in making it purple--well, perhaps you would not like to
+be told you have a nose. At any rate, this lady did not, and hers very
+much resembled this description, I believe. But she was a wise woman.
+Not a word did she say on the subject, and he went home happily
+unconscious of her fatal discovery, until a few days later he
+received his programme back as a Christmas card, with "Miss blue dress
+with the nose's compliments." How very comfortable he must have felt
+when he met her next!
+
+What a great many different styles of dancing there are! You have to
+change your step with nearly every partner. The girl should always
+suit hers to the man's, he has quite enough to do with the steering.
+You require about five good partners altogether, and can then spend an
+enjoyable evening. A different man for every dance is tiring. You
+never get beyond the theatres and the weather; you have not time to
+say much more, and grow quite weary of the same style of conversation.
+I always think I must be a most uninteresting partner when I am asked
+what theatres I have been to lately, or what is my opinion of the
+Academy, &c., &c. I never begin this kind of talk myself except as a
+last resource, when I can get nothing else out of a man. Someone says,
+I forget who, that "a woman can always know in what opinion she is
+held by the conversation addressed to her," and is it not true? The
+foolish compliments paid to the pretty, but silly little _debutante_;
+the small talk to the fools; the sparring with the witty; the _risque_
+tales enjoyed by those of a more rapid style. Men find out first what
+are our tastes, and then dish up their conversation accordingly, and
+they do not often make mistakes.
+
+Some girls dance with one man the whole evening. How weary they must
+get of each other! Engaged people invariably pass the evening
+together, and sometimes do not dance at all, but sit out in some
+secluded corner. They have to endure one another for years to come, I
+wonder they do not get as much variety as possible now. At any rate,
+they might just as well stop at home.
+
+Like everything else, dancing is hurrying along, and growing faster
+every year. The _deux-temps_, they say is coming back. May the day be
+far ahead when that step reigns once more! Perhaps before then I shall
+be converted into a chaperone, and shall sit watching others dance,
+not being able to do so myself; or, perhaps worse, not being _asked_
+myself. I am afraid I should not make a nice chaperone. I should look
+very cross, and should hurry away as early as possible. Ah, sad indeed
+will the day be when I give up dancing, when only the remembrance of
+my past enjoyments will be brought back to me through the scent of
+gardenias and tube-roses, dear dissipated-smelling flowers!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ON WATERING PLACES.
+
+
+What a great deal of trouble and time it takes to choose a
+watering-place! And yet there are many and various kinds of resorts,
+some for one season, some for another.
+
+If you could be carried sufficiently high above the earth so as to
+have a bird's-eye view of the whole of Great Britain, what a strange
+sight it would present during the months of August and September! The
+county would appear surrounded with a human fringe, the outer edge
+more resembling a disturbed ants' hill than anything else. I don't
+suppose we should appear more significant than ants at that distance.
+
+There are those places teeming with shop-keepers and children, when
+you can scarcely see the beach so covered is it with those who are
+making the most of their one holiday in the year.
+
+There is the primitive little village, discovered by few, which is
+welcomed by the city man who wants rest and entire seclusion from
+business matters and the world for a month or two. And oh, what
+language he uses! and how annoyed he is to find absolutely nothing to
+do--one post a day, and, worst of all, no newspaper until late in the
+afternoon! And this is the man who wishes to be shut out from the
+world and from his acquaintances! There is no pier, there are no
+amusements. The esplanade is composed of nothing more than a plank of
+wood, on which, in walking you have to observe much caution in order
+to keep your balance; and sometimes the butcher from the neighboring
+village forgets to call! In desperation, the unfortunate creature digs
+sand-castles with his children, and, after a few days of his
+banishment, grows quite excited as the waves wash up and undermine
+their foundations. He picks acquaintance with anybody he comes across,
+be he peer or peasant--anything to make the time pass a little quicker
+until he can return to the stir of his business life again.
+
+Someone remarks somewhere that "a man works one-half of his life in
+order that he may rest the other." I wonder if those who are
+successful ever appreciate their rest when they get it! I wonder if it
+comes up to their expectations! if the goal toward which they have
+been looking almost since they began to exist is worth the trouble and
+energy spent on it! Ah, I am afraid they very rarely find it so! They
+have become so immured in their busy lives, that it is difficult to
+grow accustomed to any other. Unless one is brought up to it, the
+_Dolce far niente_ is not an existence we enjoy. We are made the wrong
+way about somehow. We ought to be born old and gradually grow younger
+as the years roll on. Still, I daresay there would be something to
+complain of even then, and perhaps it would not be very dignified to
+go off the stage as a baby!
+
+To go to the opposite extreme, there are the fashionable water-places;
+little Londons, or rather little imitations of London; for beside that
+great capital itself they are like pieces of glass to a diamond. And
+yet fashion and folly are all here, sunning themselves by the sea
+instead of in the park; driving up and down in the same way, in
+equally charming toilets. But still there seems to be something
+lacking, something wanting. They are too small, these towns; you so
+soon know everyone by sight, and grow tired both of them and their
+costumes. There is a good deal of stir and life about all the same.
+There are bands, niggers, clairvoyantes, fire-eaters; plenty indeed
+for you to see and hear when you are weary of strutting up and down
+and nodding to your friends. And yet, in spite of all, you grow tired
+of "London by the sea," after a few weeks, even in that dead season of
+the year--November.
+
+Have you ever visited one of these places in the midst of a tennis
+week, when the grand tournaments take place? Lawn tennis is a
+delightful recreation for a time, provided you have a good partner and
+good antagonists, and you are playing under a moderately warm sun; but
+when you hear, see, and play nothing else for a week, when the
+conversation is "tennis," when no one appears without a racquet in his
+hand, when all you have to listen to are criticisms on the courts and
+balls, grumblings against the handicapping, imprecations on
+"bisques"--well, you begin to hate the very name, and wish you could
+injure the man who invented it. You grow tired of watching the same
+thing day after day, the men who spend their lives in tossing balls
+across to each other, the sea of faces; turning backwards and forwards
+at each stroke with the regulation of a pendulum.
+
+Yes, it takes a long time to decide on a watering place, and when at
+last you do make up your mind you have to change it again very soon
+because you find all your "sisters, cousins, and aunts" have chosen
+the same resort; and really you have quite enough of your relations in
+town without their following you wherever you go. You require a little
+variety when you go away. An old lady I used to know always kept it a
+profound secret where she intended spending her summer holiday,
+"otherwise, my dear," she said, "I should have the whole family at my
+heels!" A most disagreeable old lady she was; and I know for a fact
+that her relatives always avoided her when possible (she was not
+blessed with very great possessions!) so that her caution was quite
+unnecessary. Oh, vanity of vanities, how little we know of the world's
+true opinion of us!
+
+When you have fixed on your locality, there is even a greater
+difficulty to go through. You have to choose your residence; and this
+takes up even more thought and time.
+
+There are the lodging-houses, monotonous in their similarity. The same
+gilt-edged mirrors protected from the dust by green perforated paper;
+the same jar of wax flowers, standing on a mat which is composed of
+floral designs in Berlin wool--designs to which you can give any name
+you like--"You pays your money and you takes your choice." They
+represent anything, the whole concern hiding its modest head under a
+glass case; the same shavings in the grate, with long trails of roses
+gently slumbering on the top; yes, and the same voluble landlady, the
+whole of whose private concerns you are in possession of five minutes
+after you have taken the apartments.
+
+There is the boarding-house, advertised as "Directly facing the sea;"
+and when you have engaged your rooms, and arrive with all your
+luggage, you find the establishment is at the far end of a side
+street; and "Directly facing the sea" is interpreted by the fact that
+by hanging half-way out of the sitting-room widow, and screwing your
+head round violently to the left, you can see the place where that
+watery monarch ought to be.
+
+"A boarding-house is so much nicer than an hotel, because you get to
+know the people so much easier," I heard a girl remark once. This is
+my chief objection to a boarding-house. Because you are staying under
+the same roof, all the inhabitants consider they have a right to
+address you, and, what is more, they will not be repulsed, which, as
+most of them by no means move in the best society, is not at all
+palatable. The women you can tolerate, but the men are not to be
+endured. You are always coming across them, too. On whatever drive,
+excursion, or trip you take you invariably meet "boarding-houseites,"
+who are only too ready to recognize you. You can never get away from
+them; there is only the public drawing-room, and there they come in
+and out, talking to you, interrupting you, or else causing your ears
+to ache by their attempts at music.(?)
+
+The meals are somewhat amusing, as you can watch all your
+fellow-boarders without being disturbed. They cannot talk and eat at
+the same time, and so philosophically devote all their energies to
+their dinner.
+
+There is the girl who scrapes up acquaintances with everybody. She has
+had the good luck to be placed near a man, and the demure way in which
+she prattles and smiles at him convinces you that she is trying to
+make the best use of her time. Sometimes he is absent, and then the
+smiles give way to the gloomiest expression. Finally, on the arrival
+of new-comers, when there is a sort of general post all round, she is
+placed at the farthest extreme to her late partner, and oh! the
+wistful little glances she passes up the table to the gourmand who,
+oblivious to all but his dinner, scarcely notices her departure.
+
+There are the three old maids, intent on capturing a husband. They
+have come here as a last resource. But with the usual fickleness of
+fortune, they seem to be more shunned by the male sex than attracted
+to it.
+
+There is the newly-married couple, looking very conscious and silly,
+as if they were the only people in the world who had ever committed
+matrimony.
+
+There is one old lady grumbling, and objecting to the back of a
+chicken. Poor birds, they have only two wings each, and really cannot
+provide everybody with them! There is another furious, because on
+asking for a favorite dish, that is down in the _menu_, is told that
+"it is all served!" The best things always are, unless you manage to
+get into the good graces of the waiter or waitress.
+
+Young men and maidens, old men and children, all here, offering plenty
+of material for students of human nature!
+
+Hotel life is very different. Even if you find the _parvenu_ and
+_nouveau riche_ as equally objectionable as the boarding-house
+species, at least they do not force their acquaintance upon
+you. The _table d'hote_ is much more entertaining, and you are
+altogether more independent. Characters you come across occasionally
+that are most interesting to study. There are the girls who are taking
+the round of hotels by their mothers, in the hopes of getting them
+"off." There are the men who astonish everybody by their generosity
+and apparent display of riches, and finally decamp without paying
+their bill.
+
+A man was telling me the other day of a certain "black sheep" who had
+run into difficulty; how his family after a great deal of trouble
+managed to raise L200 between them, and sent him off to America with
+the money to start afresh in a new country. In a month's time he was
+back again, penniless as ever, and cursing his luck and bad fortune.
+It was only by accident they discovered the bills of the best hotels
+in New York in his pocket, and found that he had been living like a
+prince while his L200 lasted, nor had tried at all to obtain any
+occupation.
+
+With such consummate cheek, a man ought to get on in the world, I
+think, for after all it is self-confidence and "bluffing" that seems
+to succeed most. However down in the world you are, however bad your
+"hand," you only have to "bluff" a little to make it all right. There
+are many foolish people in the world ready to be your dupes, and
+luckily they never think of asking to "see" you. Even the best of us
+try it on a little; we strive to hide our skeletons under the cloak of
+cheerfulness, and entirely disguise our real feelings--
+
+    "Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
+    For, such as we are made of, such we be."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl, by Jenny Wren
+
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