course, I shall take to England, and when there I shall go to the
places of amusement with the Famine Commission, and have rather a good
time of it. Already I can see, with that bright internal eye which
requires no limelight, grim Famine stalking about the Aquarium after
dinner with a merry jest preening its wings on his lips.

But what has all this talk of country matters to do with little Mrs.
Lollipop? Absolutely nothing. She thinks no ill of herself. She is the
most charitable woman in the world. There is no veil of sin over her
eye; no cloud of suspicion darkens her forehead; no concealment feeds
upon her damask cheek. Like Eve she goes about hand in hand with her
friends, in native innocence, relying on what she has of virtue. Sweet
simplicity! sweet confidence! My eagle quill shall not flutter these
doves.

Have you ever watched her at a big dance? She takes possession of some
large warrior who has lately arrived from the battle-fields of Umballa
or Meerut, and she chaperones him about the rooms, staying him with
flagons and prattling low nothings. The weaker vessel jibs a little at
first; but gradually the spell begins to work and the love-light
kindles in his eye. He dances, he makes a joke, he tells a story, he
turns round and looks her in the face. He is lost. That big centurion
is a casualty; and no one pities him. "How can he go on like that,
odious creature!" say the withered wall-flowers, and the Hill Captains
fume round, working out formulae to express his baseness. But he is
away on the glorious mountains of vanity; the intoxicating atmosphere
makes life tingle in his blood; he is an [Greek: aerobataes], he no
longer treads the earth. In a few days Mrs. Lollipop will receive a
post-card from the Colonel of her centurion's regiment.

MY DEAR MRS.

Lollipop, dic, per omnes
Te deos oro, Robinson cur properes amando
Perdere? cur apricum
Oderit campum, patiens pulveris atque solis.

Yrs. Sincy.

HORACE FITZDOTTREL.

Ten to one an Archdeacon will be sent for to translate this. Ten to
one there is a shindy, ending in tea and tearful smiles; for she is
bound to get a blowing up.

After what I have written I suppose it would be superfluous to affirm
with oaths my irrefragable belief in Mrs. Lollipop's innocence; it
would be superfluous to deprecate the many-winged slanders that wound
this milk-white hind. If, however, by swearing, any of your readers
think I can be of service to her character, I hope they will let me
know. I have learnt a few oaths lately that I reckon will unsphere
some of the scandal-mongers of Nephelococcygia. I had my ear one
morning at the keyhole when the Army Commission was revising the
cursing and swearing code for field service.--(Ah! these dear old
Generals, what depths of simplicity they disclose when they get by
themselves! I sometimes think that if I had my life to live over again
I would keep a newspaper and become a really great General. I know
some five or six obscure aboriginal tribes that have never yet yielded
a single war or a single K.C.B.)

But this is a digression. I was maintaining the goodness of Mrs.
Lollipop--little Mrs. Lollipop! sweet little Mrs. Lollipop! I was
going to say that she was far too good to be made the subject of
whisperings and innuendoes. Her virtue is of such a robust type that
even a Divorce Court would sink back abashed before it, like a guilty
thing surprised. Indeed, she often reminds me of Cæsar's wife.

The harpies of scandal protest that she dresses too low; that she
exposes too freely the well-rounded charms of her black silk
stockings; that she appears at fancy-dress balls picturesquely
unclothed--in a word, that the public sees a little too much of little
Mrs. Lollipop; and that, in conversation with men, she nibbles at the
forbidden apples of thought. But all this proves her innocence,
surely. She fears no danger, for she knows no sin. She cannot
understand why she should hide anything from an admiring world. Why
keep her charms concealed from mortal eye, like roses that in deserts
bloom and die? She often reminds me of Una in Hypocrisy's cell.

I heard an old Gorgon ask one of Mrs. Lollipop's _clientèle_ the other
day whether he would like to be Mrs. Lollipop's husband. "No," he
said, "not her husband; I am not worthy to be her husband--

"But I would be the necklace
And all day long to fall and rise
Upon her balmy bosom
With her laughter or her sighs;
And I would lie so light, so light,
I scarce should be unclasped at night."

That old Gorgon is now going through a course of hysterics under
medical and clerical advice. Her ears are in as bad a case as Lady
Macbeth's hands. Hymns will not purge them.--ALI BABA, K.C.B.




No. XIX



THE TRAVELLING M.P.



THE BRITISH LION RAMPANT



[December 13, 1879.]

There is not a more fearful wild fowl than your travelling M.P. This
unhappy creature, whose mind is a perfect blank regarding
_Faujdari_[Y] and _Bandobast_,[Z] and who cannot distinguish the
molluscous Baboo from the osseous Pathan, will actually presume to
discuss Indian subjects with you, unless strict precautions be taken.

When I meet one of these loose M.P.'s ramping about I always cut his
claws at once. I say, "Now, Mr. T.G., you must understand that,
according to my standard, you are a homunculus of the lowest type.
There is nothing I value a man for that you can do; there is nothing I
consider worth directing the human mind upon that you know. If you ask
for any information which I may deem it expedient to give to a person
in your unfortunate position, well and good; but if you venture to
argue with me, to express any opinion, to criticise anything I may be
good enough to say regarding India, or to quote any passage relating
to Asia from the works of Burke, Cowper, Bright, or Fawcett, I will
hand you over to Major Henderson for strangulation, I will cause your
body to be burnt by an Imperial Commission of sweepers, and I will
mention your name in the _Pioneer_."

In dangerous cases, where a note-book is carried, your loose M.P. must
be made to reside within the pale of guarded conversation. If you are
wise you will speak to him in the interrogative mood exclusively; and
you will treat his answers with contumelious laughter or disdainful
silence.

About a week after your M.P. has landed in India he will begin his
great work on the history, literature, philosophy and social
institutions of the Hindoos. You will see him in a railway carriage
when stirred by the [Greek: oistros] studying Forbes's Hindustani
Manual. He is undoubtedly writing the chapter on the philology of the
Aryan Family. Do you observe the fine frenzy that kindles behind his
spectacles as he leans back and tries to eject a root? These pangs are
worth about half-a-crown an hour in the present state of the book
market. One cannot contemplate them without profound emotion.

The reading world is hunger-bitten about Asia, and I often think I
shall take three months' leave and run up a _précis_ of Sanskrit and
Pali literature, just a few folios for the learned world. Max Müller
begs me to learn these languages first; but this would be a toil and
drudgery, whereas to me the pursuit of literary excellence and fame is
a mere amusement, like lawn-tennis or rinking. It is the fault of the
age to make a labour of what is meant to be a pastime.

Telle est de nos plaisirs la surface légère;
Glissez, mortels, n'appuyez pas.

The travelling M.P. will probably come to you with a letter of
introduction from the last station he has visited, and he will
immediately proceed to make himself quite at home in your bungalow
with the easy manners of the Briton abroad. He will acquaint you with
his plans and name the places of interest in the neighbourhood which
he requires you to show him. He will ask you to take him, as a
preliminary canter, to the gaol and lunatic asylum; and he will make
many interesting suggestions to the civil surgeon as to the management
of these institutions, comparing them unfavourably with those he has
visited in other stations. He will then inspect the Brigadier-General
commanding the station, the chaplain, and the missionaries. On his
return--when he ought to be bathing--he will probably write his
article for the _Twentieth Century_, entitled "Is India Worth
Keeping?" And this ridiculous old Shrovetide cock, whose ignorance and
information leave two broad streaks of laughter in his wake, is turned
loose upon the reading public! Upon my word, I believe the reading
public would do better to go and sit at the feet of Baboo Sillabub
Thunder Gosht, B.A.

What is it that these travelling people put on paper? Let me put it in
the form of a conundrum. _Q._ What is it that the travelling M.P.
treasures up and the Anglo-Indian hastens to throw away? _A._
Erroneous, hazy, distorted first impressions. Before the eyes of the
griffin, India steams up in poetical mists, illusive, fantastic,
subjective, ideal, picturesque. The adult _Qui Hai_ attains to prose,
to stern and disappointing realities; he removes the gilt from the
Empire and penetrates to the brown ginger-bread of Rajas and Baboos.
One of the most serious duties attending a residence in India is the
correcting of those misapprehensions which your travelling M.P.
sacrifices his bath to hustle upon paper. The spectacled people
embalmed in secretariats alone among Anglo-Indians continue to see the
gay visions of griffinhood. They alone preserve the phantasmagoria of
bookland and dreamland. As for the rest of us:--

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Baboos and Rajas and Indian lore
Move our faint hearts with grief, but with delight
No more--oh, never more!

It is strange that one who is modest and inoffensive in his own
country should immediately on leaving it exhibit some of the worst
features of Arryism; but it seems inevitable. I have met in this
unhappy land, countrymen (who are gentlemen in England, Members of
Parliament, and Deputy Lieutenants, and that kind of thing) whose
conduct and demeanour while here I can never recall without tears and
blushes for our common humanity. My friends witnessing this emotion
often suppose that I am thinking of the Famine Commission.

[I am an Anglo-Indian cherishing many a burning Anglo-Indian
prejudice, and I should be sorry if from what I have written here it
does not sufficiently appear that I cherish a burning prejudice
against the British Tourist in India, who comes out to get up India
and to do India; not against the tourist who comes out to shoot or to
play the fool in a quiet unostentatious way.]

As far as I can learn, it is a generally received opinion at home that
a man who has seen the Taj at Agra, the Qutb at Delhi, and the Duke at
Madras, has graduated with honours in all questions connected with
British interests in Asia; and is only unfitted for the office of
Governor-General of India from knowing too much.--ALI BABA, K.C.B.




No. XX



MEM-SAHIB



"Her life is lone. He sits apart;
He loves her yet: she will not weep,
Tho' rapt in matters dark and deep
He seems to slight her simple heart.

"For him she plays, to him she sings
Of early faith and plighted vows;
She knows but matters of the house,
And he, he knows a thousand things."

[December 20, 1879.]

I first met her shepherding her little flock across the ocean. She was
a beautiful woman, in the full sweetness and bloom of life. [The
mystery of early wifehood and motherhood gave a pensiveness to her
soft eyes; but her voice and manner disclosed the cheerful confidence
of perfect health and a pure heart.] Her talk was of the busy husband
she had left, the station life, the attached servants, the favourite
horse, the garden, and the bungalow. Her husband would soon follow
her, in a year, or two years, and they would return together; but they
would return to a silent home--the children would be left behind. She
was going home to her mother and sisters; but there had been changes
in this home. So her thoughts were woven of hopes and fears; and, as
she sat on deck of an evening, with the great heart of the moon-lit
sea palpitating around us, and the homeless night-wind sighing through
the cordage, she would sing to us one of the plaintive ballads of the
old country, till we forgot to listen to the sobbing and the trampling
of the engines, and till all sights and sounds resolved themselves
into a temple of sentiment round a charming priestess chanting low
anthems. She would leave us early to go to her babies. She would leave
us throbbing with mock heroics, undecided whether we should cry, or
consecrate our lives to some high and noble enterprise, or drink one
more glass of hot whiskey-and-water. She was kind, but not
sentimental; her sweet, yet practical "good-night" was quite of the
work-a-day world; we felt that it tended to dispel illusions.

She had three little boys, who were turned out three times a day in
the ultimate state of good behaviour, tidiness, and cleanliness, and
who lapsed three times a day into a state of original sin combined
with tar and ship's grease. These three little boys pervaded the
vessel with an innocent smile on their three little faces, their
mother's winning smile. Every man on the ship was their own familiar
friend, bound to them by little interchanges of biscuits, confidences,
twine, and by that electric smile which their mother communicated, and
from which no one wished to be insulated. Yes, they quite pervaded the
vessel, these three little innocents, flying that bright and friendly
smile; and there was no description of mischief suitable for three
very little boys that they did not exhaust. The ingenuity they
squandered every day in doing a hundred things which they ought not to
have done was perfectly marvellous. Before the voyage was half over we
thought there was nothing left for them to do; but we were entirely
mistaken. The daily round, a common cask would furnish all they had to
ask; to them the meanest whistle that blows, or a pocket-knife, could
give thoughts that too often led to smiles and tears.

Their mother's thoughts were ever with them; but she was like a hen
with a brood of ducklings. They passed out of her element, and only
returned as hunger called them. When they did return she was all that
soap and water, loving reproaches, and tender appeals could be; and as
they were very affectionate little boys, they were for the time
thoroughly cleansed morally and physically, and sealed with the
absolution of kisses.

I saw her three years afterwards in England. She was living in
lodgings near a school which her boys attended. She looked careworn.
Her relations had been kind to her, but not warmly affectionate. She
had been disappointed with the welcome they had given her. They seemed
changed to her, more formal, narrower, colder. She longed to be back
in India; to be with her husband once more. But he was engrossed with
his work. He wrote short letters enclosing cheques; but he never said
that he missed her, that he longed to see her again, that she must
come out to him, or that he must go to her. He could not have grown
cold too? No, he was busy; he had never been demonstrative in his
affection; this was his way. And she was anxious about the boys. She
did not know whether they were really getting on, whether she was
doing the best for them, whether their father would be satisfied. She
had no friends near her, no one to speak to; so she brooded over these
problems, exaggerated them, and fretted.

The husband was a man who lived in his own thoughts, and his thoughts
were book thoughts. The world of leaf and bird, the circumambient
firmament of music and light, shone in upon him through books. A book
was the master key that unlocked all his senses, that unfolded the
varied landscape, animated the hero, painted the flower, swelled the
orchestra of wind and ocean, peopled the plains of India with
starvelings and the mountains of Afghanistan with cut-throats. Without
a book he moved about like a shadow lost in some dim dreamland of
echoes.

Everyone knew he was a scholar, and his thoughts had once or twice
rung out to the world clear and loud as a trumpet-note through the
oracles of the Press. But in society he was shy, awkward, and uncouth
of speech, quite unable to marshal his thoughts, deserted by his
memory, abashed before his own silences, and startled by his own
words. Any fool who could talk about the legs of a horse or the height
of the thermometer was Prospero to this social Caliban.

He felt that before the fine instincts of women his infirmity was
especially conspicuous, and he drifted into misogyny through
bashfulness and pride; and yet misogyny was incompatible with his
scheme of life and his ambition. He felt himself to be worthy of the
full diapason of home life; he desired to be as other men were,
besides being something more.

[Greek: Kakon gynaikes all' homos, o daemotai,
Ouk estin oikein oikian aneu kakou.
Kai gar to gaemai, kai to mae gaemai, kakon.]

So he married her who loved him for choosing her, and who reverenced
him for his mysterious treasures of thought.

There was much in his life that she could never share: but he longed
for companionship in thought, and for the first year of their married
life he tried to introduce her to his world. He led her slowly up to
the quiet hill-tops of thought where the air is still and clear, and
he gave her to drink of the magic fountains of music. Their hearts
beat one delicious measure. Her gentle nature was plastic under the
poet's touch, wrought in an instant to perfect harmony with love, or
tears, or laughter. To read aloud to her in the evening after the
day's work was over, and to see her stirred by every breath of the
thought-storm, was to enjoy an exquisite interpretation of the poet's
motive, like an impression bold and sharp from the matrix of the
poet's mind. This was to hear the song of the poet and Nature's low
echo. How tranquilising it was! How it effaced the petty vexations of
the day!--"softening and concealing; and busy with a hand of healing."

Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta,
Quale sopor fessis in gramine, quale per æstum
Dulcis aquæ saliente sitim restinguere rivo.

But with the advent of babies poetry declined, and the sympathetic
wife became more and more motherly. The father retired sadly into the
dreamland of books. He will not emerge again. Husband and wife will
stand upon the clear hill-tops together no more.

Neither quite knows what has happened; they both feel changed with an
undefined sorrow, with a regret that pride will not enunciate. She is
now again in India with her husband. There are duties, courtesies,
nay, kindnesses which both will perform, but the ghost of love and
sympathy will only rise in their hearts to jibber in mockery words and
phrases that have lost their meaning, that have lost their
enchantment.

"O love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

"Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the raven on high;
Bright reason will mock thee
Like the sun from a wintry sky.

"From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter
When leaves fall and cold winds come."

ALI BABA, K.C.B.




No. XXI



ALI BABA ALONE



THE LAST DAY



"Now the last of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest, and the last is dead,
Rise, memory, and write its praise."



[December 27, 1879.]

How shall I lay this spectre of my own identity? Shall I leave it to
melt away gracefully in the light of setting suns? It would never do
to put it out like a farthing rushlight after it had haunted the Great
Ornamental in an aurora of smiles. Is Ali Baba to cease upon the
midnight without pain? or is he to lie down like a tired child and
weep out the spark? or should he just flit to Elysium? There, seated
on Elysian lawns, browsed by none but Dian's (no allusion to little
Mrs. Lollipop) fawns, amid the noise of fountains wonderous and the
parle of voices thunderous, some wag might scribble on his door, "Here
lies Ali Baba"--as if glancing at his truthfulness. How is he to pass
effectively into the golden silences? How is he to relapse into the
still-world of observation? Would four thousand five hundred a month
and Simla do it, with nothing to do and allowances, and a seat beside
those littered under the swart Dog-Star of India? Or is it to be the
mandragora of pension, that he may sleep out the great gap of _ennui_
between this life and something better? How lonely the Government of
India would feel! How the world would forget the Government of India!
Voices would ask:--

Do ye sit there still in slumber
In gigantic Alpine rows?
The black poppies out of number
Nodding, dripping from your brows
To the red lees of your wine--
And so kept alive and fine.

Sometimes I think that Ali Baba should be satisfied with the
oblivion-mantle of knighthood and relapse into dingy respectability in
the Avilion of Brompton or Bath; but since he has taken to wearing
stars the accompanying itch for blood and fame has come:--

How doth the greedy K.C.B.
Delight to brag and fight,
And gather medals all the day
And wear them all the night.

The fear of being out-medalled and out-starred stings him:--

[Consimili ratione ab eodem sæpe timore
Macerat invidia, ante oculos ilium esse polentem,
Illum aspectari, claro qui incedit honore,
Ipsi se in tenebris volvi cænoque queruntur
Insereunt partim statuarum et nominis ergo.]

Thus the desire to go hustling up the hill to the Temple of Fame with
the other starry hosts impels him forward. If you mix yourself up with
K.C.B.'s and raise your platform of ambition, you are just where you
were at the A B C of your career. Living on a table-land, you
experience no sensation of height. For the intoxicating delights of
elevation you require a solitary pinnacle, some lonely eminence. Aut
Cæsar, aut nullus; whether in the zenith or the Nadir of the world's
favour.

But how much more comfortable in the cold season than the chill
splendours of the pinnacles of fame, where "pale suns unfelt at
distance roll away," is a comfortable bungalow on the plains, with a
little mulled claret after dinner. Here I think Ali Baba will be
found, hidden from his creditors, the reading world, in the warm light
of thought, singing songs unbidden till a few select cronies are
wrought to sympathy with hopes and fears they heeded not--before the
mulled claret.

To this symposium the A.-D.-C.-in-Waiting has invited himself on
behalf of the Empire. He will sing the Imperial Anthem composed by Mr.
Eastwick, and it will be translated into archaic Persian by an
imperial Munshi for the benefit of the Man in Buckram, who will be
present. The Man in Buckram, who is suffering from a cold in his
heart, will be wrapped up in himself and a cocked hat. The Press
Commissioner has also asked for an invitation. He will deliver a
sentiment:--"Quid sit futurum eras fuge quærere." A Commander-in-Chief
will tell the old story about the Service going to the dogs; after
which there will be an interval of ten minutes allowed for swearing
and hiccuping. The Travelling M.P. will take the opportunity to jot
down a few hasty notes on Aryan characteristics for the _Twentieth
Century_ before being placed under the table. The Baboo will
subsequently be told off to sit on the Member's head. During this
function the Baboo will deliver some sesquipedalian reflections in the
rodomontade mood. The Shikarry will then tell the twelve-foot-tiger
story. Mrs. Lollipop will tell a fib and make tea; and Ali Baba
(unless his heart is too full of mulled claret) will make a joke. The
company will break up at this point, after receiving a plenary
dispensation from the Archdeacon.

Under such influences Ali Baba may become serious; he may learn from
the wisdom of age and be cheered by the sallies of youth. But little
Mrs. Lollipop can hardly be called one of the Sallies of his youth.
Sally Lollipop rose upon the horizon of his middle age. She boiled up,
pure blanc-mange and roses, over the dark brim of life's afternoon, a
blushing sunrise, though late to rise, and most cheerful. Sometimes
after spending an afternoon with her, Ali Baba feels so cheered that
the Government of India seems quite innocent and bright, like an old
ballerina seen through the mists of champagne and limelight. He walks
down the Mall smiling upon foolish Under Secretaries and fat Baboos.
The people whisper as he passes, "There goes Ali Baba"; and echo
answers "Who is Ali Baba?" Then a little wind of conjecture breathes
through the pine-trees and names are heard.

It is better not to call Ali Baba names. Nothing is so misleading as a
vulgar nomenclature. I once knew a man who was called "Counsellor of
the Empress" when he ought to have had his photograph exposed in the
London shop-windows like King Cetewayo, K.C.M.G. I have heard an
eminent Frontier General called "Judas Iscariot," and I myself was
once pointed out as a "Famine Commissioner," and afterwards as an
expurgated edition of the Secretary to the Punjab Government. People
seemed to think that Ali Baba would smell sweeter under some other
name. This was a mistake.

Almost everything you are told in Simla is a mistake. You should never
believe anything you hear till it is contradicted by the _Pioneer_. I
suppose the Government of India is the greatest _gobemouche_ in the
world. I suppose there never was an administration of equal importance
which received so much information and which was so ill-informed. At a
bureaucratic Simla dinner-party the abysses of ignorance that yawn
below the company on every Indian topic are quite appalling!

I once heard Mr. Stokes say that he had never heard of my book on the
Permanent Settlement; and yet Mr. Stokes is a decidedly intelligent
man, with some knowledge of Cymric and law. I daresay now if you were
to draw off and decant the law on his brain, it would amount to a full
dose for an adult; yet he never heard of my book on the Permanent
Settlement. He knew about Blackstone; he had seen an old copy once in
a second-hand book shop; but he had never heard of my work! How
loosely the world floats around us! I question its objective reality.
I doubt whether anything has more objectivity in it than Ali Baba
himself. He was certainly flogged at school. Yet when we now try to
put our finger on Ali Baba he eludes the touch; when we try to lay him
he starts up gibbering at Cabul, Lahore, or elsewhere. Perhaps it is
easier to imprison him in morocco boards and allow him to be blown
with restless violence round about the pendant world, abandoned to
critics: whom our lawless and uncertain thoughts imagine howling.

[Ali Baba! I know not what thou art, but know that thou and I must
part; and why or where and how we met, I own to me's a secret yet. Ali
Baba, we've been long together through pleasant and through cloudy
weather; 'tis hard to part when things are dear, bar silver, piece
cloth, bottled beer, then steal away with this short warning: choose
thine own winding-sheet, say not good-night here, but in some brighter
binding, sweet, bid me good morning.]--ALI BABA, K.C.B.




EXTRACTS FROM _SERIOUS REFLECTIONS AND OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS_.

BY "OUR POLITICAL ORPHAN."

_The Bombay Gazette Press_, 1881.

No. XXXIV



THE TEAPOT SERIES



SOCIAL DISSECTION



[January 5, 1880.]



GOSSIP I.

MY DEAR MRS. SMITH,

I cannot understand why Mrs. Smith, with her absurd figure--for really
I can apply no other adjective to it--should wear that most absurdly
tight dress. Some one should tell her what a fright it makes of her.
She is nothing but convexities. She looks exactly like an hour-glass,
or a sodawater machine. At a little distance you can hardly tell
whether she is coming to you, or going away from you. She looks just
the same all round. People call her smile sweet; but then it is the
mere sweetness of inanity. It is the blank brightness of an empty
chamber. She sheds these smiles upon everyone and everything, and they
are felt to be cold like moonshine. Speaking for myself, these
_eau-sucré_ smiles could not suckle my love. I would languish upon
them. My love demands stronger drink. Mrs. Smith's features are good,
no doubt. Her eyes are good. An oculist would be satisfied with them.
They have a cornea, a crystalline lens, a retina, and so on, and she
can see with them. This is all very satisfactory, I do not deny, as
far as it goes. Physiologically her eyes are admirable; but for
poetry, for love, or even for flirting, they are useless. There is no
significance in them, no witchery, no suggestiveness. The aurora of
beautiful far-away thoughts does not coruscate in them. Her eyelids
conceal them, but do not quench them. They would be nothing for
winking, or tears. If she winked at me, I should not jump into the
air, as if shot in the spine, with my blood tingling to my
extremities; my heart would not beat like a side-drum; my blushes
would not come perspiring through my whiskers. Her winking would
altogether misfire. Why? Because her winking would be physiological
and not erotic. If you ever learnt to love her, it would not be for
any lovelight in her eye; it would never be the quick, fierce, hot,
biting electric passion of the fleshly poets, it would be what a
chemist might call the "eremacausis" kindled by habit. Mrs. Smith's
tears are quite the poorest product of the lachrymal glands I have
ever seen. They are simply a form of water. They might dribble from an
effete pump; they might leak from a worn-out _mashq_.[AA] I observe
them with pity and regret. Their drip has no echo in my bosom; it
produces no stalactites of sympathy in my heart.

I have often been told that her nose was good--and good it
unquestionably is--good for blowing; good for sneezing; good for
snoring; good for smelling; a fine nose for a catarrh. But who could
play with it? Who could tweak it passionately, as a prelude to
kissing? Who could linger over it tenderly with a candle, or a lump of
mutton fat, when cold had laid its cruel hand upon it? It is not
tip-tilted like a flower; it is not whimsical with some ravishing and
unexpected little crook. It is straight, like a mathematical line. But
it has no parts. Her cheeks are round and fair. Each has its dimple
and blush. They are thoroughly healthy, Mrs. Smith's digestion is
unexceptionable. You might indicate the contour of these cheeks with a
pair of compasses; you might paint them with your thumb. Poor Mrs.
Smith's talk, or babble rather, is of her husband, her children, her
home. It is a mere purring over them. She never cuts them to pieces,
and holds them up to scorn and mockery. She never penetrates their
weaknesses. She does not even understand that Smith is a common-place,
stereotyped kind of fellow, exactly like hundreds of other men in his
class. She does not appear to notice the ghastly defects in his
education, tastes, and character, which gape before all the world
else. She does not see that he is without the _morbidezza_ of culture;
that he finds no _appogiatura_ in art; that he never rises at
midnight, amid lightning and rain, to emit an inarticulate cry of
æsthetic anguish in some metrical construction of the renaissance
period. She does not miss in him that yearning after the unattainable,
which in some mysterious wise fills us with a mute despair; which has
in it yet I know not what of sweetness amid the delirious aspirations
with which it distracts us. She cannot know, with her base instincts
dragging her down to the hearth-level of home and child, the material
gracelessness of her husband, equally incapable of striking an
Anglo-Saxon, or a mediæval attitude; and with his blood flushed,
healthy face unable to realize in his expression that divine sorrow
which can alone distinguish the man of culture from ordinary
Englishmen, or the anthropoid apes. She will never know what vibrates
so harshly on us--the want of feeling for colour which is displayed in
the coarse tone of his brown hair. So in regard to her children, the
mind of Mrs. Smith is quite uncritical. Look at that baby, like a
thousand other babies you see every day. It has not a single
idiosyncrasy on which anyone above the intellectual level of a
_crétin_ could hang an affection. Its porcine eyes twinkle dimly
through rolls of fat; it splutters and puffs, and its habits are
simply abominable. What a gross home for that life's star, which hath
had elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar! The star is quenched
in fat; it has exchanged the music of the spheres for a hideous
caterwauling! Yet Mrs. Smith loves that child, and gobbles over it,
descending to its abysses of grossness.

Her house is one of many in a long unlovely street; it is furnished
according to the most corrupt dictates of bestial Philistinism--that
is, with a view to comfort. There are no subtle harmonies in the
papers and chintzes; there are no hidden suggestions of form and tone
in the cornices and bell handles; all is barren of proportion,
concord, and meaning. Still, this poor woman, with her inartistic eye
and foolish heart, loves this wretched shelter, and would pour out her
idiotic tears if she were leaving it for Paradise.

But if we descend from our aesthetic heights to the lowly level of the
biped Smith, we may see Mrs. S. in a totally different atmosphere, and
certain lights and shadows will play about her with a radiance not
altogether without beauty. She is a single-minded woman, anxious to
make her husband and children comfortable and happy in their
home,--and dreaming of nothing beyond this. She is full of homely
wisdom; a hundred little economies she practises with forethought and