第4章

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK.

Montaigne and "Howel's Letters" are my bedside books.If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again.

They talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me.I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again.I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them.I am informed that both of them tell coarse stories.I don't heed them.It was the custom of their time, as it is of Highlanders and Hottentots to dispense with a part of dress which we all wear in cities.But people can't afford to be shocked either at Cape Town or at Inverness every time they meet an individual who wears his national airy raiment.I never knew the "Arabian Nights" was an improper book until I happened once to read it in a "family edition." Well, qui s'excuse....Who, pray, has accused me as yet? Here am Ismothering dear good old Mrs.Grundy's objections, before she has opened her mouth.I love, I say, and scarcely ever tire of hearing, the artless prattle of those two dear old friends, the Perigourdin gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of King Charles's Council.

Their egotism in nowise disgusts me.I hope I shall always like to hear men, in reason, talk about themselves.What subject does a man know better? If I stamp on a friend's corn, his outcry is genuine--he confounds my clumsiness in the accents of truth.He is speaking about himself and expressing his emotion of grief or pain in a manner perfectly authentic and veracious.I have a story of my own, of a wrong done to me by somebody, as far back as the year 1838:

whenever I think of it and have had a couple of glasses of wine, ICANNOT help telling it.The toe is stamped upon; the pain is just as keen as ever: I cry out, and perhaps utter imprecatory language.

I told the story only last Wednesday at dinner:--"Mr.Roundabout," says a lady sitting by me, "how comes it that in your books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point)--how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the air, kick, and trample on?"I couldn't help myself.I knew I ought not to do it.I told her the whole story, between the entrees and the roast.The wound began to bleed again.The horrid pang was there, as keen and as fresh as ever.If I live half as long as Tithonus, that crack across my heart can never be cured.There are wrongs and griefs that CAN'T be mended.It is all very well of you, my dear Mrs.G., to say that this spirit is unchristian, and that we ought to forgive and forget, and so forth.How can I forget at will? How forgive? I can forgive the occasional waiter who broke my beautiful old decanter at that very dinner.I am not going to do him any injury.But all the powers on earth can't make that claret-jug whole.

"Tithonus," by Tennyson, had appeared in the preceding (the 2nd)number of the Cornhill Magazine.

So, you see, I told the lady the inevitable story.I was egotistical.I was selfish, no doubt; but I was natural, and was telling the truth.You say you are angry with a man for talking about himself.It is because you yourself are selfish, that that other person's Self does not interest you.Be interested by other people and with their affairs.Let them prattle and talk to you, as I do my dear old egotists just mentioned.When you have had enough of them, and sudden hazes come over your eyes, lay down the volume;pop out the candle, and dormez bien.I should like to write a nightcap book--a book that you can muse over, that you can smile over, that you can yawn over--a book of which you can say, "Well, this man is so and so and so and so; but he has a friendly heart (although some wiseacres have painted him as black as bogey), and you may trust what he says." I should like to touch you sometimes with a reminiscence that shall waken your sympathy, and make you say, Io anche have so thought, felt, smiled, suffered.Now, how is this to be done except by egotism? Linea recta brevissima.That right line "I" is the very shortest, simplest, straightforwardest means of communication between us, and stands for what it is worth and no more.Sometimes authors say, "The present writer has often remarked;" or "The undersigned has observed;" or "Mr.Roundabout presents his compliments to the gentle reader, and begs to state,"&c.: but "I" is better and straighter than all these grimaces of modesty: and although these are Roundabout Papers, and may wander who knows whither, I shall ask leave to maintain the upright and simple perpendicular.When this bundle of egotisms is bound up together, as they may be one day, if no accident prevents this tongue from wagging, or this ink from running, they will bore you very likely; so it would to read through "Howel's Letters" from beginning to end, or to eat up the whole of a ham; but a slice on occasion may have a relish: a dip into the volume at random and so on for a page or two: and now and then a smile; and presently a gape; and the book drops out of your hand; and so, bon soir, and pleasant dreams to you.I have frequently seen men at clubs asleep over their humble servant's works, and am always pleased.Even at a lecture I don't mind, if they don't snore.Only the other day when my friend A.said, "You've left off that Roundabout business, I see;very glad you have," I joined in the general roar of laughter at the table.I don't care a fig whether Archilochus likes the papers or no.You don't like partridge, Archilochus, or porridge, or what not? Try some other dish.I am not going to force mine down your throat, or quarrel with you if you refuse it.Once in America a clever and candid woman said to me, at the close of a dinner, during which I had been sitting beside her, "Mr.Roundabout, I was told Ishould not like you; and I don't." "Well, ma'am," says I, in a tone of the most unfeigned simplicity, "I don't care." And we became good friends immediately, and esteemed each other ever after.