Chapter II: Part 2

“Beware of imitations!” say the advertisements. “Beware of originality!” say I. If we were all original, there would be no living with us. The original genius is well enough when we wish to be entertained, but it is the old-fashioned reliable imitator who makes this world the pleasant place it is. And let us not forget, Sir, that the most original thing in the world is sin.

I am, Sir,
DAVID DUPLEX.

A FLATTERING TRIBUTE

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: Some months ago I read in your magazine an article in which you advocated the keeping of a journal or diary, saying that by this means one might always keep one’s self well informed as to what progress one might be making spiritually, morally and mentally upon the journey through life. This suggestion struck me very forcibly; so much so, indeed, that I straightway determined to act upon your advice and to begin forthwith such a record of my intimate life as would enable me, at any time when the spirit moved me, to inform myself in this respect. Up to the time when I read the article of which I speak, I had always considered the writing of a diary as rather a senseless occupation, since I could not see why one need put down that which was already well known to one’s self; but when I had read your advice upon the subject, I soon came to see that there is much which will inevitably escape, not only the memory, but the attention as well, unless committed to paper.

Convinced, then, of the usefulness of such an intimate record, I set myself to writing down with great particularity all that I saw, heard, said, did or read; so that I may now look back at the end of the year and review each day in all its details. As you may suppose, I was much surprised to find myself given to habits of which I had formerly been quite unaware. I discovered that much of my reading, for instance, was of a decidedly frivolous and unprofitable sort. After considering this for some time, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to mend my ways and to abandon my habit of indiscriminate and idle reading, and I therefore request that you will cancel my subscription to _The Idler_.

Thanking you for the article on diaries, which will, I am sure, prove a most valuable suggestion to me, I am, Sir,

Truly yours,
LUCY LACKWIT.

THE RIDDLE OF A DREAM

“Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride a gallop.”
--_Shakespeare._

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I have had a curious dream and I am at a loss to account for it. I have consulted an old dream book, which I have in my possession, and which was formerly the property of my old nurse, Aunt Betty S., but for all my diligent searching therein, I have failed utterly to find anything which might serve as an interpretation of my vision. I called at the public library of our village and asked for the latest and most up-to-date work of this character, but the librarian only laughed at my request and assured me that she possessed no such work and that as far as she knew there had never been any such work upon her shelves. To my protest that no library could be complete without at least a few volumes of this character, she retorted that only fools and old fogies any longer had any faith in the meaning of dreams, and that if I was troubled with nightmare the best thing I could do would be to stop lying on my back or be more careful of what I ate before going to bed.

It would seem that I am a bit old-fashioned in my faith in the meaning of dreams, though I do not see how any one who pretends to a belief in the Christian faith can scoff at the interpretation and significance of them in the face of the many notable instances cited in the Bible, as, for example, the vision of Jacob and the dream which caused Joseph to flee into Egypt. I suppose, however, that I should not be surprised at the light and irreverent fashion in which the young people of to-day treat this subject, when I reflect that a Christian clergyman has recently suggested a revision of the Ten Commandments. Notwithstanding the apparently widespread heresy concerning the futility and emptiness of dreams, I trust that I am not the only Christian gentleman now living who clings to the faith of his fathers and who has sufficient faith in the inspiration of the Gospels to believe that a dream is something more than a result of injudicious eating. It is in the hope that some such person may be a reader of your journal and that the result may be a correct interpretation of my own dream, that I am writing this to you. I observe that your journal is somewhat behind the times in many respects and therefore I assume that some of your readers are likely to be as old-fashioned and as “superstitious” as myself.

The dream which I am about to relate came to me in the following circumstances. I had been out rather late the night before and had partaken of a number of fancy dishes such as I am not in the habit of eating at my own table, but which my daughter, who is just back from a young ladies’ finishing school, assures me are much more pleasing if not more nourishing than the ham and eggs which I was upon the point of ordering for our supper after the theater. It was in the morning of the next day and we were out in our new automobile which had only come from the factory the day before. The automobile, or “car” as my daughter calls it, is of rather expensive make and luxurious to a degree. Being somewhat fagged by my unaccustomed dissipation of the night before, I leaned back upon the cushions and presently I fell asleep.

It appeared to me that I was no longer in the automobile, but trudging along the road as I was in the habit of doing in my younger years. As I came to a turn in the road I was confronted with a troop of horsemen, who were by all odds the strangest company it has ever been my lot to behold. All of them were splendidly mounted on magnificent horses which were caparisoned like the mounts of the knights in some rich and gorgeous medieval tapestry. Their bridles were of chased leather with bits and buckles of solid gold; their stirrups were of platinum and silver, and their saddles were of silver and gold, upholstered in plush and velvet. Silk and satin ribbons floated from the bridles of the horses and flaunted in the wind in gay and beautiful streamers. But with the horses and their trappings the magnificence came to a sudden end. The riders themselves were the most incongruous riders for such noble animals that one could imagine. They were, without exception, tattered and bedraggled to the last degree of unkempt frowsiness. Their faces were gaunt and drawn as with hunger and their hair hung unbrushed and uncombed upon their frayed collars. In more than one instance a foot was thrust through a silver stirrup while the toes of the rider came peeping through the broken ends of his boot. A more wretched company mounted upon more beautiful chargers it would be difficult to imagine.

At sight of me the whole company came to a sudden halt, checking their mounts as at the command of a leader, though no word was spoken. The leader of the cavalcade, who bestrode a handsome gelding, rode out a little in advance of his fellows, and removing his crownless hat, swept me a bow, leaning low over the pommel of his saddle. And when I had returned his salutation, he addressed me in these words: “I give you good morrow, gentle sir, and I beg you in the name of Christ and this our company that you spare us a few coins of silver or of gold that we may partake of food and drink, for the way is long and weary and we can not travel without meat and wine to sustain us on our journey.”

Now this speech greatly astonished me, as I had never seen so large a company of beggars journeying together, and I was the more astounded that men mounted in such splendid fashion should be asking alms.

“What!” I cried in amazement, “are you begging then, while you ride upon such fine horses, and your bridles and saddles are worth a king’s ransom?”

“Even so,” replied the leader, “and much as I loathe discourtesy, I must remind you that our time is short, so pray give us what funds you can spare and let us be on our way, for we hope to reach our destination by nightfall.”

“And what is your destination?” I asked.

“The City of Vain Display,” he replied. “But we dally.”

“But if you need money,” I protested, “why do you not sell your horses and trappings?”

At this the whole company cried out in protest, and the leader answered: “Sell our mounts? Never! Look at them. Are they not beautiful?”

And truly they were. And as I looked at them I was seized with a great desire to feel a horse of like magnificence between my knees, and I cried, “I wish that I, too, had a horse like that!”

“Give me all the money that you have,” said the leader, “and you shall have one.”

So I gave him the money. Presently I found myself riding with them and my clothes were as tattered and torn as the clothes of the others. And we set off at a furious pace, faster and faster, until the horses panted with exertion, and after a time one stumbled and fell, sending his rider over his head to the hard road. But nobody stopped, and looking back, I saw the unfortunate fellow sprawling in the roadway with his neck broken. On, on we went, one horse after another giving a final gasp and falling down in the road, and as each one fell we who were left urged our mounts to greater exertions, plying whip and spur without ceasing, until finally only the leader and I were riding on. Then his horse stumbled to its knees and rolled over on its side, and I rode on alone. Lashing my horse I strained onward till the poor beast came crashing down with a jar that threw me headlong upon the highway, where I fell so heavily that I woke.

I have pondered over this dream ever since, but I confess I can make nothing of it. I must draw this letter to a close now, for my daughter informs me that the automobile is waiting, and I have not mortgaged my house to secure the thing for the purpose of letting it stand idle.

I hope, Sir, that if you or any of your readers can read me the riddle of this dream they will be good enough to forward the solution to

Your humble servant,
TIMOTHY TINSELTOP.

BLUFFTOWN, NEW YORK.

BEDS FOR THE BAD

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: It was Sancho Panza, if my memory serves me right, who invoked a blessing upon the head of the man who first invented sleep; I think he had done better to bestow his blessings upon the man who first invented beds. I think it extremely doubtful if sleep can be classed as an invention of man; it is, rather, a function, like breathing, and I doubt not that Adam fell a-nodding before ever he knew the meaning of sleep at all. The bed, upon the contrary, is without question of human origin, for no other living thing has constructed anything resembling it except the bird, who makes his nest serve him as both bed and house, and certainly no deity could have occasion to use such an article, seeing that eternal wakefulness is a necessary attribute of godhood.

The bed, in my opinion, is the greatest of all human inventions, without which sleep were robbed of half its pleasure. Nowhere do we enjoy such delicious refreshing repose as when snugly ensconced in a proper bed, and for my part, there is no other luxury which I could not spare better than my bed. Napkins, tablecloths, knives, forks, spoons--even the table, I could forego without great loss of appetite, but I can rest nowhere else than in a bed, and I can rest well in no bed but my own. So strong is my regard for this article of household furniture, that, were I a poet, I should ask no greater glory than to be the author of those beautiful lines of Thomas Hood--

“O bed! O bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head!”

No truer words were ever spoken than those of Isaac De Benserade when he said:

“In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And, born in bed, in bed we die;
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe.”

A man may be without land or money and still be happy; he may endure the loss of friends and fortune, and he may preserve his courage even in the face of shame and disgrace; but, Sir, a man who has not a good bed is no more than half a man. Without this refuge from the trials and troubles of the world, a man is robbed of the one consolation which it should be the right of every man to enjoy. Without a bed, his vitality is sapped, his courage is broken down and his moral sense is impaired. I maintain, Sir, that no man can go bedless without becoming a menace to the community, and this brings me to the subject I had in mind when I sat down to write this letter.

I have observed, Mr. _Idler_, that though a great many people of excellent intentions devote themselves to the task of reforming and reclaiming members of the criminal class, the result of their labors is very far from being satisfactory. In spite of the great number of reformatories, prisons and houses of refuge erected in all parts of the world; in spite of numberless soup kitchens, missions, free sanatoriums and the like, men continue to break the laws and all our efforts to eradicate crime appear to go for little or nothing. Now I am convinced that there is a very good reason why this is true, and it is my conviction that our failure to abolish crime is directly due to our stupidity and block-headedness in attacking the problem from the wrong angle. Instead of trying to reform our criminals by the fear of punishment, we should prevent crime by diverting their minds from evil-doing and direct them into proper paths by the simple expedient which I am about to lay before you.

There is nothing in the world which is more likely to put a man into a good humor with himself, with other men and with existing conditions, than a good night’s rest. As I have said before, every man who lacks a bed is a potential criminal and there are a number of reasons why this is so. To lack repose naturally wears upon the nerves and reduces a man to a condition bordering upon insanity. It is conducive to cynicism, self-pity, a feeling of resentment against all other men and a strong sense of injustice. No matter what the cause of his bedless condition may be, no man can preserve an even temper when he wants to go to bed and has no bed to which he may go. Again, being out of bed and out of temper, he is ripe for various sorts of evil deeds from which he would turn in loathing after a good night’s rest. He is driven for shelter and divertisement into the haunts of vice and the dens of iniquity. He beguiles his sleepless hours in the company of vicious and dissolute persons. He regards the world from an entirely different point of view from the man who has just passed seven or eight pleasant hours in restful slumber. Sleeplessness and crime are as closely related as insomnia and insanity. Crime leads to sleeplessness and sleeplessness leads to crime.

Now, Sir, what I propose is just this: let us put the criminals to bed. Instead of offering the outcast a cold plate of soup or an inane tract, let us offer him a warm comfortable bed where he may lie down and pass at least eight hours of the twenty-four in dreaming that he is John D. Rockefeller or some other such harmless illusion. Let us offer him an opportunity to recover his strength, his courage and his moral balance in innocent sleep. I do not believe that the perfect social state can ever be brought about until such time as every person in the world shall own his own bed; until such time as beds shall be assigned by law to all those who can not purchase them upon their own account; until such time as a man’s bed shall be sacred to his own use, exempt from taxation or seizure by writ or other legal process and as inviolate as the clothes upon his back. I do not believe a perfect social state will ever be attained until it shall be a crime for a chambermaid to make a bed improperly or for a merchant to sell an imperfect spring or a lumpy mattress. I do not believe a perfect social state can ever be reached until every man in the world, and every woman and child, is guaranteed a good night’s rest every night in the year.

But as we have not yet advanced to a state of civilization where it would be practicable to provide every human being with a personal bed of his own, let us do what we can. Do you believe, Sir, that any but the most callow of youthful roisterers prefer the disgusting atmosphere of the all-night saloon or the bleak cheerlessness of a park bench to the heavenly comforts of a good bed? If you do, Sir, you are vastly mistaken. Throw open to these men an absolutely free lodging-house filled with clean comfortable beds, where all may come and go unquestioned as long as they enter at a certain hour and remain a stipulated time, and I warrant you that lodging-house will be filled to its capacity every night in the year. Let every community erect as many of these lodging-houses as its financial condition will permit. Let the vast sums that are now being wasted upon futile missions and piffling soup-kitchens be diverted to this legitimate end. Once we have our criminals and our outcasts in bed, we shall have them out of the streets, out of the parks, out of the gambling hells, out of the brothels and out of mischief!

The state plays the father in chastising disobedient citizens; let the state also play the mother in tucking them into bed. Go look upon them when every face is wiped clean of frown and leer; go look upon them when every face is smooth and quiet as the resting soul within

“And on their lids
The baby Sleep is pillowed ...”

and I warrant you, you shall find them, not outcasts and outlaws, but poor tired children whom you can not forbear to wish, as I now wish you,

Good night, and happy dreams!
CADWALLADER COVERLET.

IS CHESTERTON A MAN ALIVE?

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: If I were a writer of biographical sketches, I should begin these remarks with the statement that Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in the year 1874; but I am not a writer of biographical sketches. On the contrary, Sir, I am one who aims to tell the truth as often as it is possible to tell the truth without appearing eccentric. I do not begin these remarks in the fashion I have suggested because I am restrained by scruples which would never trouble a writer of biographies. The fact of the matter is, I do not know that Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in 1874. I do not know that he was ever born at all--at most I only suspect it. I suspect it because I never knew a man who had never been born to attract so much attention. His books may be urged as evidence of his birth, but they are by no means conclusive evidence. So far as my personal information goes, he may be nothing more than a name, like _Bertha M. Clay_. Perhaps he is only a creature of the imagination, like _Innocent Smith_, created by some author who chooses to write under the name, “Gilbert Chesterton.” I do not suggest these things as probabilities, but only as possibilities. And yet, what could be more improbable than Chesterton himself? Is it not, after all, more probable that he has been evolved from pen and ink, than from the clay of Adam?

We come now to the question which I borrow from the title of this paper: Is Gilbert Keith Chesterton a man alive? Is he not, rather, a very amusing conception of what a man might be? Let us consider the matter.

Of course the fact that you and I have no positive proof of his having been born does not argue that he is not a living man. Every day we meet men who are unquestionably as real as ourselves (providing we do not lean to the theory of Bishop Berkeley, that we can be sure of no existence but our own), yet we know little or nothing of the origin of these men. They may have been born, or they may not. If you were to ask them, they would probably insist that they were born at one time or another. They believe this because they can not account for their existence upon any other hypothesis. But they believe it on hearsay evidence. Not one of them really remembers anything at all about it. People sometimes grow up to learn that they are changelings; that they are not at all the people they had thought they were. Is it not possible, then, that here and there may live a man who was never born at all? I should not be so bold as to deny the possibility. There have always been legends of men who can not die--men who live on in spite of age and accident. I see no reason why one man should not escape birth if another may escape death. I do not, therefore, insist that Mr. Chesterton prove himself to have been born. It is only that I find it hard to believe that he really exists in the flesh.

Now, Mr. Chesterton, in all his works, dwells upon the subject of madness or insanity. Does this prove that Mr. Chesterton is mad? By no means. As he himself has said, the man who is really mad seldom suspects that he is unbalanced; it is the man who fears madness who finds madness a fascinating subject. Sir, Mr. Chesterton is not mad, but I think he fears madness. It is almost impossible to find one of his essays in which there is no mention of madness. I think it fair to assume that he writes of madness because he has a fear--not necessarily a terror, you understand, but still a fear--that some day he may be afflicted with this malady. Mr. Chesterton also writes a whole book upon the subject of being alive. Are we to assume, because of this, that he _is_ alive? By no means. It is quite possible that he only fears he may some day come alive; that he may some day cease to be the whimsical creation of some author’s fancy and become a real man of flesh and blood.

Do you see no reason why he should fear such a metamorphosis? Surely you must. From time immemorial, men have shuddered at the thought of becoming a spirit, an infinite being composed chiefly of memory; a purely intellectual organism having nothing material in its make-up. Now if men are disturbed, as they are, at the prospect of becoming ideas, why should not ideas be disturbed at the prospect of becoming men? Is it likely that an idea, immune from all the evils of mortal existence, superior to the weaknesses of the flesh and possessing, at least, a potential immortality, would be pleased with the prospect of becoming mere man? Would an idea willingly abandon the clear atmosphere of a purely intellectual plane for the muggy mists and murky fogs of London? Assuredly not.

Lucretius, ridiculing the theory of reincarnation in his work, _De Rerum Natura_, drew a ludicrous picture of disembodied spirits eagerly awaiting their turn to enter a vacant human tenement. Lucretius was thoroughly appreciative of the absurdity of his picture. He knew that no disembodied spirit would be so foolish as to desire imprisonment in a mortal frame. And as it is with spirits, so we may suppose it to be with ideas. It is one thing to be put into a book; it is quite another to be put into a body. No matter how often an idea may be put into a book, it can not be confined therein. It is still free to travel where it lists. It can leap from London to Overroads in the twinkling of an eye--or it can be in both places at one and the same time. It may appear to a dozen different men in a dozen different aspects. It possesses the Protean faculty of being all things to all men. But confine that idea in a human body; transform that idea into a human being--and what is the result? Why, the result is an immediate loss of liberty. The man, who was formerly an idea, can no longer flit about with lightning-like rapidity. If he wishes to travel from Overroads to London, he must go by train or motor-car. He can by no ingenuity contrive to be in both places at the same time. He must wear the same face wherever or in whatever company he may be. Whether the body which he inhabits is known to its neighbors as Smith or Chesterton, the result is the same--he has lost his liberty. And what has he gained? He has gained the ability to prove his mortal existence--the right to say that he has been born.

It is easy enough to see why an idea should fear to become a man. And when we consider such an idea as Chesterton, the matter is even clearer. Whimsicalities and contradictions which may have been useful and even ornamental in the fictitious Chesterton--in Chesterton the idea--might, Sir, prove most embarrassing to Chesterton the British Subject. You can not prosecute an idea for treason, nor sue it for damages. You can not even confine an idea in a mad-house for being crazy. Most ideas are crazy; none more so perhaps than the one which I am presenting to you now. It is true that a few ideas have been confined in a mad-house, but of those few which have been shut up with the persons claiming them, the great majority have been quite sane. Just as many sane men are devoted to crazy ideas, so many sane ideas are devoted to crazy men; so devoted to them that they will follow them anywhere--even to a mad-house.

If my idea that Mr. Chesterton is an idea is correct, I am sure I do not know whose idea he may be; but he is just such a crazy idea as might belong to a sane man and should therefore be safe in sticking to his originator. If Mr. Chesterton _is_ an idea and is thinking of becoming a man, I should strongly advise him against adopting any such course. I like him much better as an idea. He is so much more plausible that way.

I am, Sir,
A. VISIONARY.

FROM A HUNCHBACK

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I had the misfortune, through no fault of my own, to be born a hunchback. This, in itself, Sir, is an affliction sufficient to render my life a hard one and to embitter such happiness as I may snatch from the hands of fate; but it is an affliction for which, as far as I know, nobody is to blame, and one, therefore, which I must bear with such patience and fortitude as I can command. But I bear in common with other cripples a far greater burden than mere physical disability, and that is the contempt and pity of my fellow men.

I find that some men regard me with contempt alone, some with contempt and pity intermingled, and some with simple pity--and of the three I think the last is, perhaps, the hardest to endure with equanimity, since it is the most sincere feeling of superiority which prompts it. I do not ask the pity of my fellows; I consider myself in much better case than many men who have straight backs and smooth shoulders; and certainly I can not see why I should deserve the contempt of any one merely because I happen to have been born with a body unlike that of the majority of men. Yet I find the hump upon my back a hindrance in every venture that I undertake.

A few years ago when I was younger and more sanguine than I am now, when I still had faith in the innate fairness of human nature and in the spirituality of the love of women, I fell in love. Fortunately, as I thought then, I had not come into the world naked if I had come crooked, for I possessed a comfortable balance at the bank; a sum of money in point of fact which was far in excess of the financial resources of any of the other young men of my acquaintance. Counting upon the good times which my supply of ready money seemed likely to afford them, a number of the more prominent young men of my native town had taken the trouble to cultivate my society during their college days when they were often short of money and found it convenient to have a friend who could always be relied on to help out in a pinch and who was not at all inclined to play the dun if payments were somewhat slow. Having, as I say, availed themselves of my generosity and cultivated my company in those lean years of study, these young men, upon entering into the world of business and society, could not, with a good grace, begin to ignore me altogether, and they therefore made it a point to look me up now and then and to invite me about with them to such functions and entertainments as I might enjoy, and at the same time, enter into unhandicapped by my physical deformity.

I could not, of course, play tennis, golf or any game of that sort. I was, in truth, deterred from entering into any such sport more by my natural horror of appearing ridiculous than by reason of an actual lack of the strength necessary to swing a racket or handle a club. The fact is, I am not especially weak physically, having always taken great care of my health and having practised with some success such physical exercises as might be practised in the privacy of my own chambers or such as would not be likely to excite comment. But no matter how muscular a man may be, he can not but appear absurd when he goes about carrying a golf club nearly as tall as himself or rushing about a tennis net like a lame camel.

But though, as I say, I was not in demand for such games as these, I did play an excellent hand at whist, could thrum the guitar a bit, play accompaniments upon the piano, sing a little in a fairly good baritone voice and carry on a conversation light or heavy as the occasion seemed to require. Of course, I did not dance, but I often sat at the piano and furnished music for the others, thus making myself useful and at the same time diplomatically avoiding drawing notice to the fact that I was disqualified as a dancer. Although I always had a secret longing for theatricals and knew myself to be possessed of histrionic ability in no mean degree, I never joined our local amateur dramatic club. I think perhaps I might have done so had not some tactless member of the club once sent me an invitation to take part in a performance of _Richard the Third_, which so incensed me that I never again so much as attended a play given by that organization.

It was during this time, when I was almost enjoying life like an ordinary man, owing to the careful manner in which my acquaintances concealed their dislike and contempt for my crooked back, that I met and fell in love with a girl who seemed to me, at the time, a charming and sweet-souled young woman. I saw a great deal of her, owing to the fact that we were both of musical tastes and often played and sang together, and it was not long before I came to the conclusion that if I were ever to marry I might as well be about it then as any time, and especially since I had the necessary mate at hand, so to speak. To think was to act with me in those days, and I put the matter to her bluntly the very first time I saw her after forming my resolution in this respect. You may not believe me, but I swear to you that I am telling the truth when I say that I had grown so accustomed to having my friends ignore my infirmity that I had quite forgotten to take it into account in the case of the young woman. In fact, I would have considered it an unjust aspersion of her character to think her capable of holding such a thing against me, our relations having been always of the most spiritual.

You can imagine, then, the shock it gave me when I saw the horror growing in her eyes which I had so often surprised in the eyes of strangers! You can fancy, perhaps, the physical and mental anguish I suffered in that moment when I realized that even to her I was not as other men--that she had played with me as one might play with a child, and that she would no sooner think of becoming my wife than she would think of wedding with an educated baboon. And yet, Sir, within the space of two years I saw that same young woman stand at the altar with a senile and decrepit old roué who had never possessed the tenth part of my own intellectuality and who had absolutely nothing to recommend him but a fortune, somewhat smaller than my own, and a straight back. I am told that she is not happy with him, and small wonder, since he is never at home save when he is too drunk to be elsewhere; but even so, I doubt if she has ever regretted her answer to me, so strong is the prejudice of the normal person against all forms of physical deformity. The fact that her husband is more crooked in his morals than I am in my back would, I dare say, have no weight whatever with her.

I have heard people say that women are often attracted by men of odd and unusual personal appearance and that many women find an almost irresistible fascination in cripples and the like, but I have never encountered anything in my personal experience to incline me to this view. It is an idea upon which Victor Hugo dilates in his romance, _The Man Who Laughs_, where the duchess becomes enamored of a monster. But I am of the opinion that Hugo treated this matter more truthfully and realistically in _The Bell Ringer of Notre Dame_, where the white soul and brave heart of Quasimodo count for nothing with Esmerelda when weighed against the physical attractions of the philandering captain, who is a thoroughly bad lot. I have heard it asserted that Lord Byron owed much of his popularity with the ladies to his club foot, but this I take to be the sheerest nonsense. The fascination which Lord Byron exercised upon the women was not, I am convinced, due to his physical deformity, but to what we may call his mental and moral deformity. And this, Sir, brings us to the milk in the cocoanut and the point of this letter. I wish to ask you, and to ask your readers, what I have so often asked myself: Why is it that men and women find physical deformity so hateful while they so often find mental and moral deformity attractive?

Shakespeare, learned in the ways of human nature, laid particular stress upon the physical shortcomings of Richard the Third, well knowing that no amount of mere wickedness would serve to turn the audience against him so strongly as a hump upon his back. The villain of the play, if he be handsome and brave, will often oust the hero from his rightful place in the esteem of the audience, so that presently the pit, the galleries and the boxes are united as one man in wishing him success in his villainy, or at least in wishing him immunity from his well-deserved punishment. Instead of hissing him, the spectators are moved to applaud him. And for this reason the playwrights and the novelists have, until late years when the worship of virtue is no longer considered an essential part of art, caused the villain to appear a coward or burdened him with some physical deformity. And the devil of it all is, Sir, that most of the villains in real life are like the villains of the stage who oust the hero. Charles Lamb once said that it is a mistake to assume that all bullies are cowards; and in my opinion it is an even greater mistake to assume that a villain can not be attractive. If villains had no charm, villainy would soon cease through want of success.

In the case of Byron, since I seem to have chosen him for an example, the women were attracted on the one hand by his reputation as a genius and upon the other hand by his reputation as a rake. Byron, though a cripple, was an unusually handsome man of the poetic type, and I think we may safely assume that the aversion which may have been created by his club foot was more than offset by the fact that he was otherwise of pleasing appearance and was known to be an athlete. Now, of course, it would be impossible to say whether more women were fascinated by his genius or by his rakishness, but on a venture I would be willing to wager that nine out of ten of the women who knew him would rather have read his love letters than his poetry. Genius is a thing apart from love, and, say what they will, I believe that the mistress of such a man is more like to be jealous of her lover’s genius than proud of it, and especially so where she can not flatter herself that it has been inspired by love of her. She is interested in a poem in which she can find herself, not because it is poetry, but because _she_ is in it. Therefore I incline to the belief that Byron’s conquests were due to his reputation as a rake, rather than to his reputation as a poet. But given the combination of a poet, a rake, a handsome man and a lord, it would be unnatural if women did not love him.

But Byron’s case is not the only one I have in mind. It is a common thing for murderers in jail to receive flowers and sentimental letters from women. Women, too, who have never so much as set eyes upon them and who know them only by the stories of their crimes in the newspapers. The maddest of religious fanatics can always count upon a goodly number of women as converts. The taint of insanity itself seems to be less repulsive to women than physical deformity. And the men are little better than the women. A man will often knowingly wed with a fool because she has a pretty face, or vote a rogue into office because he thinks him clever. The juries of men which try women murderers are ready to grow maudlin over them if the women happen to be good-looking.

It is a problem, Sir, which I can not solve, turn and twist it as I may. Sometimes I think that we who are deformed in body are granted the only straight minds to be found among men, by way of compensation. And at such times, Sir, I am inclined to thank God that He has seen fit to put the hump upon the back and not upon the mind or soul of

HAROLD HISHOULDER.

FROM A HOTEL SPONGE

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I feel it my duty to publicly express my disapproval of the recent ruling of certain hotel proprietors of this city, and to publicly protest against their hasty and ill-advised agreement that hereafter they will discourage, in every way possible, the visits of outsiders who make use of their lobbies and halls.

I am myself one of the best-known non-resident patrons of the hotels in this city, or, in the vulgar language of the innkeepers themselves--a hotel _sponge_. That is to say, I do not register at these hotels as a guest, but I do make it a point to drop into one or two of them every afternoon and evening, and I think I may say, without undue egotism, that you will seldom see a more debonair and smart-looking man than I appear upon these occasions. I am, I believe, as my tailor says, “an ornament to any assembly,” and my presence in a hotel lobby or corridor is sufficient to stamp that hotel as a proper place in the minds of all those who are sufficiently acquainted with the hall-marks of the _haut ton_ to recognize a gentleman when they see one.

I have been a familiar figure about a certain hotel on Thirty-fourth Street for the last ten years, and though the tide of fashion which once flowed through those corridors is now somewhat diminished, having set in a northerly direction, yet that hotel continues to hold its own with the visitors from out of town. And do you know why this is so, Mr. _Idler_? Do you know why it is that this hostelry is still enabled to present an appearance of smartness and exclusiveness? I presume that you do not, and so I shall tell you. It is simply that I have chosen to continue to appear there. Though the social leaders whose names are known across the continent desert the place for the newer and no less pretentious hotels farther up-town, this place, by reason of my loyalty, has suffered no loss of standing. I, Sir, am to the hotels of New York what John Drew is to the American stage. I am that rosy-faced, perfectly groomed, elegant gentleman of leisure who saunters through the halls and corridors at tea time and at dinner time, and who confirms the out-of-town guest in his opinion that he has selected as a place to stop the one hotel which is the resort of fashion.

If it were not for me and for the other members of my class, how long do you suppose these hotels could go on charging the enormous prices they now charge for food and lodging? How long do you suppose they could induce the thrifty countryman to part with such sums of his hard-earned money if he were not provided with the inspiring spectacle which I present when arrayed in my full regalia? Not one month, Sir. In less than a fortnight the word would go forth to all parts of the United States that these hotels had lost caste and were becoming back numbers.

It is to me, and to others like me, that the great modern hotels of this city owe their prosperity; indeed, I might say, their very existence. It is we who set the pace in luxury and style. The hotels merely live up to our standards. The manager of a shabby hotel can not see me walk into his lobby without feeling instantly ashamed of the poor accommodations he has to offer me. The hotel managers were so irked at being put out of countenance by the obvious superiority of the casual hotel visitor that they set out to provide for him a proper setting. Do you suppose, Sir, that the expensive furniture, the music, the luxurious reading and smoking-rooms, the glittering bars and the comfortable armchairs of the modern, up-to-date New York hotel were necessary to obtain the custom and patronage of the provincial visitors, or even necessary to hold that patronage? No, Sir! But _I_ am necessary to hold the business of these people, and the luxuries are necessary to hold me. All this is so plain, so perfectly apparent to any observing person, that it seems almost incredible that these managers should dare to risk our indignation. Drive us out, indeed! They will be very lucky if we do not withdraw altogether of our own accord, after such a gratuitous insult. A strike of waiters, Sir, would not prove one-half so demoralizing as a strike of the _atmosphere creators_, or, to use the insulting term of the hotel men, the “hotel sponges.”

Can you imagine, Sir, trying to paint a forest scene without a tree in sight? That task would be as easy as trying to conduct an aristocratic hotel without an aristocrat in sight. “But,” you say, “you fellows are not really aristocrats--you are only imitation aristocrats.” In so saying, Sir, you fall into the same error into which these hotel men have fallen. We are aristocrats. We are the ideal aristocrats, and let me tell you, Sir, we are much more convincing than those whom you would doubtless call the real aristocrats. I have not lived as a man-about-town for the last ten years without coming to know these dyed-in-the-wool aristocrats of yours very well indeed. I assure you that you would be much surprised and disappointed should you see them, as I have seen them, at our leading hotels. They would no more correspond to the countryman’s idea of an aristocrat than an Indian Chief would fulfil the romantic maiden’s ideal of a ruler of men. Sir, where I am urbane, they are ill at ease. Where I am clad in the very pink of fashion, they are often dowdy, not to say shabby. Where I appear indifferent and slightly bored, they are often irritable, easily upset and worried-looking. Oscar Wilde once said that he was very much disappointed in the Atlantic Ocean, and I can imagine that his disappointment was not deeper than that of the rural visitor who happens to stumble upon a member of what is known as our best society.

Doubtless you fancy that I and the others of my kind concern ourselves with aping the dress and manners of these society people. If so, you were never more mistaken in your life. It is they who copy and imitate us. They go where we go, they wear what we wear, they eat what we eat and they drink what we drink. Only, as is always the case with imitators, they fall far short of their models. How is it possible that any man can appear the perfect gentleman of leisure unless, indeed, his life is actually a life of ease and pleasure? We have no cares and no responsibilities. They have a thousand. We have no social duties to distract our attention. They are constantly consulting their watches. And, lastly, Sir, we have art, and they have none.

I can not imagine what has led these misguided innkeepers to think that they can do without us. But I can tell you, they will soon regret their recent action, whatever motives may have moved them to take it, for they will find very shortly that their hotels are not nearly so necessary to us as we are to their hotels. I am, Sir,

PERCIVAL PIGEONBREAST.

FROM SARAH SHELFWORN

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I have to complain of an abuse which is daily growing greater and which, if not checked, will soon assume the proportions of a national menace. It is my purpose, Sir, to call to your attention and to the attention of all earnest thinking people, a pernicious influence exercised by a certain portion of our daily press--by those vulgar flaunting publications known as “yellow journals”. Now do not misunderstand me, Mr. _Idler_; this letter is no ill-considered general attack upon the press; no incoherent or fanatical outcry against the publication of disagreeable facts. It is, on the contrary, a protest against a certain idealism which pervades the pages of these newspapers and which unduly excites the imagination of our young men. I do not refer to stories of crime, extravagance or anything of that sort--but to the publication of pictures of beautiful women.

You may ask, what possible harm can come of the publication of these pleasing portraits? Well, Sir, I will tell you; but in order that you may understand my point of view, I must first tell you something of myself and explain somewhat, my own experience.

I, Sir, am a school-teacher--an instructor in English literature--and since the school where I am employed is a public high school, it is hardly necessary to add, I am a woman. Or perhaps it would be more truthful to say I _was_ a woman once upon a time. When I was young and fairly pretty, there was no more womanly woman than I in all this section of the country, but let me tell you, Sir, ten years of teaching school is an experience calculated to unsex any person, man or woman. We veteran school-teachers constitute what a magazine writer recently referred to as “an indeterminate sex.” We have left in us nothing of the masculine or feminine nature. We think, feel, argue and reason like one another and like nobody else in the world--we are neuter throughout. It is, perhaps, for this reason that I can now look back upon my wasted life with only a passing regret, and that I can, without any feeling of outraged modesty or womanly reserve, lay bare to you the dreams of my girlhood and the thoughts of my maturity.

To begin, then, I have always lived in the little town where I am now teaching, though to be sure, since I became a teacher, I have traveled more or less during my vacations. I have visited many places in Europe and America at one time or another. I have made a pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon six times in as many years, and it is perhaps for this reason that I have never found time to read any of Shakespeare’s works beyond the four or five plays which we read in class. Be that as it may, when I was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, I was a bright, merry-hearted young creature who had not a care in the world, nor a thought for anything but pleasure. Not that I was without sentiment, for truth to tell, I was as sentimental as any, and let me tell you, Sir, one girl of eighteen has more sentiment in her composition than all of the old men in the world. I say “old men,” because I have observed that whereas sentiment comes to a woman early in life, so that she is soon done with it, men seldom become sentimental until they have passed middle age. And that is why, Sir, you will observe in the restaurants and cafés of your city, young men with old women and old men with young women. Like is naturally attracted to like. The old man loves the young woman for her romanticism which is akin to his own, and the young woman loves the old man because he is not ashamed to admit his infatuation and glories in his subjection to her charms. The young man, upon the other hand, is attracted to the older woman by her knowledge of the world, her masculine view-point, her independence of mind, her air of good-fellowship, and her frank acceptance of a temporary affection. The old woman finds in the young man the only sensible, sober and sane being that wears trousers.