Chapter IV: Part 4

For all our intimacy with ourselves, we never come to know ourselves completely. We discover, day by day, ideas and opinions which we never suspected ourselves of possessing. We are wrung by emotions which take us completely by surprise. We are angered by slights which our reason tells us are beneath our notice. We are moved to compassion when we are most determined to remain firm and unmoved. We take a liking for this person whom we have decided to dislike, and we develop an inexplicable aversion for another whom we have deliberately chosen for a friend. Whence come these impulses, these orders which we can not disobey? These commands which override our conscious desires and break down our natural wills? Where, indeed, but from that Inner Man, that Unknown Self whose power we feel but can not comprehend? Where else but from that second and stronger, if submerged, personality--the human soul? Is it not, indeed, this unanswerable argument, this inexplicable conviction of another and better Self within, joined with and yet distinct from, the ordinary self, which persuades men that mankind is immortal, no matter how ably the Brain may play the Infidel, nor how aptly the Tongue may second him?

For our outward selves, our “every-day selves,” as we might say, we know whence they are derived. We know that we are born of woman and fathered of man. We can trace to the one or the other this feature or that, this trait or the other, but there are yet to be accounted for those strange whims and fancies, those impulses and ideals which come neither from the father nor the mother, and which, in very truth, _make_ us ourselves, make us to be different from our sisters and our brothers, and without which all the offspring of the same parents would be as like as so many peas in a pod. And it is these things which convince us that we have within us another Ego, another Self which comes to us from some unknown place, to guard and to guide us upon the perilous path of life. We may sometimes close our ears to his counsel, but he never suffers us to go wrong unadvised. Is it to be wondered at, then, that we grow to feel for ourselves an affection which is not wholly selfish, and to take in ourselves a pride which is not wholly egotistic? I do not feel under any obligation to the man who wears my face and bears my name; he has made me ridiculous too often for that. But I do feel a duty to that other _Me_, the _Me_ that is not wholly of my own choosing. And so, I am convinced, do most men.

As I was saying, or about to say, the keenest shame we ever feel is the shame we feel for ourselves. Shame for others may be tempered with forgiveness, but it is very difficult to forgive one’s self. There is no question there of giving the accused the benefit of the doubt. There is no doubt. I feel a certain shame for the young man that I once was because I naturally feel a tenderness for him. I can forgive him much more readily than I could forgive myself as I am to-day. Yet I would not, if I could, change places with him. My taste in Selves, as in other things, has changed as I have grown older. I blush for the weak-mindedness of that youth who was the Me of twenty years ago; yet I feel, in a way, relieved from the sense of direct responsibility, for am I not, in fact, another and a different person from the man I was?

As the delightful Holmes once expressed it, that youthful self is like a son to me. A bit of a cub, but on the whole, not at all a bad fellow. He is related to me, but he is not me. And he _never was_ the man that I now am. He wore my body for a time, that was all. We were never the same, for I was not born until he had ceased to be. I am no more that young man of twenty years ago than I am that other young man who interrupts me now--(No, I haven’t. Can’t you see I’m busy?)--to borrow a match to set his ugly bulldog pipe alight. A vile habit--pipe-smoking! Unsanitary and beastly annoying to those who have better sense. That young man we were speaking of--not the one who asked for the match, you know, but the one who had the impudence to pass himself off for me twenty years ago--_he_ used to smoke a bulldog pipe. I stopped it some time ago myself. Bad for the heart, the doctor said, and--well, I’m getting on and I can see for myself the folly of it. Decidedly, I should not like to exchange my own calm judgment for his youthful carelessness and addiction to tobacco. Unless--well, say, unless for twenty minutes after dinner!

I am, Sir,
OLIVER OLDFELLOW.

THE LITERARY LIFE

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I have read a great many references, at one time or another, to something which is known as “the literary life”. I have read of it in novels, in essays, in criticisms and in the reports of the daily newspapers. Everybody seems to know of it, and everybody speaks of it as of something to be taken for granted; but though I have made an earnest effort to discover just what it is and where and by whom it is lived, I have been quite unable to do so. I had been a newspaper writer for several years when I first began to take an interest in this curiously illusive sort of existence. It was in a novel, I think, that I had read it upon the occasion when my curiosity aroused me to action. “There it is again,” I said to myself. “What is this literary life, anyway? Who lives it and in what does the living of it consist? How does one go about finding out the secret of it?”

So I set out on my quest. As all good reporters should do, I first took stock of my possible sources of information, and having done so, I did what reporters usually do when they wish to find out anything--I asked the city editor.

“How the devil do I know?” said he in his unliterary way. “You’re a reporter, ain’t you? Get busy and find out. If you get anything worth writing, make a story of it.” That is the way with city editors; they have no thought for anything but “stories”, no thirst for knowledge that is not in the way of business, no soul for the higher things in life.

With this source of information closed to me, I turned to the staff. I knew I could learn nothing from the books where I had found the term used. The books merely referred to “literary life” just as we say “prison life” or “army life” and expect every one to understand what we mean. The first man I asked about it simply laughed and said, “That’s a good one!” The second man told me to go away and stop bothering him. He was writing an interesting article about the price of onions. The third man asked me if I thought I was funny. That nearly discouraged me. I tried one or two others without success, and then I determined to try a more subtle method of investigation.

I had failed to gather my desired information as a reporter; I would try my hand as a detective. I took to following the members of the staff home from the office. It was an afternoon newspaper and that was easy to do. The result of my shadowing was that I learned much of the habits of these men, but little of what I wanted to know. The police reporter went from the office direct to the butcher shop. There he made a purchase which he tucked under his arm and went home. He stayed at home every night that I watched him. The court reporter spent his evenings in a little saloon on a side street playing poker with a particular friend of his who was a boilermaker. The hotel reporter covered the same ground every evening that he had covered during the day. He went from one hotel to another, playing pool or billiards and shaking dice with traveling men. After about a fortnight of investigation I gave up trying to learn anything about the literary life from newspaper men. I looked up a few magazine writers and the result was the same: _No two of these men lived the same life at all!_

I was astonished. I asked myself how it came about that these men had overlooked their obvious duty of living the literary life. If literary men knew nothing of the literary life, then who would? I resolved that I would solve that problem if it took me a year. From the magazine writers I went on to the novelists who seemed to have even less in common than the two former classes had. The publishers were so widely scattered in so many different suburbs that I had not the courage to seek them out.

After a conscientious search which covered a period of six months or more, I began to think that the literary life might be one of those traditions handed down from another age; one of those things which continue to be spoken of in books long after they cease to have any real existence. Perhaps the authors of other days had lived the literary life, even if the authors of my own time did not. I would see. I began to read biography. In Johnson’s _Lives of the Poets_ I found that:

Abraham Cowley was the son of a grocer. He showed early signs of genius; he was expelled from Cambridge. He was, for a time, private secretary to Lord Falkland. Afterward he spent some time in jail as a political prisoner. Upon emerging from prison he became a doctor, and thinking a knowledge of botany necessary to one of his profession, he retired into the country to study that science. For some reason, he abandoned botany for poetry and from that time on he wrote poetry. He died peacefully of rheumatism.

Edmund Waller was the son of a country gentleman. He attended Cambridge and was sent to Parliament before he was twenty. Rich by birth, he added to his wealth by marrying an heiress who died young and left him free to marry again, which he did. He lived among people of fashion and wealth, and though he was sent into exile for a short time because of a treasonable conspiracy in which he engaged, he was soon restored to general favor. He died in good circumstances of old age.

Thomas Otway was the son of a rector. He left college without a degree. He went into gay society and mingled his literary labor with dissipation. He was, for a short time, an officer in the army. He fell upon evil days, and when threatened with starvation, borrowed a guinea from a total stranger. With this he bought himself a roll, but he was so ravenous that he attempted to bolt it at one mouthful and so choked himself to death.

Which one of these men might properly be said to have led the literary life?

You need not be surprised to find in your paper some morning an advertisement to this effect: “Wanted--Some definite information concerning the character and habitat of the Literary Life.” But if you know anything about it, don’t wait for the advertisement, but send on your information at once. I think maybe I would be willing to try it myself. Certainly _somebody_ ought to live it.

I am, Sir,
A. J. PENN.

THE POETIC LICENSE

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: Your recent strictures upon a certain poem by John Masefield, and the general tenor of several other volumes of verse recently published, have moved me to address you upon a subject which holds considerable interest for me; and that, Sir, is the scope and legitimacy of what is commonly called “the poetic license”. To what does this license extend and by whom is it granted? Is there no way in which it may be regulated by law?

This matter of the poetic license is a source of continual annoyance to me. I find it invoked upon all occasions. I find that it is considered a sufficient answer to any criticisms or charges that may be brought against a poet. I am curious to know if there is any real authority for it; if it is not, in fact, a mere figment of the imagination, a polite fiction of letters invented by men of letters for the purpose of confounding the layman and depriving him of his natural right to pass an opinion upon all that he reads?

I confess I am no poet. This being so, I may be lacking in sympathy for the art, as some of my poetic acquaintances have averred. But I protest that a man need not be a poet to be a judge of poetry, any more than he need be a vintner to be a judge of wines, or a cook to be a judge of preserves. I may lack the finer ear of the poet when it comes to a question of complicated rhythms, but I am not lacking in an elementary knowledge of grammar, as some of our poets appear to be. I never could see any reason why a poet’s grammatical or orthographical errors should be condoned merely because he chooses to write in verse. We do not condone such defects in a prose writer, why then in a poet? It may be urged that the poet has a harder task than the prose writer; that it is more difficult to express one’s self in verse than in prose. No doubt it is, but is that any reason why incompetent writers should be excused their errors? Or their laxness? Or their laziness? Why write poetry at all if they can not write it properly? Why not choose prose for a medium? There are men, no doubt, who find prose as difficult as most men find poetry, but do we therefore overlook their mistakes or their vagaries?

Sir, it appears to me that the leniency shown to verse writers in this respect has worked a great injury to the art of poetry. It has encouraged men to write verses, who were in no way fitted to write verses. It has led tyros to choose poetry rather than prose because in the former they feel more secure from the well-merited censure of their readers. It has degraded really good poetry to the level of very poor poetry by allowing virtue where there was none and by holding verses full of defects to be equal in merit with verses marred by no such violations of the common rules of grammar and orthography.

All this, Sir, was bad enough, but I was prepared to pass over it since it is a practise inaugurated and upheld by professional critics who will allow us laymen no word at all in the matter. But, Sir, when these poets attempt to extend their poetic license to clothing, to manners and to morals, I think they go too far.

Not long since, I ventured some remarks, not altogether complimentary, upon the personal appearance of a certain poet, or poetaster, as I prefer to call him, in the presence of a literary woman. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “There’s no denying it--he _is_ a sloven. But really one of his spirituality could hardly be expected to be finicky about his clothing and that sort of thing.” Upon another occasion, I spoke harshly with regard to the manners of a well-known versifier, and I was rebuked for my hasty judgment with the assurance that the oddity of his conduct ought not to be ascribed to boorishness or rudeness, but to his poetic temperament. And, Sir, only yesterday, when I condemned the unbridled license and immorality of a recent book of poetry, I was informed that a poet could not be expected to view a moral question from the same angle as an ordinary uninspired mortal.

Sir, if these scribblers of verse are to be allowed any license, why should they not qualify for it as do pedlers, saloon-keepers and the like? Why not require them to prove their fitness for the business of writing poetry? Let them secure their license from the civil authorities, and let those licenses be revoked at the first indication of abuse of privilege.

As affairs now stand, any one who chances to possess a pen, a windsor tie and a wide-awake hat can pass himself off for a poet and can claim indulgence for his bad verse, bad manners and bad morals upon the plea of poetic temperament. Therefore, to insure the public against such imposture, I suggest that every poet be compelled, like every chauffeur, to wear his license in a conspicuous place, and that if he fail to comply with this requirement, he be immediately impounded.

This arrangement, I think, would operate as an effective check upon the too exuberant poetic temperament, and would also be an excellent thing for the public, for, Sir, if every poet were required, like every dog, to wear his license attached to a collar, the pound would soon be full of poets.

I am, Sir,
P. ROSE.

THE NECESSITY FOR BEGGARS

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: It is with alarm that I observe the increasing activity of our charitable organizations and the consequent disappearance of beggars from our city streets. I, who was formerly constantly importuned for alms whenever I stirred abroad, have not now been approached by one of those needy tatterdemalions for a period of six months or more. This fact has, for me, a deep significance. It means nothing less than that the ancient fraternity of street beggars is rapidly dying out. Surely you must have noticed that yourself. Where are the old blue-spectacled men one used to see standing upon the corners, bearing the once-familiar placard, “I am Blind”? Where are the legless men who used to wring discords from little squatty hand-organs? Where are the street-singers, the match venders, the orphans, the lost children, the paralytics? Where, even, is the Italian organ-grinder with his begging monkey? These charitable organizations, Sir, have spirited them away, and now instead of being approached by the beggars themselves, we are visited by the agents of the societies.

Now, Sir, my regret at the passing of the beggar is not altogether sentimental, like Charles Lamb’s complaint in _The Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis_. There may be a certain amount of sentiment in it, for certainly in the loss of beggars we not only lose a picturesque class of people, but we also suffer a spiritual loss. The spiritual glow which came of personal giving is entirely, or almost entirely, absent in making checks for these beggars by proxy. But, Sir, I am a practical man and I can plainly see that the beggar, so far from being a mere nuisance and eyesore, as charity-workers would have you believe, is a very useful and necessary member of the social order.

Beggars, Mr. _Idler_, are the natural scavengers of the human race. They live upon the scraps we throw from our tables; they dress in our cast-off garments. In short, Sir, they make to serve a useful purpose, that which would otherwise be sheer waste. These humble people are the economists of humanity. They save what we squander. Every time one of them goes without a meal, there is that much more food left in the world for the rest of us. James Howell wrote of the Spaniard in 1623, “He hath another commendable quality, that when he giveth alms he pulls off his hat and puts it in the beggar’s hand with a great deal of humility.” Let us say, rather, with a great deal of respect and gratitude. Truly the Spanish grandee had reason to be grateful and respectful to the beggar who made possible his own magnificence.

Now, Sir, what are these charitable organizations trying to do? I will tell you--they are trying to teach the beggar that he wants the comforts of life. They are trying to teach him to desire good clothes and good food. They are trying to awaken in him that selfish desire to appear better than his fellows, which we call “self-respect”. _They are even trying to teach him to work!_ What folly!

“But,” you say, “it would be an excellent thing if all of these vagabonds could be induced to work, for heretofore they have been mere idlers and parasites.” To which I answer, “You are wrong, it would _not_ be a good thing.” Is it not perfectly clear that, once these beggars become workers, they will immediately demand the means to enable them to maintain a higher standard of living? Which do you think costs you the more, the beggar who begs perhaps a dollar a week, which he has not earned, or the bricklayer who charges you six dollars a day, of which he has earned only a part? It has been some years now since the notorious Coxey led his army of unemployed to Washington, and since that time the number of unemployed workers has been steadily increasing. Do you think, then, that we need more laborers? Have we so much wealth that we must force it on those who were content to be without it?

Why, Sir, I tell you this corruption of beggars should be put down with a firm hand. These charitable organizations should be legislated out of existence before they do an irreparable mischief.

I am, Sir,
HENRY HARDHEAD.

THE ABUSES OF ADVERSITY

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: In the course of a long and not uneventful life, I have, upon more than one occasion, looked upon adversity in its various forms, and I have, therefore, given the subject some attention, both in the light of my own experience and in the light of the opinions of others. I have heard a great deal of the “uses of adversity”; that adversity is like a great training-school for character which brings out whatever strength and resolution there may be in a man, and much talk of a like character. But I must confess that I have not often seen adversity, nor its lessons, put to any good use whatever, while I have often seen it abused most shamefully.

So far from learning useful lessons from ill-fortune, it seems to me that most men are inclined to turn misfortune to the basest of uses, making it serve as an excuse for shirking, for moral lapses, for dishonesty and for an utter lack of charity toward others. I find that many people boast of their misfortunes as if they were actually entitled to some credit because they have befallen them, wearing woe like a feather in the cap and holding themselves somewhat better than their fellows because they appear to have excited the wrath of the Goddess of Fortune. It is as if they said: “See, we are the Unfortunate Ones who are of sufficient importance to be singled out from among men to receive Sorrows which you are unfit to bear. Look upon our afflictions and reflect upon the happiness of your own lot, and do not forget to do us honor for the fortitude with which we bear our miseries.”

I count among my friends and acquaintances a number of these habitual boasters of misfortune, who are always ready, day or night, to relate their trials and tribulations with a conscious air of distinction and superiority.

There is an old fellow of my acquaintance who suffers, or so he declares, the torments of the damned, by reason of his gout, a disease which has held him in its grip for the last twenty years. There is no manner of doubt that he has himself to blame for this painful malady, which is, without question, the result of his injudicious and riotous manner of life in his youth. Yet this old man is as proud of his infirmity as many another man is of physical soundness, and he relates his pangs and twinges with the greatest relish in the world. Nor does the fact that he has suffered from the disease for nearly a quarter of a century have any effect upon the eagerness with which he always turns the conversation upon his favorite topic. Despite the fact that he has told and retold his pains and symptoms ten thousand times, the subject never seems to lose its novelty for him, and to-day he discusses his infirmity with as much gusto as he did when I first met him ten years or more ago. It makes no difference what may be the subject of the company’s discourse, this man can not bear to go twenty minutes without intruding the matter of his lame foot.

Politics, business, history, music, literature, art or the drama--all these are but verbal stepping-stones to his one supreme subject. Does some one speak of Napoleon at the foot of the great Pyramids, the mere mention of the word “foot” is enough to set him discoursing of the inflammation in his great toe. Does some one call attention to the flaming crimson of the sunset, he swears that it is not so red as his own instep. He never enters a conversation, in short, but to put his foot in it, and so persistently does he dwell upon this malformed pedal extremity as to render him fit company for none but chiropodists. He has no interest in life but his gout, and he is forever talking of the pain it causes him, though I dare say it has never caused him a tenth part of the misery that it has caused his friends and acquaintances.

Another person whom I have the misfortune to know is a widow lady of some nine years’ standing, who has never put off her weeds and who never tires of bewailing the loss of the dear departed. The bare mention of death is a sufficient warrant for a flood of tears, and the sight of a hearse sends her into hysterics which abate only at the prospect of a sympathetic audience for the old story of her bereavement. She goes about the neighborhood casting the shadow of death upon all our innocent pleasures and brings with her into our happy homes the gloom of the mortuary chamber. Her long-continued mourning and complaint are the less deserving of patience and sympathy when we reflect that her husband was already past the age of seventy-five when he died, so that nobody but the most infatuated mourner could speak, as she does, of his having been “cut off in his prime.” One would think, to hear her speak of him, that other men were in the habit of living to the age of Methuselah and that no other woman in the world had cause to mourn her spouse. For my part, I think the old man had small reason to complain of premature demise, and I know that were I her husband I would ask nothing better. To cast the slightest suspicion upon the genuineness of her grief or the sufficiency of the cause thereof would be to lay one’s self open to a tongue which can be most bitter when it chooses; so I fear we shall have to bear her complaints and her mourning until she dissolves in tears like Niobe, or until Death gives ear to her publicly expressed desire to join her mate beyond the grave.

My cousin, Robert Wasrich, is forever telling of the wealth and luxury which were his in his younger days and complaining of the lowly estate into which he is fallen in his middle age. The quarters in which he now resides are of the humblest, but he speaks of them most ostentatiously to all who have not visited them, referring to them as “chambers” and adding that, while they are far above the average, they are not at all what he has been used to in other years. When we have him for our guest, which we do out of pity at Christmas and such seasons when it seems shameful to neglect one’s own kin, he upsets our whole household with his constant complaints and exactions.

So, far from trying to make himself as little a nuisance as possible, he must needs take his breakfast in bed because that was his custom in the days of his prosperity, and he must be supplied with all sorts of dainties and extra dishes because his stomach, so he says, craves them, having become accustomed to them when he was wealthy. He finds fault with the cooking, saying that it probably seems well enough to us, who have never been used to anything better, but that it is death to the palate of one who has been in the habit of eating and drinking of the best. He picks flaws in our pictures and decries our taste in furnishings, and so sends my wife off to her chamber in a fit of indignant weeping. And not content with all this, he is forever borrowing of me small sums of money which he declares he stands in need of to pay off certain obligations to friends whom he has known in his better days and who have seen fit to ask him to dinner or to the play. To allow such obligations to go unpaid would be most offensive to his acute sense of honor and would cast discredit upon his honored name. In fact, Mr. _Idler_, he is twice as arrogant and proud in his poverty as he was when he was well-off. And more than once I have wished with all my heart that he might be rich again, and so take himself off and leave us in peace.

To come nearer home, my wife is the victim of a nervous disorder which totally incapacitates her from doing our housework, though we can ill afford a servant, but which, oddly enough, does not interfere with her attendance at matinées or card-parties given by her women friends. This is doubtless due, as she says, to the fact that exertion which is in the nature of a diversion takes her mind from her trouble and so mends her condition for the time being. Though this disorder is not in the least dangerous, it is most obstinate and causes her, so she assures me, the most acute mental anguish and the most terrible physical suffering. It is of such a peculiar nature that any mention of the amount of the month’s bills sets it instantly in motion, and disappointment in the matter of getting a new hat is enough to cause her to take to her bed for a week. But though, as you can readily see, this indisposition puts her to a great deal of trouble and annoyance, she will not consent to enter a sanatorium where she might be cured of it, nor will she follow the advice of the doctor whom she calls in from one to three times a month; so that I am forced to conclude that she is actually proud of being an invalid. And I am the more of this opinion, since when I complain of feeling ill or indisposed, she always assures me that I do not know what suffering is and that I never can know because I was not born a woman.

These and other cases which have come under my observation have convinced me that people are more proud of their afflictions than of their blessings, and that the most common use of adversity is to make life miserable for others.

I am, Sir,
EDWARD EASYMAN.

THE SCIENCE OF MAKING ENEMIES

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: As I am about to open a school of an unusual nature, I have determined not only to secure for the same as much publicity as possible, but also to explain to the public the nature of the instruction which will be furnished in my new academy. My course of study is, I think, unique; and I fear that without explanation it would probably prove quite incomprehensible to the public at large and to those who may chance to hear of the school through friends or to read my advertisements in the press.

In this connection, it seems to me not out of place to acquaint you, in some sort, with the reasons which led me to settle upon the plan of my proposed course of instruction, and this I shall accordingly do to the best of my ability.

I entered at an early age upon my present profession, which is, as you may have surmised, that of an educator. I became, in turn, an instructor, a tutor and a professor of sociology. I have ever been of an independent character of mind, and in the course of my work I have been prone to draw my own conclusions without, I confess, much consideration of, or regard for, the opinions of others who assume, or have assumed, to be authorities upon the subject. Society, I believe, is a subject which must be studied at first hand. Text-books and treatises may be well enough as stimulants to study, but the real essential is a knowledge of people. I, therefore, devoted myself to the study of mankind, and I studied the students of my classes with more enthusiasm and with more application, I dare say, than my students studied their text-books. But I did not stop with the study of others, I also studied myself. I studied myself as an isolated individual, and I studied myself in relation to others, and it was as a result of this study that I finally made a most disconcerting discovery--a discovery which was not made until I had entered upon my professorship, and which shocked me inexpressibly and bade fair, for a time, to put an end to my career as a teacher.

Though at first it was only a suspicion, it soon became a conviction. I discovered that I was _unpopular_. Not unpopular with a few only, for all of us are that, but generally and hopelessly unpopular; a man without any friends and with a great many enemies. I do not now recall what first called my attention to this matter, but I do remember that I gave it a great deal of thought and attention and I studied the case in the same impartial manner that I would study any other case of social phenomena. I took careful note of the demeanor and behavior of my students and my fellow members of the faculty, and I soon settled beyond any reasonable doubt all question as to my popularity. I had never established myself upon a footing of familiarity or friendship with my students and I now came to see the reason why this was so. My students did not like me and they would have nothing more to do with me than was absolutely necessary. It was the same with the members of the faculty. I was retained in my position because I was an able instructor and an indefatigable worker. There was no sort of favoritism in my case and I knew that my colleagues as well as my students would have been glad to see me guilty of some blunder which would justify my removal.

As you may suppose, this was not only a hard blow to my vanity, but a very painful thing to think upon. Like most men, I had always assumed that people were glad to know me and to have me about, and it distressed me exceedingly to learn that this assumption was without foundation or justification. It is one of the enigmas of human nature--this conviction of personal popularity. No man can conceive of himself as a pariah, nor even as a very unpopular person, until he actually finds himself in that situation. Even the greatest bores seldom realize that they _are_ bores. But most bores are not sociologists.

Now, when I had become fully convinced that my unpopularity was a fact and not a figment of my imagination, I began to turn the matter over in my mind and to direct my attention to the study of popularity and unpopularity both as to cause and effect. My study led me to several discoveries. The first was this: that some people are born with the attribute of popularity and possess the faculty of making friends without any conscious effort on their part, while others have a trick of making enemies without actually being guilty of any offense. This is not what is called positive and negative “magnetism,” but it is something like that. When a man possesses this faculty for making friends he will make them whether or no, even though he be lacking in all the qualities which men find admirable. He may be selfish, cold, over-ambitious and ruthless of the rights of others, and yet exercise a fascination upon other men. Such a man was Napoleon Bonaparte, who called forth the greatest personal devotion and enthusiasm in the men whom he destroyed for his own ends. Contrariwise, a man may be noble, generous, affable and everything that a popular man should be, and yet be practically without friends.

But I made another and greater discovery which reconciled me to my unpopularity and which, indeed, completely revolutionized my views upon the subject--_I discovered that the greatest men in the world have been the ones who had the most enemies!_

And it was upon making this discovery, Sir--the most important, in my opinion, that has been made by any sociologist of our time--that I determined to set up my school for the exposition of the science of making enemies. All men, said I to myself, are naturally ambitious; they desire fame, honor and riches. They have but to be shown the way and they will enter eagerly upon it.

Elated as I was at my great discovery, I could not but wonder that men had not discovered this secret long ago. How could such men as Spencer, Lecky, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and the others have overlooked a thing so _simple_ and so obviously true?

Here, I rejoiced, I have a discovery--not a theory, not an hypothesis--but a fact! A fact which may be tested and proven in any field of human activity--in government, in commerce, in religion, in literature, in art--in everything! No religion can live without first enduring persecution; no government can survive without the patriotism bred of the fear of enemies and the hatred of foes; no general can become great without war; no author becomes a classic without criticism; no prophet can conquer without opposition. Nothing great can be done without enemies.

For generations, for ages, men have been proceeding upon an entirely erroneous theory that friends are more necessary to success than enemies. Such stupidity! Such utter disregard of the evidence to the contrary which confronts us upon every hand! Our park benches are lined with men who had too many friends, our charitable institutions are overflowing with them. Think of the most popular man you know and then of the most successful! Are they the same? Of course not. Once you stop to think of it, the truth of my discovery is self-evident. No matter where you go you will find that the greatest man is the one who has the most enemies.

Friends are not only not necessary to a man’s success, but they are often a positive detriment. A man surrounded by friends is like a man blindfolded--he can not see where he is going. How do you improve? By correcting your faults. And who points out your faults, your friends or your enemies? An enemy is a spur. An enemy is an inspiration. Your friends sympathize with you, commiserate with you, agree with you and flatter you; but your enemies _advertise you_.

Whistler once wrote a book called _The Gentle Art of Making Enemies_, and I suspect that Whistler had caught an inkling of the truth of my great discovery, but his title was a misnomer. The making of enemies is not an art, but a science. Some people have a special gift for it, as I have, but almost any one can learn how. By observing a few simple rules in this connection, any man should be able to acquire all the enemies he may desire. But any man may save himself a great deal of time and trouble by taking my course of instruction. When he receives his diploma from the Sourface Training School he will be so well versed in this science that he will thereafter follow the principles of the school without any thought whatever, but purely from force of habit.

Judging from the number of people I see about me who are trying in an amateurish way to acquire enemies, the academy should have a large attendance from the start, and since I have never met a more unpopular man than myself, I know of no one more eminently qualified to conduct such a school. I can not afford to make public my method of instruction because such an action would open the field to a host of imitators, but I can assure you that the course is most effective.

There is only one doubt in my mind about the success of the school, and that is this: I fear that when the public realizes the tremendous import of my discovery and appreciates the great work which I am doing for humanity, I shall become so popular that I will be in great danger of losing the success which I have labored so hard to attain and which I so richly deserve.

Truly yours,
SAMUEL SOURFACE,

Headmaster, Sourface Training School.
CRANKTOWN, NEW JERSEY.

THE FATE OF FALSTAFF

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I am an actor; a follower of Thespis, an interpreter of men and emotions. To become such was the dream of my boyhood’s ambition. At an early age (I shall not state when, since you would probably be incredulous) I used, Sir, to act plays for my own amusement and afterward for the amusement of my elders. Where other children were content to play in careless fashion, without attempting anything like an exact reproduction or imitation of Nature, I was most particular in this respect. If I played Julius Cæsar, I had, to satisfy my artistic instinct, to carry a short sword and not a long one; I must needs wrap myself in a sheet and swear by the heathen gods. Nothing short of this satisfied me. I could not, as so many children do, thrust a feather duster down the neck of my jacket and play at being an Indian chief; on the contrary, I must have the feathers in my hair and my complexion darkened until I bore some actual resemblance to the aborigine. Without these aids to illusion I could not enjoy myself or get any manner of amusement from the sport. I was so close a student of details, even at that age, that in playing Indian I acquired a habit of toeing-in which caused my mother much distress and which clung to me for many months.

Nor was I less particular in the matter of my speech. I was forever mouthing sentiments and speeches culled from my father’s library, some of them, I dare say, weird and bizarre enough upon my youthful and innocent lips. However this may be, I had an abiding horror of all sorts of anachronisms, and I preferred Ben Jonson to Shakespeare for the reason that he was less frequently guilty of offending my artistic sense in this respect.

It was not long before my parents were impressed with my natural bent in this direction and encouraged me in my favorite diversion by taking the part of an audience, while my younger brother was pressed into service with his harmonica and rendered the overtures and the interludes to the best of his somewhat limited ability; for I could no more act without an orchestra than I could act without a make-up. Incidentally I came to practise the art of elocution, and it was said in our neighborhood that I could interpret _Horatio at the Bridge_ in a most telling fashion, and that not Riley himself could improve upon my rendition of _The Raggedy Man_.

With such a wealth of youthful experience, it was not surprising that I found myself at the age of twenty-one a supernumerary in a theater, nor that soon afterward I was given a speaking part and rose, before long, to the dignity of “leads” in a stock company of the first class. It was at this time that I was given my first opportunity really to distinguish myself. A prominent manager, who shall be nameless, sent for me and told me that he had chosen me to play Falstaff in a production of _Henry the Fourth_ which he intended putting on the following winter.

Elated as I was at this splendid opportunity for a display of my genius for acting, I could not forbear voicing certain conscientious scruples as to my ability to do the part justice.

“I can undoubtedly interpret the character to your most complete satisfaction,” said I to the manager, “but there is an obstacle, which, while by no means unsurmountable, must, nevertheless, be overcome at once or not at all.”

“And what is that?” he inquired.

“Why,” said I, “I am not fat enough.”

“What odds?” he answered; “while there are pads and pillows, this should be no matter for despair. You have only to stuff your doublet and pad your hose until you are as swollen as you like.”

“That,” I protested, “may do very well for your merely commercial actors who have no concern in their acting beyond the matter of drawing a salary; but I, Sir, am an _actor_, not a mere buffoon, not a vulgar clown to waddle about a stage wagging a hypocritical belly and passing off feathers for fat. If I am to play Falstaff, I will be Falstaff, in the flesh as well as in the spirit. My corporosity shall be sincere, my puffing and grunting shall be genuine; I will eat real food and drink real liquor upon your stage, and when I waddle I shall waddle as Nature intended fat men to waddle--because I can not help it. My calves shall be as natural as Sir John’s own, so that if I am pricked with the point of a rapier, I shall give utterance to a howl which is not mere mockery, but as real as a howl may well be, and which will delight the audience as no feigned howl ever could do.

“No, no! I shall not play Falstaff like a clown in a pantomime, but like that very knight himself. My performance shall be as real as the performance of Nature. I will be Sir John redivivus. Falstaff shall live again in me. He shall be I and I will be he, and there is an end of it.”

Well, Sir, to be brief, the manager was so struck with my unusual and, I may say, unaffected, sincerity, that he voluntarily advanced me a portion of my salary and agreed to my proposal that, instead of wasting valuable time in rehearsing a part in which I was already practically letter-perfect, my part in the rehearsals should be taken by a substitute, while I retired to the country and devoted myself to my labor of love--to the task of putting on so much flesh as would be necessary to act with fidelity the pursy knight errant. And this I did to so good purpose that from my normal weight of about one hundred and ninety pounds, I soon came to weigh upward of two hundred and eighty, and was as fat as any one could wish when we opened in _Henry the Fourth_ in the Autumn.

To say, Sir, that my performance was a success is to do scant justice to the literary ability of William Shakespeare and to my own histrionic powers. It was not merely a success--it was a triumph! Ah, Sir, if I could but whisper in your ear the name by which I was known in those days of superlative glory, you would recall in the flash of an eye the days when the whole of the English-speaking world was convulsed with merriment at my performance and when press and public were vying with each other to do me honor! Never was such a performance of Falstaff given before, and never, I fear, will such a performance be given again. I was Falstaff to the very life! Falstaff in person and not to be mistaken for any one else. You could have sworn that I had stepped bodily out of the pages of the folio edition and thrust my way into the theater of my own volition, usurping the place of the actor.

Four whole seasons we played to crowded houses--New York, Chicago, San Francisco and London--and everywhere the critics all agreed that never had such a perfect Falstaff been seen before. This we followed with _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, repeating our success for two seasons, so that for six years I was known to every actor and patron of the theater as the greatest Falstaff that ever was.

But Fate, alas! however prodigal she may appear for a time, is not constant in her favors. All things come to an end sooner or later, and our production of _The Merry Wives_ ran its course in time. How well do I remember that last night of all--the glitter of the electrics overhead, the glare of the footlights, the music of the orchestra, and, oh, above all else, the thunderous applause that greeted me when I appeared before the curtain, clad in trunks and doublet, to make my farewell speech! There ended our production, and there ended my greatness and my life. My grossness I have still, but my greatness has fled forever! Disconsolate I wander through the haunts of stageland, a fat pale ghost of my former self; a Falstaff out of place and out of time; a Falstaff without jollity or joy. I, Sir, have become that thing which I hate above all other things in the world, I have become an Anachronism!

Conceive, if you can, my consternation when I discovered my dilemma. Having no further need for my excessive flesh, I sought to reduce my weight only to find that I could not lose it! Six years of playing Falstaff had made me Falstaff for good or ill. No fighter of the prize-ring, no beauty of the court, ever labored as I labored to struggle back to slimness. No Hamlet ever cried more earnestly than I,

“Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!”

Like Sisyphus, I toiled for months with my burden, rolling off flesh only to have it roll on again, until at last I gave up in despair.

No manager would employ me to play for him--I was too fat. Too fat to act, too fat to play at any part but one. Once only since that time have I tried to obtain an engagement and that was when I saw an advertisement of a revival of my own great play, _Henry the Fourth_. But would you believe it, Sir, the manager had the impudence to laugh in my face, to deny the truth of my story and scoff at my insistence upon my identity. He called me, Sir, _a fat slob_! In desperation I tried a Dime Museum, only to be told that no “fat freaks” were employed who weighed less than three hundred and fifty pounds. At last I fell into my present disgraceful situation; I was employed by a restaurant-keeper as a decoy. In the window of one of the cheapest and vilest cafés in this city I sit for eight hours daily drawing a crowd about the place while I toy with a knife and fork and pretend to eat of a meal that I would not feed my most bitter enemy. I do not eat it. I can not eat it. And so, Sir, here I sit each day, a mere husk of my former self, a hulk, a wrecked Leviathan! A fraud and a freak; a delusion and a snare. This have I suffered in consequence of my devotion to an ideal--I who was for six years the greatest Falstaff the world has ever known!

T. P.

THE REWARD OF MERIT

_To the Editor of The Idler._

DEAR SIR: I am an ashman, or, as they call me nowadays, a scavenger. It may appear to you, Sir, a queer thing that a man in my station in life should address a letter to an editor and upon such a subject, but when I have made you acquainted with the facts of my case, I think it will not seem so strange.