Certain  writers  are  like  these  ladies;  they  make
the  world  love  them. The  strongest  element  of
this  mesmeric  power  is  undoubtedly  the  possession
of  sympathy. We  love,  first  of  all,  those  whom  we
believe  to  be  thinking  about  us — it  is  the  root  of  a
child's  affection  ;  and  afterwards  we  love  those  for
whom  we  think  and  work. They  abuse  the  world's
affection,  many  of  our  poets  ;  they  run  amuck  among
all  the  moralities  ;  the  simplest  snares  of  the  Crafty
One  catch  and  entrap  them  ;  and  the  world  loves
them  still. I,  for  my  own  part,  am  never  tired  of
reading  about  them. And  then,  besides,  we  love
the  spectacle  of  a  man  so   different   from   the  rest

8—2


1 1 6  Essays  and  Hi  storiettes

of  the  world,  and  yet  so  strangely  like  it  ;  who  has
no  backbone  of  principle ;  who  is  not  subjected  to
the  laws  and  restraints  of  ordinary  humanity  ;  who
seems  provided  with  wings  by  which  to  leap  care-
lessly over  the  hedges  set  for  us  by  a  Decalogue  ;
who  is  able  to  laugh  to  scorn  that  first  great  law
that  no  man  shall  eat  unless  he  work,  now  modified
by  the  codicil  ot  civilization — unless  he  have  money
left  him. You  know  how  one  laughs  when  a  clever
contortionist  throws  about  lawless  legs  in  a  way
which  shows  them  to  be  independent  of  the  re-
straints of  structural  anatomy. It  would  never  do,
we  feel,  to  attempt  these  gambols  ourselves. For
us  the  only  method  is  a  decorous  walk,  and,  while
our  poets  revel  in  the  flowery  fields  all  aglow  with
buttercups,  we  trudge  along  the  dusty  highway ;  we
look  over  the  hedge  and  sigh  ;  but  go  on  all  the
same  bethinking  us  of  the  dreadful  things  we  have
heard. For  gentlemen  with  talons  and  claws  and
cats-o'-nine-tails  await  the  reveller  when  he  reaches
the  end  of  the  leafy  avenue. It  is  but  human  to
dream  of  things  that  cannot  be  ours :  there  are
moments  for  every  man  when  he  thinks  of  that
fair  city  of  Corinth,  which,  as  we  know,  it  is  not
given  to  every  man  to  enter. What  is  it  like,  to
those  who  have  the  golden  key  ?  Surely  not  like
the  decorous  suburb  of  Clapham  ;  surely  not  like
anything  we  know. 