On Nothing and Kindred Subjects | Page 8

and you need not fear for your bill. Your bill will stand
much the same, and your reputation will swell like a sponge.
And a third way is to go to the telephone, since there are telephones
nowadays, and ring up whoever in the neighbourhood is of the greatest
importance. There is no law against it, and when you have the number
you have but to ask the servant at the other end whether it is not
somebody else's house. But in the meanwhile your night in the place is
secure.
And a fourth way is to tell them to call you extremely early, and then to
get up extremely late. Now why this should have the effect it has I
confess I cannot tell. I lay down the rule empirically and from long
observation, but I may suggest that perhaps it is the combination of the
energy you show in early rising, and of the luxury you show in late
rising: for energy and luxury are the two qualities which menials most
admire in that governing class to which you flatter yourself you belong.
Moreover the strength of will with which you sweep aside their
inconvenience, ordering one thing and doing another, is not without its
effect, and the stir you have created is of use to you.
And the fifth way is to be Strong, to Dominate and to Lead. To be one
of the Makers of this world, one of the Builders. To have the more
Powerful Will. To arouse in all around you by mere Force of
Personality a feeling that they must Obey. But I do not know how this
is done.

ON IGNORANCE
There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shame
as the conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearly
everything there is to be known. Is it not wonderful, then, that we
should be so sensitive upon the discovery of a fault which must of
necessity be common to all, and that in its highest degree? The
conviction of ignorance would not shame us thus if it were not for the
public appreciation of our failure.
If a man proves us ignorant of German or the complicated order of
English titles, or the rules of Bridge, or any other matter, we do not
care for his proofs, so that we are alone with him: first because we can
easily deny them all, and continue to wallow in our ignorance without
fear, and secondly, because we can always counter with something we

know, and that he knows nothing of, such as the Creed, or the history
of Little Bukleton, or some favourite book. Then, again, if one is alone
with one's opponent, it is quite easy to pretend that the subject on which
one has shown ignorance is unimportant, peculiar, pedantic, hole in the
corner, and this can be brazened out even about Greek or Latin. Or,
again, one can turn the laugh against him, saying that he has just been
cramming up the matter, and that he is airing his knowledge; or one can
begin making jokes about him till he grows angry, and so forth. There
is no necessity to be ashamed.
But if there be others present? Ah! Hoc est aliud rem, that is another
matter, for then the biting shame of ignorance suddenly displayed
conquers and bewilders us. We have no defence left. We are at the
mercy of the discoverer, we own and confess, and become insignificant:
we slink away.
Note that all this depends upon what the audience conceive ignorance
to be. It is very certain that if a man should betray in some cheap club
that he did not know how to ride a horse, he would be broken down and
lost, and similarly, if you are in a country house among the rich you are
shipwrecked unless you can show acquaintance with the Press, and
among the poor you must be very careful, not only to wear good cloth
and to talk gently as though you owned them, but also to know all
about the rich. Among very young men to seem ignorant of vice is the
ruin of you, and you had better not have been born than appear doubtful
of the effects of strong drink when you are in the company of Patriots.
There was a man who died of shame this very year in a village of
Savoy because he did not know the name of the King reigning over
France to-day, and it is a common thing to see men utterly cast down in
the bar-rooms off the Strand because they cannot correctly recite the
opening words of "Boys of the Empire." There are schoolgirls who fall
ill and pine away because they are