Punch, Or The London Charivari | Page 9

PARLIAMENTARY
MIRAGE.]
* * * * *
LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.
NO. XIII.--TO IRRITATION.
I have just come home from my Club in a state bordering upon
distraction. No great misfortune has happened to me, my dearest friend
has not been black-balled, the Club bore has not had me in his
unrelenting clutches. The waiters have been, as indeed they always are,
civil and obliging, the excellent chef catered with his usual skill to my
simple mid-day wants, my table companions were good-humoured,
cheerful, and pleasantly cynical. What then, you may ask, has happened
to shatter my nerves and impair my temper for the day? It is a simple
matter, and I am almost ashamed to confess it openly. But I am
encouraged by the fact that two eminently solid and, so far as I could
see, perfectly unemotional gentlemen were as deeply pricked and
worried by what happened as I was myself. To begin with, I do not
admit that my nerves vibrate more easily than those of my fellow-men.
I have never killed an organ-grinder, I am guiltless of the blood of a
German band, I have even gone so far as to spare guards who asked for
my railway-ticket after I had carefully wrapped myself up for a journey,
and no touting vendor of subscription books or works of art can
truthfully say that I have kicked him. On the whole I think I am
reasonably even-tempered and of higher than average amiability.
Others may judge me differently. I don't wish to quarrel with them. I
simply reiterate my opinion. Why then am I to-day in a seething state

of exception to my rule? Here is the cause:
[Illustration]
After I had done with my luncheon, and had puffed a friendly cigar, I
proceeded to that room in the Club which is specially dedicated to
literature and silence. What a feast of multitudinous periodicals is there
spread out, how brightly the variegated array of books from the
circulating library attracts the leisurely, how dignified and
awe-inspiring are the far-stretching ranks of accumulated volumes upon
the shelves. And the carpet, how soft, and the chairs how comfortably
easy. Into one of these chairs I sank with a religious novel (I merely
mention the fact, whether for praise or blame I care not), and began to
think deeply about various life-problems that have much distressed me.
Why must men wear themselves out prematurely with labour? Why
must we suffer? And why, granting the necessity for pain, should I
occasionally sink under a toothache, while HARRISON, a blatant
fellow with a red face and a loud voice, continues in a condition of
robust and oppressive health? These speculations were not so painful
and disturbing as might be supposed. Indeed, they had a soothing effect.
From the rhythmical breathing and the closed eyes of two other
occupants of arm-chairs, I judged that they were similarly occupied in
philosophic reflection. I was just composing myself to a bout of
specially hard thinking, when, lo, the door opened, and in stepped Dr.
FUSSELL!
Everybody, I take it, knows Dr. FUSSELL. He is a member of
countless learned Societies. Over many of them he presides, to some he
acts as secretary. He reads papers on abstruse questions connected with
sanitation, he dashes with a kind of wild war-whoop into impassioned
newspaper controversies on the component elements of a dust particle,
or the civilisation of the Syro-Phoenicians. He is acute, dialectical,
scornful and furious. He denounces those who oppose him as the
meanest of mankind, he extols his supporters as the most illustrious and
reasonable of all who have benefited the human race. In the Club he is
always engaged in some investigation which keeps him continuously
skipping from bookshelf to bookshelf, climbing up ladders to reach the

highest shelves, rushing up and down-stairs with sheaves of paper
bulging in his coat-pockets, or stowed under his arms. He lays his
top-hat on the table, and makes it a receptacle for reams of notes and
volumes of projected essays. In a word, he is a human storm.
Well, in he came with his grey hair streaming over his forehead, and his
eyes aflame. I knew in a moment that repose in his presence was out of
the question, though I still sat on, hoping against hope. First, the Doctor
bounded to the fire-place, seized the poker, and began to rummage the
fire. It was a good fire, and had done nothing to deserve this
punishment. I shifted on my seat; the two other philosophers opened
their eyes and frowned, and still Dr. FUSSELL continued to rummage.
Now I knew, not only that that fire was being poked on an entirely
wrong principle, but that I alone knew how it ought to be poked. My
fingers itched, my whole body