Roundabout Papers | Page 7

to be shocked either at
Cape Town or at Inverness every time they meet an individual who
wears his national airy raiment. I never knew the "Arabian Nights" was
an improper book until I happened once to read it in a "family edition."
Well, qui s'excuse. . . . Who, pray, has accused me as yet? Here am I
smothering dear good old Mrs. Grundy's objections, before she has
opened her mouth. I love, I say, and scarcely ever tire of hearing, the
artless prattle of those two dear old friends, the Perigourdin gentleman
and the priggish little Clerk of King Charles's Council. Their egotism in

nowise disgusts me. I hope I shall always like to hear men, in reason,
talk about themselves. What subject does a man know better? If I stamp
on a friend's corn, his outcry is genuine-- he confounds my clumsiness
in the accents of truth. He is speaking about himself and expressing his
emotion of grief or pain in a manner perfectly authentic and veracious.
I have a story of my own, of a wrong done to me by somebody, as far
back as the year 1838: whenever I think of it and have had a couple of
glasses of wine, I CANNOT help telling it. The toe is stamped upon;
the pain is just as keen as ever: I cry out, and perhaps utter imprecatory
language. I told the story only last Wednesday at dinner:--
"Mr. Roundabout," says a lady sitting by me, "how comes it that in
your books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of
women, but that is not the question in point)--how comes it, dear sir,
there is a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your
writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the air, kick, and
trample on?"
I couldn't help myself. I knew I ought not to do it. I told her the whole
story, between the entrees and the roast. The wound began to bleed
again. The horrid pang was there, as keen and as fresh as ever. If I live
half as long as Tithonus,* that crack across my heart can never be cured.
There are wrongs and griefs that CAN'T be mended. It is all very well
of you, my dear Mrs. G., to say that this spirit is unchristian, and that
we ought to forgive and forget, and so forth. How can I forget at will?
How forgive? I can forgive the occasional waiter who broke my
beautiful old decanter at that very dinner. I am not going to do him any
injury. But all the powers on earth can't make that claret-jug whole.
* "Tithonus," by Tennyson, had appeared in the preceding (the 2nd)
number of the Cornhill Magazine.
So, you see, I told the lady the inevitable story. I was egotistical. I was
selfish, no doubt; but I was natural, and was telling the truth. You say
you are angry with a man for talking about himself. It is because you
yourself are selfish, that that other person's Self does not interest you.
Be interested by other people and with their affairs. Let them prattle
and talk to you, as I do my dear old egotists just mentioned. When you
have had enough of them, and sudden hazes come over your eyes, lay
down the volume; pop out the candle, and dormez bien. I should like to
write a nightcap book--a book that you can muse over, that you can

smile over, that you can yawn over--a book of which you can say,
"Well, this man is so and so and so and so; but he has a friendly heart
(although some wiseacres have painted him as black as bogey), and you
may trust what he says." I should like to touch you sometimes with a
reminiscence that shall waken your sympathy, and make you say, Io
anche have so thought, felt, smiled, suffered. Now, how is this to be
done except by egotism? Linea recta brevissima. That right line "I" is
the very shortest, simplest, straightforwardest means of communication
between us, and stands for what it is worth and no more. Sometimes
authors say, "The present writer has often remarked;" or "The
undersigned has observed;" or "Mr. Roundabout presents his
compliments to the gentle reader, and begs to state," &c.: but "I" is
better and straighter than all these grimaces of modesty: and although
these are Roundabout Papers, and may wander who knows whither, I
shall ask leave to maintain the upright and simple perpendicular. When
this bundle of egotisms is bound up together, as they may be one day, if
no accident prevents this tongue from wagging, or this ink from
running, they will bore you very likely;