The Egoist | Page 9

sheen. Captivating melodies (to prove to
you the unavoidableness of self-satisfaction when you know that you
have hit perfection), listen to them closely, have an inner pipe of that
conceit almost ludicrous when you detect the chirp.
And you need not be reminded that he has the leg without the
naughtiness. You see eminent in him what we would fain have brought
about in a nation that has lost its leg in gaining a possibly cleaner
morality. And that is often contested; but there is no doubt of the loss

of the leg.
Well, footmen and courtiers and Scottish Highlanders, and the corps de
ballet, draymen too, have legs, and staring legs, shapely enough. But
what are they? not the modulated instrument we mean--simply legs for
leg-work, dumb as the brutes. Our cavalier's is the poetic leg, a portent,
a valiance. He has it as Cicero had a tongue. It is a lute to scatter songs
to his mistress; a rapier, is she obdurate. In sooth a leg with brains in it,
soul.
And its shadows are an ambush, its lights a surprise. It blushes, it pales,
can whisper, exclaim. It is a peep, a part revelation, just sufferable, of
the Olympian god--Jove playing carpet-knight.
For the young Sir Willoughby's family and his thoughtful admirers, it is
not too much to say that Mrs. Mountstuart's little word fetched an
epoch of our history to colour the evening of his arrival at man's estate.
He was all that Merrie Charles's court should have been, subtracting not
a sparkle from what it was. Under this light he danced, and you may
consider the effect of it on his company.
He had received the domestic education of a prince. Little princes
abound in a land of heaped riches. Where they have not to yield
military service to an Imperial master, they are necessarily here and
there dainty during youth, sometimes unmanageable, and as they are
bound in no personal duty to the State, each is for himself, with full
present, and what is more, luxurious, prospective leisure for the
practice of that allegiance. They are sometimes enervated by it: that
must be in continental countries. Happily our climate and our brave
blood precipitate the greater number upon the hunting-field, to do the
public service of heading the chase of the fox, with benefit to their
constitutions. Hence a manly as well as useful race of little princes, and
Willoughby was as manly as any. He cultivated himself, he would not
be outdone in popular accomplishments. Had the standard of the public
taste been set in philosophy, and the national enthusiasm centred in
philosophers, he would at least have worked at books. He did work at
science, and had a laboratory. His admirable passion to excel, however,
was chiefly directed in his youth upon sport; and so great was the

passion in him, that it was commonly the presence of rivals which led
him to the declaration of love.
He knew himself, nevertheless, to be the most constant of men in his
attachment to the sex. He had never discouraged Laetitia Dale's
devotion to him, and even when he followed in the sweeping tide of the
beautiful Constantia Durham (whom Mrs. Mountstuart called "The
Racing Cutter"), he thought of Laetitia, and looked at her. She was a
shy violet.
Willoughby's comportment while the showers of adulation drenched
him might be likened to the composure of Indian Gods undergoing
worship, but unlike them he reposed upon no seat of amplitude to
preserve him from a betrayal of intoxication; he had to continue
tripping, dancing, exactly balancing himself, head to right, head to left,
addressing his idolaters in phrases of perfect choiceness. This is only to
say that it is easier to be a wooden idol than one in the flesh; yet
Willoughby was equal to his task. The little prince's education teaches
him that he is other than you, and by virtue of the instruction he
receives, and also something, we know not what, within, he is enabled
to maintain his posture where you would be tottering.
Urchins upon whose curly pates grave seniors lay their hands with
conventional encomium and speculation, look older than they are
immediately, and Willoughby looked older than his years, not for want
of freshness, but because he felt that he had to stand eminently and
correctly poised.
Hearing of Mrs. Mountstuart's word on him, he smiled and said, "It is
at her service."
The speech was communicated to her, and she proposed to attach a
dedicatory strip of silk. And then they came together, and there was wit
and repartee suitable to the electrical atmosphere of the dancing-room,
on the march to a magical hall of supper. Willoughby conducted Mrs.
Mountstuart to the supper-table.
"Were I," said she, "twenty years younger,