Misrepresentative Women — The Author to His Hostess
Yes, Offspring, I rejoice to think That, shunning my example truly, You never may be led to drink Unduly.
It is indeed a blessèd thought!
Now, will you kindly pass the port?
_The Author to His Hostess_ (AN OPEN LETTER)
[Very few English men of letters enjoy a desirable social position.
To be sure, they are frequently invited to functions, where they are treated with insistent affability by persons belonging to the higher classes; but the sort of position to be obtained in this way is insecure, and unpleasant to any save those of adamantine cheek.
--_Current Magazine.
_] Dear Lady,--When you bade me come To grace your crowded “Kettledrum,” And mingle in the best society;
When Melba sang, and Elman played, And waiters handed lemonade (Tempering music with sobriety), I never had the least suspicion Of my precarious position.
But now, with opened eyes, I leap To this conclusion, shrewd and deep, (What cerebral agility!
): Your compliments were insincere, Your hospitality was mere “Insistent affability!
” And I, a foolish man of letters, Who thought to mingle with his betters!
Ah me!
How pride precedes a fall!
That one who haunted “rout” or ball, When invitations were acquirable, Should see himself as others see, Becoming suddenly, like me, A social “undesirable”;
Invading the selectest clique With truly adamantine cheek!
How proud an air I used to wear!
When titled persons turned to stare, I blushed like a geranium.
When lovely ladies softly said: “Oh, Duchess, did you see his head?
” “What a capacious cranium!
” “Yes; isn’t that the man who writes?
” “I wonder why they look such frights!
” I used to bridle coyly when Some schoolmate, of the Upper Ten (They were not over-numerous!
), Would slap my back, and shout “By Jove!
“Ain’t you a literary cove?
” (As tho’ ’twere something humorous!
) “Those books of yours are grand, you bet!
What?
No, I haven’t read them yet.
” But now I realize my fate;
A stranger at the social gate (Tho’ treated with civility);
The choicest circles I frequent Must be the ones my brains invent, With fictional futility;
The only Royalties I know Are those my publisher can show!
The garden-party, and the tea, Are surely not for men like me (O Vanity of Vanities!
);
Such entertainments are taboo, And might debase my talents to Additional inanities.
The Poet has no business there: _Que ferait-il dans cette galère?
_ Ah, lonely is the Author’s lot!
Assuming, if he hath it not, A suitable humility.
For when his daily work is done, He must inevitably shun The homes of the Nobility, As, with dejected steps, he passes To supper with the middle classes!
[Illustration: “_I wonder why they look such frights_” ] _On the Decline of Gentility Among the Young_
