In addition to his own popular qualities a strong current was sweeping him to success.  He was detested by the whole of the middle or shop-keeping class which in England, according to Matthew Arnold, has “the sense of conduct—­and has but little else.”  This class hated and feared him; feared him for his intellectual freedom and his contempt of conventionality, and hated him because of his light-hearted self-indulgence, and also because it saw in him none of its own sordid virtues. Punch is peculiarly the representative of this class and of all English prejudices, and Punch jeered at him now in prose, now in verse, week after week.  Under the heading, “More Impressions” (by Oscuro Wildgoose) I find this: 

    “My little fancy’s clogged with gush,
      My little lyre is false in tone,
      And when I lyrically moan,
    I hear the impatient critic’s ‘Tush!’

    “But I’ve ‘Impressions.’  These are grand! 
      Mere dabs of words, mere blobs of tint,
      Displayed on canvas or in print,
    Men laud, and think they understand.

    “A smudge of brown, a smear of yellow,
      No tale, no subject,—­there you are! 
      Impressions!—­and the strangest far
    Is—­that the bard’s a clever fellow.”

A little later these lines appeared: 

    “My languid lily, my lank limp lily,
      My long, lithe lily-love, men may grin—­
    Say that I’m soft and supremely silly—­
    What care I, while you whisper still;
      What care I, while you smile?  Not a pin! 
      While you smile, while you whisper—­
        ’Tis sweet to decay! 
      I have watered with chlorodine, tears of chagrin,
      The churchyard mould I have planted thee in,
        Upside down, in an intense way,
      In a rough red flower-pot, sweeter than sin,
        That I bought for a halfpenny, yesterday!”

The italics are mine; but the suggestion was always implicit; yet this constant wind of puritanic hatred blowing against him helped instead of hindering his progress:  strong men are made by opposition; like kites they go up against the wind.

CHAPTER VII

     “Believe me, child, all the gentleman’s misfortunes arose
     from his being educated at a public
     school....”—­FIELDING.

In England success is a plant of slow growth.  The tone of good society, though responsive to political talent, and openly, eagerly sensitive to money-making talent, is contemptuous of genius and rates the utmost brilliancy of the talker hardly higher than the feats of an acrobat.  Men are obstinate, slow, trusting a bank-balance rather than brains; and giving way reluctantly to sharp-witted superiority.  The road up to power or influence in England is full of pitfalls and far too arduous for those who have neither high birth nor wealth to help them.  The natural inequality of men instead of being mitigated by law or custom is everywhere strengthened and increased by a thousand effete social distinctions.  Even in the best class where a certain easy familiarity reigns there is circle above circle, and the summits are isolated by heredity.