“Oh! do let us hear it,” urged the Old
Maid. “I love Grieg.”
The Woman of the World rose and opened the piano.
“Myself, I have always been of opinion—”
I remarked.
“Please don’t chatter,” said the
Minor Poet.
“I never liked her,” said the Old Maid;
“I always knew she was heartless.”
“To my thinking,” said the Minor Poet,
“she has shown herself a true woman.”
“Really,” said the Woman of the World,
laughing, “I shall have to nickname you Dr.
Johnson Redivivus. I believe, were the subject
under discussion, you would admire the coiffure of
the Furies. It would occur to you that it must
have been naturally curly.”
“It is the Irish blood flowing in his veins,”
I told them. “He must always be ‘agin
the Government.’”
“We ought to be grateful to him,” remarked
the Philosopher. “What can be more uninteresting
than an agreeable conversation I mean, a conversation—where
everybody is in agreement? Disagreement, on the
other hand, is stimulating.”
“Maybe that is the reason,” I suggested,
“why modern society is so tiresome an affair.
By tabooing all difference of opinion we have eliminated
all zest from our intercourse. Religion, sex,
politics— any subject on which man really
thinks, is scrupulously excluded from all polite gatherings.
Conversation has become a chorus; or, as a writer
wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious to
no conclusion. When not occupied with mumbling,
’I quite agree with you’—’As
you say’—’That is precisely
my opinion’—we sit about and ask
each other riddles: ‘What did the Pro-Boer?’
’Why did Julius Caesar?’”
“Fashion has succeeded where Force for centuries
has failed,” added the Philosopher. “One
notices the tendency even in public affairs.
It is bad form nowadays to belong to the Opposition.
The chief aim of the Church is to bring itself into
line with worldly opinion. The Nonconformist
Conscience grows every day a still smaller voice.”
“I believe,” said the Woman of the World,
“that was the reason why Emily never got on
with poor dear George. He agreed with her in
everything. She used to say it made her feel
such a fool.”
“Man is a fighting animal,” explained
the Philosopher. “An officer who had been
through the South African War was telling me only the
other day: he was with a column, and news came
in that a small commando was moving in the neighbourhood.
The column set off in the highest of spirits, and
after three days’ trying work through a difficult
country came up with, as they thought, the enemy.
As a matter of fact, it was not the enemy, but a
troop of Imperial Yeomanry that had lost its way.
My friend informs me that the language with which
his column greeted those unfortunate Yeomen—
their fellow countrymen, men of their own blood—was
most unsympathetic.”
