Punch (101.1891)

November U, 1891.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 229

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No. VL—TO VANITY.

Dear Vanity,

I think I can see you smirking and posturing before the
abstract mirror, which is your constant companion. It pleases you,
no doubt, to think that anybody should pay you the compliment of
making you the object and the subject of a whole letter. Perhaps
when you hare read it to the end you will alter your mood, since it
cannot please you to listen to the truth about yourself. None of
those whom you infect here below ever did like it. Sometimes, to be
sure, it had to be endured with many grimaces, but it was extra-
ordinary to note how the clouds caused by the aggravated truth-
teller passed away as soon as his departure had enabled the object of
these reproaches to recover his or her false self again. What boots
it, after all, to tell the truth ? For those whom you protect are clad
in armour, which is proof against the sharpest lance, and they can
thus bid defiance to all the clumsy attacks of the merely honest and
downright—for a time ; but in the end their punishment comes, not
always in the manner that their friends predict, but none the less
inevitable in one manner or another. For they all fashion a
ridiculous monster out of affectations, strivings and falsehoods, and
label it "Myself;" and in the end the monster takes breath, and
lives and crushes his despised maker, and immediately vanishes into
space

see except that Captain Arblast, of the 30th Lancers, the dashing
first-born of the Bishop, who happened to be spending a few days of
his long leave in Archester, devoted himself with all the assiduity
of his military nature to twirling his heavy moustache in the immediate
neighbourhood of Sophy Maybloom, and not in that of Hermione.
Indeed, I have reason to know that, after the guests had departed,
poor Sophy had to endure from her sister a dreadful scene, the harsh
details of which have not yet faded from her memory. And then I
remembered, too, how it was a matter of family chaff against
Hermione that once, not very long after she had entered upon her
teens, she had sobbed convulsively through a whole night, because
she had discovered that her juvenile arms were thin and mottled,
and she imagined that she would never be able to wear a low dress,
or shine in Society.

Such, then, was the beautiful Hermione, who for some years rode
rough-shod over the hearts of all the males in Archester. Space fails
me to enumerate all her engagements. She broke them one after
another without a thought, and cast her admirers away as if they
had been dresses of last year's fashion. Most of them, it must be
said, recovered quickly enough, but the miserable Cope became a
hopeless hypochondriac, and never smiled again. He died the other
day, and Hermione's sketch of Hankixson was found, frayed and
soiled, in an ancient pocket-book which he always carried about with
him. Haneinson's fate seemed at first to be worse. He took to
poetry, morbid, passionate, yearning, unhealthy poetry, of the

Permit me to proceed in my usual.! way, and to oftVr you an skimmed Swinberxe variety, and for a time was gloomy enough,

example or two. And I begin with | . Having, however, engaged in a paper conflict with one of

Hermione Maybloom. Hermione his critics, he forgot his sorrows, and though he still

was one of a large family of delightful i > j; ' declares an overwhelming desire for death and oblivion

daughters. Their father was the well- | IPJ jLiill I 5 ' \ about six times a year, in various magazines, beseemed,

known Dr. Maybloom, who was Dean | \ W %$Mv\xw\\\\\ when I last saw him, fairly comfortable and happy. But,

of Archester Cathedral. His massive [ \ WW^^w^vM^-M of course, he has never secured a vicarage,

and convincing volumes on The Fauna ifi ftw\l^^^wtt^B^^^ return to Hermione. She at last married a certain

and Flora of the Mosaic Boohs in \ t ^^T-'^ Mr. Pardoe, a barrister practising on the Archester Circuit,

their Fetation to Modern Botanical \ \ " fflffi'^-^- aim established herself in town. Shortly afterwards she

Investigation, must be within your t ; m^°'k ' bec-anm the rage. Ht beauty, her wit, her music, her

recollection. It was followed, you \ ' : - -Jsp* ' dinners, her diamonds, were spoken

remember, by The Dean's Duty, , '^%f^aS''^ of with enthusiasm. All the elderly

which, being published at a time when '';f£iV^^^^^R ^»L. V 'J? roues, whose leathery hearts had been

there was, so to speak, a boom in reli- ••\W?' ■•fr^ifejp1^ whl|Mr*-^ v ') HI offered up at hundreds of shrines,

gions novels, was ordered by many ' -'■,.. '^'^^^^^h^SmM^^ ' J§| / became her temporary slaves. She

readers under the impression that it '"'ii^^B^^^tf^ffll^^Wi^ coaxed them. cajoled them, and fooled

was likely to upset their mature reli- X « 7J^^S^^^^''-Q\j^y^S**—-■----- f— them, did this innocent daughter of a

gious convictions by its assaults

llliy<M^^t^C ^^Vrx simple-minded Dean, to the top of

orthodoxy. Their disappointment when If ^ l.ha^^^^^^^^P^j^^^^y^^^^C^ their various bents. She schemed suc-
two stout tomes, dealing historically \\J', '^^^^^M^^^^Jj^M~^^=^ cessfully against countless rivals, in

with the status and duties of Deans, ^^^^^^^^^^^/^^^^T7'TMi^^^^^ order to maintain her pre-eminence in

were delivered to them, was the theme »\ Jw^^^^^^^'^y^^^^^^. admiration of her circle. Her

of cheerful comment amongst the wvM^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^k - ambition knew no bounds. She

light-hearted members of_the Dean's ■■ -' •< ' changed her so-called friends every

own family. ^^wM^^^^^^^^^^^^^Sl) \ '•%''/ week; she cultivated grand passions

VTas there" ever in this world "so y^^^^S^^^^^^\ W^^('' ' ' for actors, authors, musicians, and

delightful a family circle as that of \ yffl§f////J even for professors. Sometimes she

the Deanery ? The daughters were all |yil§§^iy f ■// ^ played to select audiences with all her

pretty, but that was their smallest r^-'W^A ravishing skill, but this happened

merit. They were all clever, and well- ^fpl^ll more and more rarely, until at last

read, without a tinge of the blue- **^/ I s^ie utterly declined, and even went

stocking, andmostof them were musical »l so far as to flout H.S.H. the Duke of

to the tips of their slender Angers. How merrily their laughter used I Kalbsxope, who had been specially invited to meet her.
to ring across the ancient close, and how playfully and gently they \ Then suddenly came the crash. She left her husband, in company
used to rally the dear learned old Dean who had watched over them with Charlie Fitzhubert, the heir presumptive to the wealthy earldom
and cared for them since Mrs. Maybloom's death, many years before, ; of Battersea. On the following day Mr. Pardoe blew out his brains,
with all the tender care of the most devoted mother. And of this fair leaving ten thousand pounds of debt and three young children.

Six months afterwards the venerable Dean died, and sentimental
people spoke of a broken heart. Then the Earl of Battersea, in a
tit of indignation, married, and was blessed with a son, the present
Earl. Charlie Fitzhubert married Hermione, but they are as
poor as curates, and he hates her. I saw her two days ago in a shabby
hired carriage. She is getting prematurely old, and grey, and
wrinkled, and everybody avoids her, except her sister Sophy, who
still visits her, and suffers her ill-humour.

Charming story, isn't it ? I shall write again soon.

Yours, in the meantime, Diogenes Robinson.

and smiling throng, "my only rosary," as the Dean used to call
them, Hermioxe was, I think, the prettiest, as she was certainly
the most accomplished. Every kind of gift had been showered
upon her by Nature. "When she played her violin, accompanied by
her elder sister on the piano, tears trickled unbidden down the
aquiline nose of the militant Bishop of Archester, the chapter stood
hushed to a man, and the surrounding curates were only prevented
by a salutary fear of ruining their chances of preferment from laying
themselves, their pittances, and their garnered store of slippers at
her pritty feet. Then in a lit of charming petulance, she would
break off in the middle of the piece, lay down her violin, and, with
a pretty imperiousness, command a younger sister to fetch her zither,
on which to complete the subjugation of her adorers. And then her
caricatures—summer-lightning flashes of pencilled wit, as I heard
the Reverend Simeon Cope describe them in a moment of enthusiasm
after she had shown us her sketch of his rival, the Reverend

Night-Mailing.-— " Night Mail between London and Paris" has
been recently announced in all the papers as now ready and willing
to take night-mailers from Victoria, L. C. & D., to the French Capital.
It is to be a Third-class Night Mail, though a Knight of the First
Stephen Haxkinson. ! Class can, of course, travel by it should he be so disposed. Thirty

But even in those days, Avhile she still had about her all the . shillings through fare for " a single ; " but as the tariff doesn't ex-
fascinations of peerless beauty and fresh and glowing youth, I plicitly inform us whether the passenger will be asked the question,
mistrusted her. Alone of all the sisters she seemed to me to be ; "Married or single?" and so be charged accordingly, we may pre-
wanting in heart. I heard her several times "attempt to snub her i sume that a margin is left for a little surprise. The train of Night
father, and once I noted how she spent a whole evening in moody , Mails—a kind of gay bachelor train, no females being of the party—
silence, and refused to play a note, for no other reason that I could | is to start at 8*15 p.m., and to be in Paris at 5'50 a.m.

vol. ci.

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