DOI article:
Beerbohm, Max: The happy hypocrite
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.38746#0016
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The Happy Hypocrite
Lord George Hell did, at last, atone for all his faults, in a way
that was never revealed to the world during his life-time. The
reason of his strange and sudden disappearance from that social
sphere, in which he had so long moved and never moved again, I
will unfold. My little readers will then, I think, acknowledge
that any angry judgment they may have passed upon him must be
reconsidered and, it may be, withdrawn. I will leave his lordship
in their hands. But my plea for him will not be based upon that
Candour of his, which some of his friends so much admired.
There were, yes ! some so weak and so wayward as to think it a
fine thing to have an historic title and no scruples. “ Here comes
George Hell,” they would say. “ How wicked my lord is looking ! ”
Noblesse oblige, you see, and so an aristocrat should be very careful
of his good name. Anonymous naughtiness does little harm.
It is pleasant to record that many persons were unobnoxious to
the magic of his title and disapproved of him so strongly that,
whenever he entered a room where they happened to be, they
would make straight for the door and watch him very severely
through the key-hole. Every morning, when he strolled up
Piccadilly, they crossed over to the other side in a compact body,
leaving him to the companionship of his bad companions on that
which is still called the “ shady ” side. Lord George—cr^erXtoc—
was quite indifferent to this demonstration. Indeed, he seemed
wholly hardened, and, when ladies gathered up their skirts as they
passed him, he would lightly appraise their ankles.
I am glad I never saw his lordship. They say he was rather
like Caligula, with a dash of Sir John Falstaff, and that sometimes,
on wintry mornings in St. James’s Street, young children would
hush their prattle and cling in disconsolate terror to their nurses’
skirts, as they saw him come (that vast and fearful gentleman !)
with the east wind ruffling the round surface of his beaver,
ruffling
The Happy Hypocrite
Lord George Hell did, at last, atone for all his faults, in a way
that was never revealed to the world during his life-time. The
reason of his strange and sudden disappearance from that social
sphere, in which he had so long moved and never moved again, I
will unfold. My little readers will then, I think, acknowledge
that any angry judgment they may have passed upon him must be
reconsidered and, it may be, withdrawn. I will leave his lordship
in their hands. But my plea for him will not be based upon that
Candour of his, which some of his friends so much admired.
There were, yes ! some so weak and so wayward as to think it a
fine thing to have an historic title and no scruples. “ Here comes
George Hell,” they would say. “ How wicked my lord is looking ! ”
Noblesse oblige, you see, and so an aristocrat should be very careful
of his good name. Anonymous naughtiness does little harm.
It is pleasant to record that many persons were unobnoxious to
the magic of his title and disapproved of him so strongly that,
whenever he entered a room where they happened to be, they
would make straight for the door and watch him very severely
through the key-hole. Every morning, when he strolled up
Piccadilly, they crossed over to the other side in a compact body,
leaving him to the companionship of his bad companions on that
which is still called the “ shady ” side. Lord George—cr^erXtoc—
was quite indifferent to this demonstration. Indeed, he seemed
wholly hardened, and, when ladies gathered up their skirts as they
passed him, he would lightly appraise their ankles.
I am glad I never saw his lordship. They say he was rather
like Caligula, with a dash of Sir John Falstaff, and that sometimes,
on wintry mornings in St. James’s Street, young children would
hush their prattle and cling in disconsolate terror to their nurses’
skirts, as they saw him come (that vast and fearful gentleman !)
with the east wind ruffling the round surface of his beaver,
ruffling