happened but I would overhear somebody
in front of me whisper to his or her companion--"Take care, he's just
behind you." I always felt so grateful to that whisperer.

At a Bohemian Club, I was once drinking coffee with a Novelist, who
happened to be a broad-shouldered, athletic man. A fellow-member,
joining us, said to the Novelist, "I have just finished that last book
of yours; I'll tell you my candid opinion of it." Promptly replied the
Novelist, "I give you fair warning--if you do, I shall punch your head."
We never heard that candid opinion.

Most of our leisure time we spend sneering at one another. It is a
wonder, going about as we do with our noses so high in the air, we do
not walk off this little round world into space, all of us. The Masses
sneer at the Classes. The morals of the Classes are shocking. If
only the Classes would consent as a body to be taught behaviour by a
Committee of the Masses, how very much better it would be for them. If
only the Classes would neglect their own interests and devote themselves
to the welfare of the Masses, the Masses would be more pleased with
them.

The Classes sneer at the Masses. If only the Masses would follow the
advice given them by the Classes; if only they would be thrifty on their
ten shillings a week; if only they would all be teetotalers, or drink
old claret, which is not intoxicating; if only all the girls would be
domestic servants on five pounds a year, and not waste their money on
feathers; if only the men would be content to work for fourteen hours a
day, and to sing in tune, "God bless the Squire and his relations," and
would consent to be kept in their proper stations, all things would go
swimmingly--for the Classes.

The New Woman pooh-poohs the Old; the Old Woman is indignant with the
New. The Chapel denounces the Stage; the Stage ridicules Little Bethel;
the Minor Poet sneers at the world; the world laughs at the Minor Poet.

Man criticizes Woman. We are not altogether pleased with woman. We
discuss her shortcomings, we advise her for her good. If only English
wives would dress as French wives, talk as American wives, cook as
German wives! if only women would be precisely what we want them
to be--patient and hard-working, brilliantly witty and exhaustively
domestic, bewitching, amenable, and less suspicious; how very much
better it would be for them--also for us. We work so hard to teach
them, but they will not listen. Instead of paying attention