The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101,
November 14th, 1891, by Various

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Title: Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891

Author: Various

Release Date: November 17, 2004 [EBook #14074]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 101.

November 14th, 1891.

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No. VI.--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 have 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
extraordinary 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.

Permit me to proceed in my usual way, and to offer you an example or two.
And I begin with HERMIONE MAYBLOOM. HERMIONE was one of a large family of
delightful daughters. Their father was the well-known Dr. MAYBLOOM, who was
Dean of Archester Cathedral. His massive and convincing volume