ng of her letters she said, almost before
the meal was done. "Vulgarity!" She uttered the word aloud to
herself, as she sat herself down in the little room up-stairs which
she had assigned to herself for her own use. But though she was very
angry with him, she did not, even in her own mind, contradict him.
Perhaps it was vulgar. But why shouldn't she be vulgar, if she could
most surely get what she wanted by vulgarity? What was the meaning
of the word vulgarity? Of course she was prepared to do things,--was
daily doing things,--which would have been odious to her had not her
husband been a public man. She submitted, without unwillingness,
to constant contact with disagreeable people. She lavished her
smiles,--so she now said to herself,--on butchers and tinkers. What
she said, what she read, what she wrote, what she did, whither she
went, to whom she was kind and to whom unkind,--was it not all said
and done and arranged with reference to his and her own popularity?
When a man wants to be Prime Minister he has to submit to vulgarity,
and must give up his ambition if the task be too disagreeable to him.
The Duchess thought that that had been understood, at any rate ever
since the days of Coriolanus. "The old Duke kept out of it," she said
to herself, "and chose to live in the other way. He had his choice.
He wants it to be done. And when I do it for him because he can't do
it for himself, he calls it by an ugly name!" Then it occurred to
her that the world tells lies every day,--telling on the whole much
more lies than truth,--but that the world has wisely agreed that the
world shall not be accused of lying. One doesn't venture to express
open disbelief even of one's wife; and with the world at large
a word spoken, whether lie or not, is presumed to be true of
course,--because spoken. Jones has said it, and therefore Smith,--who
has known the lie to be a lie,--has asserted his assured belief,
lying again. But in this way the world is able to live pleasantly.
How was she to live pleasantly if her husband accused her of
vulgarity? Of course it was all vulgar, but why should he tell her
so? She did not do it from any pleasure that she got from it.

The letters remained long unwritten, and then there came a moment in
which she resolved that they should not be written. The work was very
hard, and what good would come from it? Why should she make her hands
dirty, so that even her husband accused her of vulgarity? Would it
not