The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101,
November 28, 1891, by Various

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Title: Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891

Author: Various

Release Date: November 22, 2004 [EBook #14123]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 101.

November 28, 1891.

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

NO. VII.--TO VANITY.

DEAR VANITY,

Imagine my feelings when I read the following letter. It lay quite
innocently on my breakfast-table in a heap of others. It was stamped
in the ordinary way, post-marked in the ordinary way, and addressed
correctly, though how the charming writer discovered my address
I cannot undertake to say; in fact, there was nothing in its
outward appearance to distinguish it from the rest of my everyday
correspondence. I opened it carelessly, and this is what I read:--

[Illustration]

RIDICULOUS BEING,--In the course of a fairly short life I have read
many absurd things, but never in all my existence have I read anything
so absurd as your last letter. I don't say that your amiable story
about HERMIONE MAYBLOOM is not absolutely true; in fact, I knew
HERMIONE _very slightly_ myself when everybody was raving about her,
and I never _could_ understand what all you men (for, of course,
you are a man; no woman could be so foolish) saw in her to make you
lose your preposterous heads. To me she always seemed _silly_ and
_affected_, and _not in the least_ pretty, with her snub nose, and her
fuzzy hair. So I am rather glad, not from any personal motive, but
for the sake of _truth_ and _justice_, that you have shown her up.
No; what I do complain of is, your evident intention to make the world
believe that only women are vain. You pretend to lecture us about
our shortcomings, and you don't seem to know that there is no vainer
creature in existence than a man. No peacock that ever strutted with
an expanded tail is one-half so ridiculous or silly as a man. I
make no distinctions--_all men are the sa