sat like a flower at his side. Poor old fellow, can you
be selfish to him? Can you say, 'These tedious old fools!' Fool thyself,
this night shall thy youth be required of thee.

You might think of this next time you drop across the old playgoer. It was
natural in Hamlet to swear at Polonius--who, you will remember, was an old
playgoer himself--but, being a gentleman, it was natural in him, too, to
recall the first player with, 'Follow that lord; but look you mock him
not!'

THE MEASURE OF A MAN

I sometimes grow melancholy with the thought that, though I wear trousers
and shave once a day, I am not, properly speaking, a Man. Surely it is
from no failure of goodwill, no lack of prayerful striving towards that
noble estate: for if there is one spectacle in this moving phantasmagoria
of life that I love to carry within my eye, it is the figure of a true
man. The mere idea of a true man stirs one's heart like a trumpet.
Therefore, this doubt I am confiding is all the more dreary. Naturally, I
feel it most keenly in the company of my fellows, each one of whom seems
to carry the victorious badge of manhood, as though to cry shame upon me.
They make me shrink into myself, make me feel that I am but an impostor in
their midst. Indeed, in that sensitiveness of mine you have the
starting-point of my unmanliness. Look at that noble fellow there. He is
six-foot odd in his stockings, straight, stalwart, and confident. His face
is broad and strong, his close-cropped head is firm and proud on his
shoulders--firm and proud as a young bull's. It is a head made, indeed,
rather to butt than to think with; it is visited with no effeminacy of
thought or dream. It has another striking quality: it is hardly
distinguishable from any other head in the room--for I am in an assemblage
of true men all, a glorious herd of young John Bulls. All have the same
strong jaws, the same powerful low foreheads. Noble fellows! Any one of
them could send me to eternity with the wind of his fist.

And, most of all, is their manhood brought home to me, with a sickening
sense of inferiority, in their voices. What a leonine authority in the
roar of their opinions! Their words strike the air firm as the tread of
lions. They are not teased with fine distinctions, possibilities of
misconception, or the perils of afterthought. Their talk is of the
absolute, their opinions wear the primary colours, and dream not of 'art
shades.' Never have they been wrong