Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/188

 small beer politics. There must be a considerable library on the subject, every new author threshing the old straw a tenth time, and adding mystery trimmings of his own. I always promised myself to submit my theories on Swift and his harem at a first-class insanity shop, but I forgot to ask Krafft-Ebing in Vienna, and now I let Virchow pass."

I was going to say something obvious, but Mark stopped me. "I know Virchow's special line, but that man is wise on every conceivable subject, and I am quite sure he would have borne me out, namely, that Swift's character can be explained on the theory that he was a Sadist and a Masochist in one. If Swift, as he wrote to an acquaintance, 'died of rage like a poisoned rat in a hole,' I am sure he enjoyed it. God knows that man gave more pain to his lady loves, Stella, Vanessa and the rest, than all the Romeos in Shakespeare. They say that he killed Vanessa by frightening her to death; he certainly murdered Stella morally by letting her pass for his mistress. Still these two women and others, whose names I forget, were proud of the torments inflicted upon them. I wish I had asked Virchow, when he invited the audience to put questions to him at the end of the lecture." 184