Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/132

124 "You are out of spirits to-night, Lamerton." His wife retained his hand, and pressed it.

"Then," continued his lordship, following his own train of thought, and not answering his wife's remark, perhaps because he did not hear it, so full was his mind of the topic then uppermost in it, "then, Julia, consider—we are mounted specimens; like those unfortunate worms in sour paste, and monsters in a drop of dirty water, we were shown by lime-light and a magnifying glass the other evening at the National School, projected on a white sheet. The whole room was crowded, and the bumpkins in the place sat gazing as the lecturer pointed to the wriggling creatures, named each in succession, and described it. What must have been the discomfort to those animals, if in any degree sensitive, to be exposed, stared at, glared through, commented on! and—consider—the lecturer may have misinterpreted them, because misunderstanding them, and they listened to it all, squirmed a little more painfully, but were incapable of setting him to rights. The German princes are entitled durch-laucht, that is, 'Transparencies;' and quite right. We also are transparencies, we worms of the aristocracy, monsters of privilege, held up before the public eye, magnified, projected on newspaper sheets, characterised sometimes aright, more often wrongly, forced to have every nerve in our system, every pulsation in our blood, every motion in our brains, every moment in our lives, and every writhe of our bodies and spasm of our hearts commented on by the vulgar, and brutally misunderstood. It is rather hard on us, Julia. There are other worms in the sour paste of life, other monsters in the drop of dirty water we call Society, who are at liberty to turn about, and stretch themselves, bound or coil as they list; only we—we must live and wriggle between two plates of glass, illuminated and made translucent by the most powerful known light, denied that privilege which belongs to the humble—opacity."