Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/286

 never are. A Family Residence is always more respectable than a Family!

I give Thee glory that I am made of such stubborn Flesh and Quality as never to recognize that any other Woman exists who, by the Inconvenient Attributes of Either Beauty, Wit or Intelligence, deserves to be considered my Superior, and that when any such Intrusive and Obtrusive Female is accidentally forced upon my Notice, I have the good sense to diplomatically ignore Her. I am gratefully conscious that the Meaningless Insipidity of my Manner has favourably impressed the Uneducated Majority of my Husband's Constituents. And also, that having once obtained their Unreasoning Votes, their Bucolic Lethargy is such, that I need do little further to retain their Credulous Admiration save to put in an Occasional Well-Dressed Appearance at a "local" Bazaar, or Charity Ball. Concerning any aims or hopes they may, in their blundering Dulness, have ever entertained towards the Betterment of their Condition, and the Representation of these Addle-pated desires to His Majesty's Government, I am as Profoundly Indifferent as my Husband is Voluntarily Ignorant. For, as the larger number of the Faithful Commons are aware, no Act is more fatal to the Social Prestige and County Influence of a Member of the House, than that he should, when in office, fulfil the Rash Promises made to his Electors during a Critical state of the Poll! Inasmuch as the only Reasonable object to be attained by the Purchase of the Letters M. and P. is the Betterment of One's Self and One's Social Position on the lines of such Conventional Hypocrisies as are agreeable to the