Page:The Great Secret.djvu/27

Rh tone, he knew that the world does not care one iota what any man and woman does with their lives. It is vanity, born of solitude and brooding, which makes us fancy that we are of importance enough to disturb the daily routine of our friends and neighbours. If we write a big book, paint a great picture, win a battle, or commit a monstrous crime, we only rise to the surface for a moment, show our heads, as it were, with a portion of our shoulders over the other swimmers, and then we subside once again into the general crowd.

He could wonder now why he had given up his clubs and shunned his friends, which was the best sign of returning health. Who need care about the nasty remarks of a purblind old judge, more than the schoolboy does about the cut of the master's cane? What although his club friends might say behind his back that he was a brute, he knew before that they had called him a fool? They would shake hands with him the same, drink with him, eat with him, and revile some other dear absentee to him as heartily as ever, for in the end of the nineteenth century all the glass houses are broken, and no one thinks about re-glazing their shattered property, with so many brick-bats flying all round. Virtue gets no more credit than does vice. It has become an optional habit, like the putting on of a dress-suit.

He had known a literary notoriety, who was much admired and sought after, by some people. This thing had been kicked times out of number for his opinions and insinuations, but that made no difference to him, he still went about with unabashed brow, ready to present the appropriate portions of his anatomy to any aggressive toe, and men smoked, drank and dined with him the same as usual, abusing him no more than they