Why, bless my soul! it is your man of culture, your
author, your leader of thought, who is parochial, suburban, _borne_, and
the rest of it! It is a commonplace that the Londoner is the most
provincial of all Englishmen, living in sublime ignorance of what is
thought and done in the rest of the kingdom; and in similar wise, when a
man sneers at the _bourgeoisie_, I never think of looking up his pedigree
in Debrett. It is, no doubt, extremely exasperating that the world was
not created for the convenience and to the taste of artistic persons, but
unfortunately the thing had to be turned out before their advice could be
obtained.
That young England--bless its stupid healthy soul--is more interested in
life and football than in literature and art, was amply proved by the
lethargy about the Laureateship. On the Continent the claims of the
rivals would have set the students brawling and the journalists duelling;
here it barely caused a ripple in the five o'clock teacup. My friend the
Apostle was not wholly wrong; there is a development of native drama
ahead of us; only it will come about peaceably,--we shall not hear the
noise of the captains and the shouting. And the old conventions have a
long run yet before them. They cling even to the skirts of "The Second
Mrs.
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