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Updated: June 29, 2025
"The impudence of the bawd is modesty, compared with that of the convert," writes the Marquis of Halifax. The German professor and the German bourgeois in their Rake's Progress are only a little more awkward, a little more heavy-handed, a little coarser in speech, than others, that is all.
Moreover," continued she, "for an instance of the malice of men, I have heard tell a tale concerning The Rake's Trick against the Chaste Wife. A certain man loved a beautiful and lovely woman, a model of charms and grace, married to a man whom she loved and who loved her.
There was as much to cry as to laugh over in Hogarth's pieces and that is what made them so truly great. One of his great picture series was called the "Rake's Progress" and it was a warning to all young men against leading too gay a life. It showed the "Rake" at the beginning of his misfortunes, gambling, and in the last reaping the reward of his follies in a debtor's prison and the madhouse.
Clare spent some pleasant days here, his kind host pointing out to him various memorials connected with the great satirist and moralist the window through which Hogarth eloped with old Thornhill's only daughter; the place where he painted the 'Rake's Progress; and the spot in the garden where he buried his faithful dog, with the inscription, 'Life to the last enjoyed, here Pompey lies. There were agreeable excursions, too, from Chiswick to the neighbouring places, particularly to Richmond, where Clare visited Thompson's monument on the hill, as well as his tombstone in the old church, which, covered as it was with cobwebs, he thought much less beautiful than that of Hogarth's dog.
There is, for instance, a kind of Rake's Progress or "How she became a Communist," in which the Entente leaders make a sorry and grotesque appearance. Lenin and Trotsky already figure in woodcuts as Moses and Aaron, deliverers of their people, while the mother and child who illustrate the statistics of the maternity exhibition have the grace and beauty of mediæval madonnas.
Saltram's career, his debts, his love of gambling, his dealings with money-lenders, and other foibles common to the rake's progress. It was rather a hard battle for the lonely little woman to fight, but she had fortune on her side; and at the worst, her kinsfolk treated her with a certain deference, even while they were doing their utmost to worry her into an untimely grave.
There is a tiny borer which eats seasoned oak wood, boring thousands of minute holes through it till it becomes a mere shell, and turning out a fine white powder known among country folk as "powder-post." When a shovel or a pitchfork-handle snaps suddenly, or an axe-helve or a rake's tail breaks off under no great strain, the farmer says, "'Twas powder-post."
"Ruth!" he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind him, looked on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr. Wilding's philanderings with this lady had never had the old rake's approval. Too much trouble already had resulted from them. "I must speak with you at once. At once!" she urged him, her tone fearful. "Are you in need of me?" he asked concernedly. "In very urgent need," said she.
The handsome rake's unlimited dissipations were severely checked by his sufferings, but not altogether prevented, and on his return to Rome he continued to indulge in all the pleasures of life. Hadrian's hesitation and reluctance often disquieted him, for that imperial Sphinx had, only too frequently, given the most unexpected solutions to his mystifications.
Norgate, who had been standing at the bar with Baring, was passing a few feet away. "The rake's progress," the former quoted solemnly. Selingman raised his glass. "Come and join us," he invited. Norgate shook his head slightly and passed on. Selingman leaned a little forward, watching his departing figure. The buoyant good-nature seemed to have faded out of his face.
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