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"Punch" took up the tale, and week by week repeated the joke. It was heard in drawing-room recitations to the accompaniment of pianos; it even went on the stage. Ladies rushed into print to expose foibles men never guessed, and to say of the sex at large what less gifted women say only of their personal friends.
Of a man who saw all these genteel foibles so clearly it is absurd merely to say without further explanation that he could not describe a gentleman. Let us confine ourselves to saying that he did not describe a gentleman as gentlemen like to be described. Lastly, there is the admirable study of Toots, who may be considered as being in some ways the masterpiece of Dickens.
You might meet him murmuring to himself in a low voice, and apparently tasting the flavor of the words. In absence of mind, he probably exceeded every other living man. But it is scarcely worth while to chronicle minutely the harmless foibles of this inoffensive old man.
To be sure, the veteran reader of novels will have a sense of having come across some of the incidents several times before, but what will seem much less familiar are the humor and the amusing satire with which the foibles of travellers are made fun of.
I deemed that yonder honourable dame had kept thee from all the frolics and foibles of the poor old profession. Fear not to tell me, little one. Remember thine own mother hath a heart for such matters. I guess already. C'etait un beau garcon, ce pauvre Antoine." "Oh no, madam," exclaimed Cicely.
But, duly to appreciate the value of Richard Avenel, and in just counterpoise to all his foibles, one ought to have seen what he had effected for the town. Well might he boast of "new blood;" he had done as much for the town as he had for his fields.
He's neither more nor less than a gossip a gossip flanked by a coxcomb and an egotist. He's shallow, vain, cold, superstitious, timid, pretentious, capricious: a pretty list of foibles! And yet, for all this, he has his good points. His caprices are sometimes generous, and his rebellion against the ugliness of life frequently makes him do kind things. He has no courage for evil more than for good.
They did not laugh at the exposure of another's foibles, but out of their own merry hearts. Will it be said, the Bible is not true to Nature, if it does not represent the comical side of life, as well as Shakspeare does? We think the comical parts of Shakspeare, his extreme comical parts, are rather an exaggeration of individual qualities than a fair portraiture of the whole species.
The higher a man's nature, the keener seems his enjoyment of his own irony and mockery of his own foibles; but did any woman ever seriously sit down to write a "Roundabout Paper?"
Such as, "Oh, any friend of yours, mademoiselle, must be welcome to me," or the like. But the proposal caught Edouard on his foible, his vanity, to wit; and our foibles are our manias. He was mortified to the heart's core. "She refuses to know me herself," thought he, "but she will use my love to make me amuse that old man."
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