For which I thank thee, Devil, profoundly.
Who says the Devil is not your friend? Who says the Devil does not believe in the all-merciful Law of Compensation?
And so it is--do you see?--that all things look different after a satisfying dinner, that the color of the world changes, that life in fact resolves itself into two things: a fine rare-broiled porterhouse steak from Omaha, and some fresh green young onions from California.
I am charmingly original. I am delightfully refreshing. I am startlingly Bohemian. I am quaintly interesting--the while in my sleeve I may be smiling and smiling--and a villain. I can talk to a roomful of dull people and compel their interest, admiration, and astonishment. I do this sometimes for my own amusement. As I have said, I am a rather plain-featured, insignificant-looking genius, but I have a graceful personality. I have a pretty figure. I am well set up. And when I choose to talk in my charmingly original fashion, embellishing my conversation with many quaint lies, I have a certain very noticeable way with me, an "air."
It is well, if one has nothing else, to acquire an air. And an air taken in conjunction with my charming originality, my delightfully refreshing candor, is something powerful and striking in its way.
I do not, however, exert myself often in this way; partly because I can sometimes foresee, from the character of the assembled company, that my performance will not have the desired effect--for I am a genius, and genius at close range at times carries itself unconsciously to the point where it becomes so interesting that it is atrocious, and can not be carried farther without having somewhat mildly disastrous results; and then, again, the facial antics of some ten or a dozen persons possessed more or less of the qualities of the genus fool--even they become tiresome after a while.
Always I talk about myself on an occasion of this kind. Indeed, my conversation is on all occasions devoted directly or indirectly to myself.
When I talk on the subject of ethics, I talk of it as it is related to Mary MacLane.
When I give out broad-minded opinions about Ninon de l'Enclos, I demonstrate her relative position to Mary MacLane!
When I discourse liberally on the subject of the married relation, I talk of it only as it will affect Mary MacLane.