"But," said I, "the world keeps turning round, and some day the right must come uppermost."
Blobbs admitted that, but added: "What is the use of a man's coming uppermost a century or two after he is dead, when there is nothing left of him but a bone here and there, and, perhaps, nothing but a handful of dirt, to enjoy the sensation? Why not have the world so arranged that a decent man may, now and then, see some inducement to continue decent, and that real merit may find its recompense without being obliged to attain it through quackery, or enjoy it as a blessed ghost, two or three hundred years from now?"
And all the time Blobbs was delivering his little speech, Blanche was still hunting for the lost melody on the keys, and the ivy was still trying to put its pretty green arms around Mignon's neck, and Celeste was throwing double-sixes with Boosey, and Aurelia was playing with that wonderful baby.
Let me whisper in your ear and tell you that Mrs. Grundy is a humbug. I think it would be the most blessed thing that could happen in this vale of tears if Mrs. Grundy should die. What a relief it would be to all of us! Existence would be a boon instead of a bore.
While Mrs. Grundy lives, every man and woman is an arrant hypocrite. While that fearful woman stands looking at us, every man and woman is an arrant coward. We flatter ourselves, or attempt to flatter ourselves--for there is not a man or woman who really believes it--that we are saying and doing things from principle, when in reality we are saying and doing them because Mrs. Grundy, in the shape of our next door neighbor, is looking at us and talking about us. You and I go to church and sit through services which may be the essence of stupidity, and we put on serious faces, and sit very primly, and regard our mortal enemy in the next slip with a lenient face, and pretend to listen to Dr. Creamcheese's commonplaces, and go out very solemnly--and all because Mrs. Grundy is looking at us from every direction, and when we get home, out of Mrs. Grundy's sight, we are ourselves again. We go through the formalities of a fast, and rigidly abstain from the good things while Mrs. Grundy's eyes are upon us, but the moment they are removed, we go into the larder and indulge in the best it affords. Celeste meets with another Dear Creature and lavishes all her affections upon her, when she does not care a snap of her pretty little finger about her, merely because Mrs. Grundy is looking at her. We are all of us, every day of our lives, going through with tedious conventionalities, which we know are conventionalities, which we do not believe in, merely because that woman Grundy is looking at us. She makes us hypocrites in every function of life. Thackeray struck Mrs. Grundy a blow in the face when he drew with his satirical and powerful pencil Louis XI. in his royal robes and Louis XI. in _puris naturalibus_. In one picture we saw Louis XI. in the light of Mrs. Grundy. In the other we saw him as himself. We wear a double suit; one which we know is a lie, for the world; the other, which we know is the truth, for ourselves.