umanitarianism he vented about him is unbearable
to any stomach, not excepting even Mr. Swinburne's, who occasionally holds
his nose with one hand while he waves the censer with the other. Humanity
be hanged! Men of inferior genius, Victor Hugo and Mr. Gladstone, take
refuge in it. Humanity is a pigsty, where liars, hypocrites, and the
obscene in spirit congregate; it has been so since the great Jew conceived
it, and it will be so till the end. Far better the blithe modern pagan in
his white tie and evening clothes, and his facile philosophy. He says, "I
don't care how the poor live; my only regret is that they live at all;" and
he gives the beggar a shilling.

We all want notoriety; our desires on this point, as upon others, are not
noble, but the human is very despicable vermin and only tolerable when it
tends to the brute, and away from the evangelical. I will tell you an
anecdote which is in itself an admirable illustration of my craving for
notoriety; and my anecdote will serve a double purpose,--it will bring me
some of the notoriety of which I am so desirous, for you, dear, exquisitely
hypocritical reader, will at once cry, "Shame! Could a man be so wicked as
to attempt to force on a duel, so that he might make himself known through
the medium of a legal murder?" You will tell your friends of this horribly
unprincipled young man, and they will, of course, instantly want to know
more about him.

It was a gala night in Curzon Street, the lords were driving up in hansoms;
shouts and oaths; some seated on the roofs with their legs swinging inside;
the comics had arrived from the halls; there were ladies, many ladies;
choruses were going merrily in the drawing-room; one man was attempting to
kick the chandelier, another stood on his head on the sofa. There was a
beautiful young lord there, that sort of figure that no woman can resist.
There was a delightful chappie who seemed inclined to empty the mustard-pot
down my neck; him I could keep in order, but the beautiful lord I saw was
attempting to make a butt of me. With his impertinences I did not for a
moment intend to put up; I did not know him, he was not then, as he is now,
if he will allow me to say so, a friend. About three or half-past the
ladies retired, and the festivities continued with unabated vigour. We had
passed through various stages, not of intoxication, no one was drunk, but
of jubilation; we had been jocose and rowdy, we had told stories of all
kinds