of sympathy, and from time to time
chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as heavy as a pole-axe. It
requires a singular art, as well as the vantage-ground of age, to deal
these stunning corrections among the coxcombs of the young. The pill is
disguised in sugar of wit; it is administered as a compliment--if you
had not pleased, you would not have been censured; it is a personal
affair--a hyphen, a _trait d'union_, between you and your censor; age's
philandering, for her pleasure and your good. Incontestably the young
man feels very much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick
with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The
correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have
transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man
were made of gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But
when the word is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good
humour at all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every
bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and
reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and
ready, with a shrinking readiness, one-third loath, for a repetition of
the discipline.

There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, and perhaps toughened,
who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true thing with a kind
of genial cruelty. Still there are some--and I doubt if there be any man
who can return the compliment. The class of man represented by Vernon
Whitford in "The Egoist" says, indeed, the true thing, but he says it
stockishly. Vernon is a noble fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and
instructive contrast to Daniel Deronda: his conduct is the conduct of a
man of honour; but we agree with him, against our consciences, when he
remorsefully considers "its astonishing dryness." He is the best of men,
but the best of women manage to combine all that and something more.
Their very faults assist them; they are helped even by the falseness of
their position in life. They can retire into the fortified camp of the
proprieties. They can touch a subject and suppress it. The most adroit
employ a somewhat elaborate reserve as a means to be frank, much as they
wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has the full responsibility
of his freedom, cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without
rudeness, must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom
left face