"I find the contrary to be the case with first-rate artists," said
Lydia.
"Thank you," retorted Cashel, sarcastically. "I ought to make you a
bow for that. I'm glad you acknowledge that it IS an art."
"But," said Lydia seriously, "it seems to me that it is an art
wholly anti-social and retrograde. And I fear that you have forced
this interview on me to no purpose."
"I don't know whether it's anti-social or not. But I think it hard
that I should be put out of decent society when fellows that do far
worse than I are let in. Who did I see here last Friday, the most
honored of your guests? Why, that Frenchman with the gold
spectacles. What do you think I was told when I asked what HIS
little game was? Baking dogs in ovens to see how long a dog could
live red hot! I'd like to catch him doing it to a dog of mine. Ay;
and sticking a rat full of nails to see how much pain a rat could
stand. Why, it's just sickening. Do you think I'd have shaken hands
with that chap? If he hadn't been a guest of yours I'd have given
him a notion of how much pain a Frenchman can stand without any
nails in him. And HE'S to be received and made much of, while I am
kicked out! Look at your relation, the general. What is he but a
fighting man, I should like to know? Isn't it his pride and boast
that as long as he is paid so much a day he'll ask no questions
whether a war is fair or unfair, but just walk out and put thousands
of men in the best way to kill and be killed?--keeping well behind
them himself all the time, mind you. Last year he was up to his chin
in the blood of a lot of poor blacks that were no more a match for
his armed men than a feather-weight would be for me. Bad as I am, I
wouldn't attack a feather-weight, or stand by and see another heavy
man do it. Plenty of your friends go pigeon-shooting to Hurlingham.
THERE'S a humane and manly way of spending a Saturday afternoon!
Lord Worthington, that comes to see you when he likes, though he's
too much of a man or too little of a shot to kill pigeons, thinks
nothing of fox-hunting. Do you think foxes like to be hunted, or
that the people that hunt them have such fine feelings that they can
afford to call prize-fighters names? Look at the men that get killed
or lamed every year at steeple-chasing, fox-hunting, cricket, and
foot-ball! Dozens of them! Look at the thousands killed in battle!
Did you ever hear of any one being killed in the ring? Why, from
first to last, during the whole century that prize-fighting has been
going on, there's not been six fatal accidents at really respectable
fights. It's safer than dancing; many a woman has danced her skirt
into the fire and been burned. I once fought a man who had spoiled
his constitution with bad living; and he exhausted himself so by
going on and on long after he was beaten that he died of it, and
nearly finished me, too. If you'd heard the fuss that even the
oldest fighting men made over it you'd have thought that a baby had
died from falling out of its cradle. A good milling does a man more
good than harm. And if all these--dog-bakers, and soldiers, and
pigeon-shooters, and fox-hunters, and the rest of them--are made
welcome here, why am I shut out like a brute beast?"