Cashel Byron's Profession

"Now we'll go to another little point that the gentleman forgot. He

recommended you to LEARN--to make yourselves better and wiser from

day to day. But he didn't tell you why it is that you won't learn,

in spite of his advice. I suppose that, being a foreigner, he was

afraid of hurting your feelings by talking too freely to you. But

you're not so thin-skinned as to take offence at a little

plain-speaking, I'll be bound; so I tell you straight out that the

reason you won't learn is not that you don't want to be clever, or

that you are lazier than many that have learned a great deal, but

just because you'd like people to think that you know everything

already--because you're ashamed to be seen going to school; and you

calculate that if you only hold your tongue and look wise you'll get

through life without your ignorance being found out. But where's the

good of lies and pretence? What does it matter if you get laughed at

by a cheeky brat or two for your awkward beginnings? What's the use

of always thinking of how you're looking, when your sense might tell

you that other people are thinking about their own looks and not

about yours? A big boy doesn't look well on a lower form, certainly,

but when he works his way up he'll be glad he began. I speak to you

more particularly because you're Londoners; and Londoners beat all

creation for thinking about themselves. However, I don't go with the

gentleman in everything he said. All this struggling and striving to

make the world better is a great mistake; not because it isn't a

good thing to improve the world if you know how to do it, but

because striving and struggling is the worst way you could set about

doing anything. It gives a man a bad style, and weakens him. It

shows that he don't believe in himself much. When I heard the

professor striving and struggling so earnestly to set you to work

reforming this, that, and the other, I said to myself, 'He's got

himself to persuade as well as his audience. That isn't the language

of conviction.' Whose--"

"Really, sir," said Lucian Webber, who had made his way to the

table, "I think, as you have now addressed us at considerable

length, and as there are other persons present whose opinions

probably excite as much curiosity as yours--" He was interrupted by

a, "Hear, hear," followed by "No, no," and "Go on," uttered in more

subdued tones than are customary at public meetings, but with more

animation than is usually displayed in drawing-rooms. Cashel, who

had been for a moment somewhat put out, turned to Lucian and said,

in a tone intended to repress, but at the same time humor his

impatience, "Don't you be in a hurry, sir. You shall have your turn

presently. Perhaps I may tell you something you don't know, before I

stop." Then he turned again to the company, and resumed.