II.—THE SOCIAL DUFFER.
If my Confessions are to be harrowing, it is in this paper that they will chiefly provoke the tear of sentiment. Other Confessors have never admitted that they are Social Duffers, except Mr. MARK PATTISON only, the Rector of Lincoln College; and he seems to have Flattered himself that he was only a Duffer as a beginner. My great prototypes, J.J. ROUSSEAU, and MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF, never own to having been Social Duffers. But I cannot conceal the fact from my own introspective analysis. It is not only that I was always shy. Others have fled, and hidden themselves in the laurels, or the hedgerows, when they met a lady in the way—but they grew out of this cowardly practice. Often have I, in a frantic attempt to conceal myself behind a hedge, been betrayed by my fishing-rod, which stuck out over the top. The giggles of the young women who observed me were hard to bear, but I confess that they were not unnatural.
Shyness is a fine qualification in a Social Duffer, and it is greatly improved by shortness, and, as one may say, stupidity of sight. I never recognise anyone whom I know; on the other hand, I frequently recognise people whom I never saw before in my life, and salute them with a heartiness which they fail to appreciate. Once, at an evening party, where the Princess BERGSTOL was present, a lady, who had treated me with hospitable kindness, I three times mistook her; once for an eminent novelist, once for a distinguished philanthropist, and once for an admired female performer on the Banjo. I carried on conversations with her in each of these three imaginary characters,—and I ask you, is this the way to shine in Society? You may say, "Wear spectacles"—but they are unbecoming. As to an eye-glass, somehow it irritates people even more than mere blindness does. Besides, it is always dropping into one's soup.
People are always accosting me, people who seem vaguely familiar, and then I have to make believe very much that I remember them, and to wait for casual hints. The more I feel confident that I know them, the more it turns out that I don't. It is an awful thing to stop a hansom in the street, thinking that its occupant is your oldest College friend, and to discover that he is a perfect stranger, and in a great hurry. Private Views are my particular abomination. At one such show, seven ladies, all very handsome and peculiarly attired, addressed me in the most friendly manner, calling me by my name. They cannot have taken me for either of my Doubles,—one is a Cabinet Minister, one is a dentist,—for they knew my name, The MACDUFFER of Duff. Yet I had not then, nor have I now, the faintest idea who any one of the seven was. My belief is that it was done for a bet. The worst of it is when, after about five minutes, I think I have a line as to who my companion really is, then, my intelligent features lighting up, I make some remark which ruins everything, congratulate a stockbroker on getting his step, or an unmarried lady on the success of her son in the Indian Civil Service examination.
The thing goes so far that I have occasionally mistaken my wife's relations for old friends. Then, when I am hostile, it is just as bad. I never, indeed, horsewhipped the wrong man, but that is only because I never horsewhipped anybody at all, Heaven forefend! But once I did mean to cut a man, I forget why. So I cut the wrong man, a harmless acquaintance whose feelings I would not have hurt for the world. Of course I accidentally cut all the world. Some set it down to an irritable temper, and ask, "What can we have done to The MACDUFFER?" Others think I am proud. Proud! I ask, what has a Duffer to be proud of? Nobody, or very few, admit that I am just a Duffer; a stupid, short-sighted, absent-minded child of misfortune.
All these things do not make my life so pleasant to me that I, the MACDUFFER, should greatly care to dine out. Ah, that is a trial. First, I never know my host and hostess by sight. Next, in a summer dusk, I never know anybody. Then, as to conversation, I have none. My mind is always prowling about on some antiquarian hobby-horse, reflecting deeply on the Gowrie Conspiracy, or the Raid of Ruthven, or the chances in favour of PERKIN WARBECK's having been a true man. Now I do object to talking shop, I am not a lawyer, nor yet am I an actor; I do not like people who talk about their cases, or their parts. It would he unbecoming to start a conversation on the authenticity of "HENRY GORING's Letter." Then I never go to the play, I do not even know which of the Royal Family is which: modern pictures are the abominations of desolation to me; in fact, I have no "conversation-openings." A young lady, compelled to sit beside me, has been known to hum tunes, and telegraph messages of her forlorn condition to her sister, at the opposite end of the table. I pitied her, but was helpless. My impression is that she was musical, poor soul! When I do talk, things become actively intolerable. I have no tact. To have tact, is much like being good at Halma, or whist, or tennis, or chess. You must be able to calculate the remote consequences of every move, and all the angles and side-walls from which the conversational hall may bound. It is needless to say that, at whist, I never know in the least what will happen in consequence of the card I play; and life is very much too short for the interminable calculations of chess. It is the same in conversation. I never know, or, if my sub-consciousness knows, I never remember, who anybody is. I speak to people about scandals with which they are connected. I frankly give my mind about Mr. DULL's poems to Mr. DULL's sister-in-law. I give free play to my humour about the Royal Academy in talk with the wife of an Academician of whom I never heard. I am like Jeanie Deans, at her interview with Queen CAROLINE, when, as the MACALLUM MORE said, she first brought down the Queen, and then Lady SUFFOLK, right and left, with remarks about unkind mothers, and the Stool of Penitence.
Thus you may see me forlorn, with each of my neighbours turning towards me the shoulder of indignation. I do not blame them, but how can I help it? It is the Fairy's fault: the curse has come upon me. WILLIAM BUFFY, the Statesman, has a great clan of kinsfolk. Did I ever express my views about WILLIAM BUFFY, but one of Clan Buffy was there, to be annoyed? When I find out what has occurred, I become as red as any tomato, but that does nobody any good.
Oh, I am a Pariah, I am unfit to live! In a savage country, to which my thoughts often wander, I would stumble over every taboo, and soon find myself in the oven. As it is, I stumble over everything, stools and lady's trains, and upset porcelain, and break all the odds and ends with which I fidget, and spill the salt, and then pour claret over it, and call on the right people at the wrong houses, and put letters in the wrong envelopes: one of the most terrible blunders of the Social Duffer. Naturally, in place of improving, MACDUFFER gets worse and worse: every failure which he discovers makes him more nervous: besides he knows that, of all his errors, he only finds out a small per-centage. Where can he take refuge? If Robinson Crusoe had been a social Duffer, he and Friday would not have been on speaking terms in a week. People think the poor Duffer malignant, boorish, haughty, unkind; he is only a Duffer, an irreclaimable, sad, pitiful creature, quite beyond the reach of philanthropy. On my grave write, not MISERRIMUS (though that would be true enough), but FUTILISSIMUS.
