At about this juncture the enemy himself stepped in and announced there never had been any need for the dog to bark at all:
“So, then, Panic, or what remained of her, was put to bed again. The Opposition retired into its kennel growling. The People coughed like a man of two minds, doubting whether he has been divinely inspired or has cut a ridiculous figure. The Press interpreted the cough as a warning to Government; and Government launched a big ship with hurrahs, and ordered the recruiting-sergeant to be seen conspicuously.”
All this would seem sufficient, but it appears that the real sting after these preliminary pricks, is in the tail. The picture concludes with the bulky figure of the Tax-Payer looming in the background; he is pointed out with the laconic comment:[138]
“Will you not own that the working of the system for scaring him and bleeding him is very ingenious? But whether the ingenuity comes of native sagacity, as it is averred by some, or whether it shows an instinct laboring to supply the deficiencies of stupidity, according to others, I cannot express an opinion.”
The satiric parentheses in The Egoist are naturally concerned not with politics but with individual men and women, chiefly in their relationships to one another. A few instances will serve.
Referring to the selfish folly of the masculine demand for feminine delicacy rather than strength, Meredith says of women:[139]
“Are they not of a nature warriors, like men?—men’s mates to bear them heroes instead of puppets? But the devouring male Egoist prefers them as inanimate overwrought polished pure-metal precious vessels, fresh from the hands of the artificer, for him to walk away with hugging, call all his own, drink of, and fill and drink of, and forget that he stole them.”
Again, apropos of that “adoring female’s worship,” destined only for the strong, “who maintain the crown by holding divinely independent of the great emotion they have sown,” he says:[140]
“In the one hundred and fourth chapter of the thirteenth volume of the Book of Egoism, it is written: Possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity.”
When we turn to plot or situation as a vehicle of satire, we find an almost exact parallel, as to proportionate amount, to the reflective type just discussed. More than half of the novelists on our list have no examples worthy of special mention. A few insert amusing episodes, not especially germane to the main plot. And the three notable instances, where the satiric situation is a feature of importance, where it influences the whole trend of the movement, affects the leading characters, and plays a part in the climax, occur in the three real satires, Martin Chuzzlewit, Vanity Fair, and The Egoist; so that Dickens, Thackeray, and Meredith are again our main theme.