“I think a penny chair would be the maddest of the three dissipations,” she decided.
And they sat down in penny chairs.
“It’s rather jolly here, isn’t it?” said he. “The trees, with their black trunks, and their leaves, and things. Have you ever seen such sumptuous foliage? And the greensward, and the shadows, and the sunlight, and the atmosphere, and the mistiness—isn’t it like pearl-dust and gold-dust floating in the air? It’s all got up to imitate the background of a Watteau. We must do our best to be frivolous and ribald, and supply a proper foreground. How big and fleecy and white the clouds are. Do you think they’re made of cotton-wool? And what do you suppose they paint the sky with? There never was such a brilliant, breath-taking blue. It’s much too nice to be natural. And they’ve sprinkled the whole place with scent, haven’t they? You notice how fresh and sweet it smells. If only one could get rid of the sparrows—the cynical little beasts! hear how they’re chortling—and the people, and the nursemaids and children. I have never been able to understand why they admit the public to the parks.”
“Go on,” she encouraged him. “You’re succeeding admirably in your effort to be ribald.”
“But that last remark wasn’t ribald in the least—it was desperately sincere. I do think it’s inconsiderate of them to admit the public to the parks. They ought to exclude all the lower classes, the People, at one fell swoop, and then to discriminate tremendously amongst the others.”
“Mercy, what undemocratic sentiments!” she cried. “The People, the poor dear People—what have they done?”
“Everything. What haven’t they done? One could forgive their being dirty and stupid and noisy and rude; one could forgive their ugliness, the ineffable banality of their faces, their goggle-eyes, their protruding teeth, their ungainly motions; but the trait one can’t forgive is their venality. They’re so mercenary. They’re always thinking how much they can get out of you—everlastingly touching their hats and expecting you to put your hand in your pocket. Oh, no, believe me, there’s no health in the People. Ground down under the iron heel of despotism, reduced to a condition of hopeless serfdom, I don’t say that they might not develop redeeming virtues. But free, but sovereign, as they are in these days, they’re everything that is squalid and sordid and offensive. Besides, they read such abominably bad literature.”
“In that particular they’re curiously like the aristocracy, aren’t they?” said she. “By-the-bye, when are you going to publish another book of poems?”
“Apropos of bad literature?”
“Not altogether bad. I rather like your poems.”