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“And with all your great knowledge of life,” continued she, “I don’t exactly see what it has done for you.”

Now, Mrs O’Dowd being, as you may apprehend, a woman, I didn’t waste my time in arguing with her–I didn’t crush her, as I might, by telling her that the very highest and noblest of a man’s acquirements are, ipso facto, the least marketable; and that the boasted excellence of all classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that Greek and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar fractions and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, Mrs O’D. would have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the rule-of-three against Sophocles and “all his works.” I simply replied, with that dignity which is natural to me, “I am proud of my knowledge of life; I do recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture that makes up human chemistry; but it has never occurred to me to advertise my discovery for sale, like Holloway’s Pills or somebody’s cod-liver oil.” “Perhaps you knew nobody would buy it,” cried she, and flounced out of the room, the bang of the door being one of the “epigrams in action” wives are skilled in.

Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself to those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of their own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure in all it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering delighted over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, for years, imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been my gallery, with all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm colouring, and its cold tints.

It has been my pride to think that I can recognise every style and every “handling,” and that no man could impose a copy upon me for an original. “And can it be possible,” cried I aloud, “that while picture-dealers revel in fortune–fellows whose traffic goes no higher than coloured canvass–that I, the connoisseur of humanity, the moral toxicologist–I, who read men as I read a French comedy–that I should be obliged to deny myself the generous claret my doctor thinks essential to my system, and that repose and change of scene he deems of more consequence to me than mere physic?”

I do not–I will not–I cannot, believe it. No class of persons could be less spared than pilots. Without their watchful skill the rich argosy that has entered the chops of the Channel would never anchor in the Pool. And are there no sand-banks, no sunk rocks, no hidden reefs, no insidious shoals, in humanity? Are there no treacherous lee-shores, no dangerous currents, no breakers? It is amidst these and such as these I purpose to guide my fellow-men, not pretending for a moment to the possession of any heaven-born instinct, or any inspired insight into Nature. No; I have toiled and laboured in the cause. The experience that I mean to offer for sale I have myself bought, occasionally far more dearly than I intend to dispose of it. Haud ignarus mali; I am willing to tell where I have been shipwrecked, and who stole my clothes. “Don’t tell me of your successes,” said a great physician to his colleague, “tell me of your blunders; tell me of the people you’ve killed.” I am ready to do this, figuratively of course, for they were all ladies; and more, I will make no attempt to screen myself from the ridicule that may attach to an absurd situation, nor conceal those experiences which may subject me to laughter.

You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my qualifications; but what can I do? It is only when I have opened my pack and displayed my wares that you may feel tempted to buy. I am driven, then, to tell you that I know everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two or three in America; that I have been everywhere–eaten of everything–seen everything. There’s not a railway guard from Norway to Naples doesn’t grin a recognition to me; not a waiter from the Trois Freres to the Wilde Mann doesn’t trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers speak up when I stroll into the Chamber, and prima donnas soar above the orchestra, and warble in ecstasy as I enter the pit.