VulTIPIIIG ON THE PEEL.
" IT'S safe enough as long as you keep on the peel." Thus _L speaks one of Mr. Anatey's latest creations—a wasp drowning in a pot of marmalade. How delicately all lovers of sweet things would walk could they but realize the sad plight of the moribund preacher! Sticky stepping-stones protrude everywhere out of the luscious jam of pleasure! One false step and we are in the syrup! We suppose the wasp intended hie words to apply first to the pleasures of the table. In this matter we have a great deal of advice to help us to keep our balance. The whole faculty stand outside the marmalade- pot, and some of them even come in and shout directions to us. "Mind where you go l" they all cry together. "Don't go this way ! Don't go that way 1" they call separately, and careful wasps get so confused that they cannot even enjoy the peel on which they are standing. In despair they follow the doctor instead of his advice, and soinetimea he leads into the jam. But let us leave the table and think, for instance, of a racecourse. Racecourses are covered with what a wasp might call peel. Wasps may walk there in peace and pleasure from the grub to the grave, so to speak, in the glorious hope of making money. Many persons get an much pleasure out of the thought of possible riches to-morrow as others do out of positive riches to-day. The delightful
expectation is sometimes dearly bought, yet it has a money value. Now and then cautious walkers are privileged to see some humble insect fall in as a warning. A bookmaker struggling in the syrup is an instructive sight for pleasure- seekers hovering round the sugary pit.
The way of inordinate buying is lees slippery than the way of betting, but to the real lover of expending it is no less delightful. Here the great majority do manage to keep their footing. They bay what they do not require, but they keep well within their income. They force themselves to face lean months. When perched on a little bit of desiccated peel, they subsist on the outskirts of the pleasant world. They are, however, always conscious of the disastrous depths beneath. and they are attracted towards them. They long to Mate the ultimate sweetness of shopping, the thrill which comes when, throwing prudence to the winds, men buy and do not ask the price, or, drunk with the pleasures of purchase, refuse to admit that there are only twenty shillings in a pound. Those who allow themselves to dwell in imagination upon these sensations are never quite secure upon the peel. Look away from the best shop windows, oh wasps of the world! Think of the joys of contrivance, the exquisite artifice of economy, the endless satisfaction to be got out of saving up. That is the way to keep on the peel, for those at any rate who have a light purse, and though the peel may have at times a bitter taste, there ie for winged insects no safety in syrup.
Young people find it more difficult than their elders to accept the advice of the preacher. They are more active and brisker than the old, but also they have a sweeter tooth, and them can be no doubt that the peel is not the beat part of the marmalade. One of the earliest of pleasures is the pleasure of romancing. To dream oneself a hero and talk to other children of the dream, to get away from dull facts and live in a world such as one would have it, is part of the sweetness of childhood. At that age false steps matter little. Some grown-up person is always ready to rescue the very young and wipe their wings. Unfortunately, if their elders slip off the peel the case is hopeless. They become abenrd creatures floundering in delicious nonsense, alternately conscious of humiliation and delight.
After the days of legitimate romancing come the days of legitimate flirtation. Young people ought to flirt; there is heaps of peel to stand on. It is true it takes some skill to avoid disaster. Casualties may occur. A miserable marriage, for instance, is a not uncommon consequence of a moment's loss of equilibrium. But it is the balancing which makes the beauty of the thing. A little dancing on the peel before areal love affair makes them take to their wings is good practice. If they have been kept quite away from the marmalade they may suddenly swoop down into the depths of the pot, where wings are soon useless. It is the natural love of romancing and flirting which makes girle and boys so fond of acting. Here, so far as girls are concerned, private theatricals may be likened to the " peeL" Here the sweetness of mingled poetry and publicity may be tasted without much danger. Doubtless a few born actresses will swim even in the jam; but most of those who slip into it find nothing but the cloying artificiality, the desperate struggle to live, and the anomalous position of an actress without talent.
It is after youth is past that the sweets of gossip appeal most profoundly to the pleasure-seekers—and in some sense that is to all of us, to the whole hive, as it were. Those who have already acted their part literally revel in the social drama, and only men and women who are really ill-natured or abnormally silly find it difficult to keep on the peel The fools and the spiteful do slip off from time to time The story does not move fast enough for them, and they intermeddle and throw in a few falsehoods to brighten up the action, or they cannot resist a sudden temptation to injure an actor. It is sweet to them to find themselves influential, to see somebody squirm, and the general pace quicken. They want to play with life as children play with toys. They would rather destroy the game than only look on at it. A moment's delicious importance when they suck the sweets of power, and their lives as gossips are ended. No one tells them anything. To get away from the marmalade metaphor for a moment, we may say that the playhouse-door is shut to them. Every society knows bow to protect itself, and once roused it is absolutely ruthless. But a great deal of delicious entertainment may be extracted from a perfectly
safe vantage-ground. There is a sense in which every matt wishes to be of interest to his neighbours. That ie one great reason why titles are liked. People do not resent being gossiped about. Gossip, again, satisfies the social ambition of those who have no chance of fulfilling it. The delights of Court life are open to all gossips of imagination. Early news, intrigues, a few scandals, many stories of heroism, and an unending succession of humorous incidents are brought to their ears if they will but hold their tongues. One of the few dangers which beset the good-humoured gossip is the danger of over-indulgence in satire. A talent for satire gives delight to its owner, and for a time also to his audience. Laughter is sweet to us all. It is immensely valuable, and gratitude is always paid to him who creates it. The man whose satire creates laughter is still "on the peel." Only when his tongue becomes a sword does he turn his bearers amusement to pity and fear. It is delicious to him to exercise his talent to the utmost. Even when he finds his audience has run away and he is alone his own cleverness is still sweet to him. He has still &pleasure in stinging, though there is no one near to be stung, and he can pursue no one. He ie disabled by his own sweet poison. By now our readers are beginning to think that the pleasures of moralization have their danger, and, seriously, it is one of the most dangerous pleasures in the world. Very few of those who make a habit of it keep out of the unctuous syrup in which all the fruit of moral reflection is apt to swim. Even those who never quite drown, but live to fly away, may have sticky wings for life. Humour alone will get the sugar off, and moralists are, as a rule, ill supplied with humour.
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