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[Illustration: JANUARY 14, 1892.]
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CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.
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.
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