In real life it is much the same.  Every fat man knows that only by unusual patience, good nature, and friendly tolerance can he live with his fellows.  He is the butt of all jokes; he must smile at a constant patter of pleasantries about his unusual size.  He hears the same old stupid japes over and over and over again.  If he weren’t the prince of good fellows and the best-natured man in the world, it would fare ill for those who torment him.

As a matter of fact, it may be better for the rest of us than for the fat man that he is good natured, easy going, genial, fond of a good laugh; because fat men rule the world.  Perhaps that is why it is so funny to us to see them in trouble.  It is one of the foibles of humanity always to find pleasure in the mishaps of its rulers and superiors.  The pranks of the schoolboy are intended to cause perplexity and distress to his teacher.  This is true of the college youth in his playfulness.  The same human trait manifests itself in a thousand other ways.

The fat man was born to rule.  He enjoys the good things of life.  He is fond of luxuries.  He has a keenly developed sense of taste, and a nice discrimination of flavor.  He likes to wear good clothing.  He likes soft, upholstered chairs, comfortable beds, a goodly shelter.  Like old King Cole (always pictured in our nursery books with a Garguntian girth), he enjoys “his pipe and his bowl and his fiddlers three.”  He is fond of a good joke, and laughs more heartily than any one else at it.  In fact, enjoyment and pleasure may be said to be the keynote of the typical fat man’s personality.  But he is too heavy for physical activity.  His feet are too small for the weight of his body.  He does not care for strenuous physical exercise.  It is not his idea of a good time to follow a golf ball all over a twenty-acre field.  He does it only because he thus hopes to reduce his flesh and enable himself to become once more the romantic figure he was in his youth.  For, while the fat man may be a master of comedy, and while he may be a ruler of the people, he is not romantic.  The big fellows do not well sustain romantic roles, except in grand opera, where nearly everything but the music is illusion and elusive.  Our novelists all tell us that as soon as a man’s girth begins to increase, he looks ridiculous in a fine frenzy.  J.M.  Barrie makes a very keen point of this in his story of Tommy and Grizel.  It was the increasing size of his waist band that drove poor Tommy to such extreme measures as to cause his final downfall and death.  His one great aim in life was to be romantic, and when the lady of his desires giggled about his increasing size it was too much.

Scientific research, philosophy, and the more strenuous and concentrated forms of mental activity seem to require a certain degree of asceticism in order to be wholly efficient.  We are told that the person who feeds too well causes his mind to grow rather ponderous in its movements.  He is inclined to fall asleep if he remains quiet and practices severe mental concentration for too long a time.