“Have you seen Mr. Softly, the new Secretary?  A most distinguished person, and quite an acquisition to the neighborhood.”  Such was the popular opinion of me among the young ladies and the liberal inhabitants.  “Have you seen Mr. Softly, the new Secretary?  A worldly, vainglorious young man.  The last person in England to promote the interests of our new Institution.”  Such was the counter-estimate of me among the Puritan population.  I report both opinions quite disinterestedly.  There is generally something to be said on either side of every question; and, as for me, I can always hold up the scales impartially, even when my own character is the substance weighing in them.  Readers of ancient history need not be reminded, at this time of day, that there may be Roman virtue even in a Rogue.

The objects, interests, and general business of the Duskydale Institution were matters with which I never thought of troubling myself on assuming the duties of Secretary.  All my energies were given to the arrangements connected with the opening ball.

I was elected by acclamation to the office of general manager of the entertainments; and I did my best to deserve the confidence reposed in me; leaving literature and science, so far as I was concerned, perfectly at liberty to advance themselves or not, just as they liked.  Whatever my colleagues may have done, after I left them, nobody at Duskydale can accuse me of having ever been accessory to the disturbing of quiet people with useful knowledge.  I took the arduous and universally neglected duty of teaching the English people how to be amused entirely on my own shoulders, and left the easy and customary business of making them miserable to others.

My unhappy countrymen! (and thrice unhappy they of the poorer sort)—­any man can preach to them, lecture to them, and form them into classes—­but where is the man who can get them to amuse themselves?  Anybody may cram their poor heads; but who will brighten their grave faces?  Don’t read story-books, don’t go to plays, don’t dance!  Finish your long day’s work and then intoxicate your minds with solid history, revel in the too-attractive luxury of the lecture-room, sink under the soft temptation of classes for mutual instruction!  How many potent, grave and reverent tongues discourse to the popular ear in these siren strains, and how obediently and resignedly this same weary popular ear listens!  What if a bold man spring up one day, crying aloud in our social wilderness, “Play, for Heaven’s sake, or you will work yourselves into a nation of automatons!  Shake a loose leg to a lively fiddle!  Women of England! drag the lecturer off the rostrum, and the male mutual instructor out of the class, and ease their poor addled heads of evenings by making them dance and sing with you.  Accept no offer from any man who cannot be proved, for a year past, to have systematically lost his dignity at least three times a week, after office hours.  You, daughters of Eve, who have that wholesome love of pleasure which is one of the greatest adornments of the female character, set up a society for the promotion of universal amusement, and save the British nation from the lamentable social consequences of its own gravity!” Imagine a voice crying lustily after this fashion—­what sort of echoes would it find?—­Groans?