“The real old Tories are the paupers in the Workhouse.  The radical working men are jealous of their own leaders, and the leaders are jealous of one another.  Schopenhauer must have organised a Labour Party in his salad days.  And yet one can’t help feeling that he committed suicide as a philosopher by not committing it as a man.  He claims kinship with Buddha, too; though Esoteric Buddhism at least seems spheres removed from the philosophy of ‘the Will and the Idea.’  What a wonderful woman Madame Blavatsky must be!  I can’t say I follow her, for she is up in the clouds nearly all the time, and I haven’t as yet developed an astral body.  Shall I send you on her book?  It is fascinating....  I am becoming quite a fluent orator.  One soon gets into the way of it.  The horrible thing is that you catch yourself saying things to lead up to ‘Cheers’ instead of sticking to the plain realities of the business.  Lucy is still doing the galleries in Italy.  It used to pain me sometimes to think of my darling’s happiness when I came across a flat-chested factory-girl.  Now I feel her happiness is as important as a factory-girl’s.”

Lucy, the witness explained, was Lucy Brent, the betrothed of the deceased.  The poor girl had been telegraphed for, and had started for England.  The witness stated that the outburst of despondency in this letter was almost a solitary one, most of the letters in his possession being bright, buoyant, and hopeful.  Even this letter ended with a humorous statement of the writer’s manifold plans and projects for the New Year.  The deceased was a good Churchman.

CORONER:  Was there any private trouble in his own life to account for the temporary despondency?

WITNESS:  Not so far as I am aware.  His financial position was exceptionally favourable.

CORONER:  There had been no quarrel with Miss Brent?

WITNESS:  I have the best authority for saying that no shadow of difference had ever come between them.

CORONER:  Was the deceased left-handed?

WITNESS:  Certainly not.  He was not even ambidexter.

A JURYMAN:  Isn’t Shoppinhour one of the infidel writers, published by the
Freethought Publication Society?

WITNESS:  I do not know who publishes his books.

The JURYMAN (a small grocer and big raw-boned Scotchman, rejoicing in the name of Sandy Sanderson and the dignities of deaconry and membership of the committee of the Bow Conservative Association):  No equeevocation, sir.  Is he not a secularist, who has lectured at the Hall of Science?

WITNESS:  No, he is a foreign writer—­(Mr. Sanderson was heard to thank heaven for this small mercy)—­who believes that life is not worth living.

The JURYMAN:  Were you not shocked to find the friend of a meenister reading such impure leeterature?

WITNESS:  The deceased read everything.  Schopenhauer is the author of a system of philosophy, and not what you seem to imagine.  Perhaps you would like to inspect the book? (Laughter.)