PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 101.

December 12, 1891.

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

NO. VIII.—TO LAZINESS.

BEST (AND BEST-ABUSED) OF ABSTRACTIONS,

My heart positively warms to you as I write. At this precise moment I can think of a hundred different things that I ought to be doing. For instance, I have not written to TOM, who is in the wilds of Canada, for months. His last letter ended with a pathetic appeal for an answer.

"Never mind, old chap," he said, "about not having any news. Little details that you may think too insignificant to relate are bound to interest me in this deserted spot. I am sure you occasionally meet I some of our friends of the old days. Tell them I often think of them and all the fun we used to have together. It all seems like a dream to me now. Let me know what any of them are doing. I heard six months ago from a fellow who was touring out here that JACK BUMPUS was married. If it is really our old JACK, congratulate him, and give him my love. I don't know his present address. But, whatever you do, write. A letter from you is like water in the desert."

When I read that letter I became full of the noblest resolutions. Not another day should pass, I vowed, before I answered it. So I prepared a great many sheets of thin note-paper, carefully selected a clean nib and sat down at my writing-table to begin. As I did so my eyes fell upon Martin Chuzzlewit, which was lying within easy reach. The book seemed positively to command me to read it for the tenth time. I took it up, and in another moment Mrs. Gamp had taken possession of me. My writing-chair was uncomfortable. I transferred myself into an arm-chair. Is it necessary to add that I did not write to TOM? His letter is getting frayed and soiled from being constantly in my pocket. Day after day it accompanies me on my daily round, unanswered and seemingly unanswerable. For I feel it to be a duty to write, and my mind abhors a duty. The letter weighs upon my conscience like lead. A few strokes of the pen would remove the burden, but I simply cannot screw myself up to the task. That is one of the things I ought to do.

Again, ought I not to call on the WHITTLESEAS? Mr. and Mrs. WHITTLESEA have simply overflowed with kindness towards me. I never enjoyed anything more than the week I spent at their house in Kent a short time ago. They are now in town, and, what is more, they know that I am in town too. Of course I ought to call. It's my plain duty, and that is, as far as I can tell, the only reason which absolutely prevents me from calling upon that hospitable family. Why need I go through the long list of my pressing duties? I ought to write my article on "Modern Theosophy: A Psychological Parallel," for the next number of The Brain. I ought to visit my dentist; I ought to have my hair cut. But I shall do none of these things. On the other hand, it is absolutely unnecessary that I should write to you. No evil would befall me if I waited another year, or even omitted altogether to write to you. And that is the precise reason why I am now addressing you. As a matter of fact, I like you. As I have already said, the performance of strict duties is irksome to me. It is you, my dear LAZINESS, who forbid me to perform them, and thus save me from many an uncongenial task. That is why I like you.

And, after all, the common abuse of you is absurd. I have heard grave and industrious persons declare emphatically that any one who allows himself to fall under your sway debars himself utterly from every chance of success. Fiddlesticks! I snap my fingers at such folly. What do these gentlemen say to the case of FIGTREE, the great Q.C.? Everybody knows that FIGTREE is, without exception, the most indolent man in the world. Let any doubter walk down Middle Temple Lane and ask the first young barrister he meets what he thinks of FIGTREE. I am ready to wager my annual income that the reply will be, "What, Old FIGTREE! Why, he's the laziest man at the Bar. I thought everybody knew that." I may be told, of course, that FIGTREE appears in all the big cases—that his management of them is extraordinarily successful; that the Judges defer to him; that his speech in the Camberwell poisoning case lasted a day and a half, and is acknowledged to be a masterpiece of forensic eloquence, fit to rank with the best efforts of ERSKINE; that his fees always exceed ten thousand pounds a year and that his book on Fines and Recoveries is a monument of industry. All this I shall hear from some member of the outside public, who does not know his FIGTREE. But the fact remains. FIGTREE is the most indolent being alive. I doubt if he can be induced to read a brief before he goes into Court. Many are the tales told by those who have been his juniors of the marvellous skill and address with which FIGTREE has time after time extricated himself from awkward situations into which he had been led by his ignorance of the details of the case in which he happened to be engaged. In the sensational libel case of Bagwell v. Muter, FIGTREE, as you must remember, appeared for the defendant. When the plaintiff's Junior Counsel had opened the pleadings, FIGTREE actually got up, and, had not his own Junior pulled him down, he would then and there have opened the case for the plaintiff. Yet FIGTREE's cross-examination of that same plaintiff, travelling as it did over a long period of time, and dealing with a most complicated story, in which dates were of the first importance, is still cited by those who heard it as the most remarkable display of its kind which the English Courts have afforded for years past. Whether the unfortunate BAGWELL, whom it showed conclusively to be a swindler and an impostor, has an equal admiration for it, I know not, nor is he, I fancy, likely to tell us, even when he returns from the prison which is now the scene of his labours. How FIGTREE, who at the outset did not even know on which side he appeared, managed in the time at his command to master this intricate case, must ever remain a mystery. HARRY ADDLESTONE, his Junior, is accustomed to talk darkly of a marvellous chronological analysis of the case which he had prepared for his leader, and evidently wishes me to believe that he, rather than FIGTREE, is to be credited with the success achieved. But the Solicitors have not yet withdrawn their confidence from FIGTREE to transfer it to ADDLESTONE.

Here, then, is an instance of a perfectly indolent man rising higher and higher every year on the ladder of professional advancement. I can only attribute it, my dear LAZINESS, to your beneficent influence, which preserves the great barrister from the weary labours to which his rivals daily submit. They say of him that he knows nothing of law. If I grant that, it merely proves that a knowledge of law is not required for success in the profession of the law. The deduction is dangerous, but obvious, and I recommend it warmly to all who are about to be called to the Bar.

I don't think I have anything more to say to you to-day; indeed, I know that you would be the last to desire that the writing of this letter should he in any way irksome to me. Besides, it is five o'clock P.M. My arm-chair invites me. I feel tired, and, that being so, I am convinced it would he an act of pedantic folly to deny myself the sweet refreshment of half-an-hour's sleep. Farewell, kindly one. I shall always rejoice to honour you, and celebrate your praise.

Yours, with all goodwill,
DIOGENES ROBINSON.

P.S.—I reopen this letter to say that I have just read in an evening paper a terrible