If I were Willie I should disguise the
mechanism with some artistic drapery, bait the thing with a couple
of exceptionally inviting cushions, and employ it to inculcate
modesty and diffidence. I defy any human being to get out of that
chair, feeling as important as when he got into it. What the dear
boy has done has been to construct an automatic exponent of the
transitory nature of human greatness. As a moral agency that chair
should prove a blessing in disguise."
My hostess smiled feebly; more, I fear, from politeness than genuine
enjoyment.
"I think you are too severe," she said. "When you remember that the
boy has never tried his hand at anything of the kind before, that he
has no knowledge and no experience, it really is not so bad."
Considering the matter from that point of view I was bound to
concur. I did not like to suggest to her that before entering upon
a difficult task it would be better for young men to ACQUIRE
knowledge and experience: that is so unpopular a theory.
But the thing that The Amateur put in the front and foremost of its
propaganda was the manufacture of household furniture out of
egg-boxes. Why egg-boxes I have never been able to understand, but
egg-boxes, according to the prescription of The Amateur, formed the
foundation of household existence.
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