SIR OR MADAM ?
The mystery of our identity has given rise to a fever of speculation. Several readers, of both sexes, have written offering us marriage. We have been accused (justly) of exaggeration, distortion, lack of sensibility, bad grammar, and having a bee (long since liberated, we are thankful to say) in our bonnet : with less justice, of plagiarism, mauraise honk, antidenominationalism, whimsicality and putting the cart before the horse. It is indeed tempting, at this juncture, to unmask—to reveal our identity. Our vast public is agog with curiosity. Are we, as one correspondent seems to imagine, an old woman ? Are we, as another confidently alleges, a Young Puppy—gifted, no doubt, with a more than canine sagacity, but still, in his opinion, a puppy, and young ? Are we (rather unaccountably, no one has actually put forward this solution) Mr. John Galsworthy ? Are there, perhaps, a whole lot of us—a gaggle, wisp, or should it be a bore ? of Moths ? A problem which appears to exercise the minds of many of our readers even more than our true identity is our supposed identity. " Who," we have been asked more than once, " do you think you are ? " This is not an easy question to answer for we are always changing our mind. Sometimes we think we are one person, sometimes another. Usually we are wrong. It is very difficult.
At any rate, we shall be no further from the truth, and a great deal nearer to discretion than we usually are in this column, if we sign ourselves, for the last time for several * "Perhaps" is right.—ED. Spectator.
Previous page
