"FLABBY AND INSIPID GENIALITY."
ITO THE EDITOR or THE " STECTATOR.'l SIR,—The Prime Minister certainly hit the nail on the head in his warning at the recent meeting in the Queen's Hall lest those who contemplate what is called "social service" spoil it by that kind of manner which he stigmatized as " the worst of all things." Mr. Asquith wisely assumed that it might be found not only in one particular class ; and that an insincere and pretentious patronage in one set of people might have its
counterpart in a weak servility among another set. It may interest some readers of the Spectator to note that the kind of manner which Mr. Asquith deprecated seems to have been detected by that shrewd observer, George Herbert, though he gave it another name. He wrote :— " Doe all things like a man; not sneakingly :
Think the King sees thee still, for his King does. Simpering is but a lay-hypocrisie;
Give it a corner, and the clue undoes."
The word " simpering" seems pretty nearly to describe that "flabby and insipid geniality" which, whether in layman or cleric, "is the worst of all things," because it is but a hollow counterfeit of one of the best.—I am, Sir, &c.,
W. H. DRAPER.
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