But all
at once my vision seemed to pierce the shaded pane that intervened
between me and the great, rushing, riotous world, and such a conception
of all that lay the other side the ground glass window overflowed my
soul, that I felt rebuked as by an audible voice.
XXVIII.
THE MAN WHO KNOWS IT ALL.
There is a type of humanity we all encounter from day to day, at whose
funeral I shall carry a banner and beat a tom-tom. He is the man who
knows it all. In his grave, human forethought, and general knowledge,
and mortal perfection and everything worth knowing, shall one day lie
down and die. He never makes mistakes, nor loses his temper, nor gets
the worst of an argument, nor is worsted in a bargain. He never acts
on impulse, nor jumps without looking, nor commits himself rashly, nor
loses the wind out of his sails. He is so overwhelmingly superior
(sometimes he is a woman!) that in his presence you are a child of
wrath, a hopeless imbecile, and a black sheep all in one, and yet--how
you hate him and how you long to see some brave young David come along
and hit him with a sling shot! Such a man as he, is fitted to bring
the average human to the dust as quickly and as surely as a well aimed
bullet brings down a wild duck.
XXIX.
BALD HEADS AND UNEQUAL CHANCES.
What a superior chance a man has in this world over a woman! In the
matter of physical attributes alone his innings are as far ahead of
hers as the man who carries the banner in a Fourth of July procession
is ahead of the little boy who tugs along behind with the lemonade
pail.
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