like black needles, and graceful fools incumbent upon canes. A strange
cult! I once knew a lady whose father was actually present at the
first night of `The Forty Thieves,' and fell enamoured of one of the
coryphe'es. By such links is one age joined to another.

There is always something rather absurd about the past. For us, who
have fared on, the silhouette of Error is sharp upon the past horizon.
As we look back upon any period, its fashions seem grotesque, its
ideals shallow, for we know how soon those ideals and those fashions
were to perish, and how rightly; nor can we feel a little of the
fervour they did inspire. It is easy to laugh at these Mashers, with
their fantastic raiment and languid lives, or at the strife of the
Professional Beauties. It is easy to laugh at all that ensued when
first the mummers and the stainers of canvas strayed into Mayfair. Yet
shall I laugh? For me the most romantic moment of a pantomime is
always when the winged and wired fairies begin to fade away, and, as
they fade, clown and pantaloon tumble on joppling and grimacing, seen
very faintly in that indecisive twilight. The social condition of 1880
fascinates me in the same way. Its contrasts fascinate me.

Perhaps, in my study of the period, I may have fallen so deeply
beneath its spell that I have tended, now and again, to overrate its
real import. I lay no claim to the true historical spirit. I fancy it
was a chalk drawing of a girl in a mob-cap, signed `Frank Miles,
1880,' that first impelled me to research. To give an accurate and
exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen
than mine. But I hope that, by dealing, even so briefly as I have
dealt, with its more strictly sentimental aspects, I may have
lightened the task of the scientific historian. And I look to
Professor Gardiner and to the Bishop of Oxford.