The picture concludes with the bulky figure of the Tax-Payer looming in the background; he is pointed out with the laconic comment:[1]
"Will you not own that the working of the system for scaring
him and bleeding him is very ingenious? But whether the ingenuity
comes of native sagacity, as it is averred by some, or
whether it shows an instinct laboring to supply the deficiencies
of stupidity, according to others, I cannot express an opinion."
The satiric parentheses in The Egoist are naturally concerned
not with politics but with individual men and
women, chiefly in their relationships to one another. A
few instances will serve.
Referring to the selfish folly of the masculine demand for feminine delicacy rather than strength, Meredith says of women:[2]
"Are they not of a nature warriors, like men?—men's mates
to bear them heroes instead of puppets? But the devouring
male Egoist prefers them as inanimate overwrought polished
pure-metal precious vessels, fresh from the hands of the artificer,
for him to walk away with hugging, call all his own, drink of,
and fill and drink of, and forget that he stole them."
Again, apropos of that "adoring female's worship,"
destined only for the strong, "who maintain the crown
- ↑ Beauchamp's Career, 6.
- ↑ The Egoist, 132. Later he indicates the corollary of this,— "But not many men are trained to courage; young women are trained to cowardice. For them to front an evil with plain speaking is to be guilty of effrontery and forfeit the waxen polish of purity, and therewith their commanding place in the market." Ibid., 296. Cf. Evan Harrington, 208, for the muddled state of a young woman's mind, only to be penetrated by "that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by following her actions, for she can tell you nothing, and if she does not want to know a particular matter, it must be a strong beam from the central system of facts that shall penetrate her."
