The Journal of a Disappointed Man

His system of prophylaxis may be quickly summarised,-- (1) Hot whisky ad lib. and off to bed. (2) A woman. These two sterling preventives he has often urged upon me at the same time tipping out a quantity of anathemas on doctors and physic.... He is a cynic. He scoffs at the medical profession, the Law, the Church, the Press. Every man is guilty until he is proved innocent. The Premier is an unscrupulous character, the Bishop a salacious humbug. No doctor will cure, for it pays him to keep you ill. Every clergyman puts the Sunday-school teacher in the family way. His mouth is permanently distorted by cynicism. He is vain and believes all women are in love with him. When playing the Gallant, he turns on a special voice, wears white spats, and looks like a Newmarket "Crook." "I lost my 'bus," a girl says to him. "Lost your bust," he answers, in broad Scotch. "I can't see that you've done that." ... His sexual career has been a remarkable one, he claiming to have brought many women to bed, and actually to have lain with women of almost all European nationalities, for he has been a great traveller.... This man is my devoted friend!... And truth to tell I get on with him better than I do with most people. I like his gamey flavour, his utter absence of self-consciousness, and his doggy loyalty to myself--his weaker brother. He may be depraved in his habits, coarse in his language, boorish in his manners, ludicrous in the wrongness of all his views. But I like him just because he is so hopeless. I get on with him because it is so impossible to reclaim him--my missionary spirit is not intrigued. If he only dabbled in vice (for an experiment), if he had pale, watery ideas about current literature--if--to use his own favourite epithet--he were genteel, I should quarrel.