Pansies (Lawrence)/How Beastly the Bourgeois is—

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HOW BEASTLY THE BOURGEOIS IS———
How beastly the bourgeois isespecially the male of the species—
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Presentable, eminently presentable—shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?doesn't he look the fresh clean englishman, outside?Isn't it god's own image? tramping his thirty miles a dayafter partridges, or a little rubber bail?wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the thing?
Oh, but wait!Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another man's need,let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life face him with a new demand on his understandingand then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new demand on his intelligence,a new life-demand.
How beastly the bourgeois isspecially the male of the species—
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Nicely groomed, like a mushroomstanding there so sleek and erect and eyeable—and like a fungus, living on the remains of bygone lifesucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life than his own.
And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone insidejust like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollowunder a smooth skin and an upright appearance.
Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelingsrather nasty—How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp Englandwhat a pity they can't all be kicked overlike sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftlyinto the soil of England.
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