The Portland daily press., 1879-06-11
MAY Fair.l
Old SllenuS.

Old SilenuS still lives, and may be found in
too many places. There are chalk-stones in his
fingers, and under his horribly bright eyes the
yellow flesh lies in folds; and his grisly mus
tache overhangs full, pale lip, which, droop-
ing down, reveals set of well-separated fangs;
so that Silenus's habitual expression.has some
thing in it of the grin of a skull. Is he a
lord? Sometimes; and sometimes he is less
than lord; but always foul old man, who
gets into corners and tells stories with a reek-
Ing voice, and often breaks into a rending
cough over his slow and agitated laughter
There is nothing in life more shameful than
Silenus What is his age? The raven hair
and wine dye in his cheeks and nose, and the
tight frock-coat and shining lacquered boots,
and clean yellow gloves, with amplitude of
shirt cuff and spotlessness of shirt collar, and
an odor of perfume give the lie to your senses.
He is fifty or seventy. But that mask of flesh
and hair behind which the foul satyr squats
tells its own unquestionable story of years of
depravity, cunning and meanness. 1t is vile
old man, and its progress out of the historic
past, when it wore coat-collar as high as the
bald spot on its head, and when its legs defined
their proportions upon tights rigidly set with
boot-straps, is as clearly shown by the soiling
wickedness of it as the march of q slug is ex-
pressed by its slime.
Every honest and dishonest woman knows
Silenus at glance, as he goes quivering down
the pavement, choosing the side of the sun
shine, his hat barely cooked, and his hair
slightly blue, and the vile smirk upon his pale,
thick lip, and the Deaths. grin in his teeth.
And for every honest and dishonest woman
he has the same CHASTITY leer He has faith in
his power of attraction, and thinks himself
aOpuuaripC harO a m iudUa Nv tho We
he goes lurking and lurching and hobbling af-
ter the girl walking in front of him, until he
gets abreast of her and looks sideways down
into her face with his horrible grin and his
twirl of the thick gold-head cane which need
not support him for the moment, No young
man burst ape his effrontery. The privilege of
old age helps the fascination of his beauty.
This double-barrelled quality gives him q
plentiful impudence. He totters in his stays
and delivers his salutation; andhe will scarcely
perceive that he hasspent his miserable strength
| in chasing dishonest woman until his accost
| is answered by the glance of pair of eyes
| which would be as devilish as his if they were
| not younger.
but he can be tolerably discreet at these pinches
| and nothing regularly shows him vile but his
| face. You see him at the doorway watching the
| progress of the girls as they sweep past him in
| the waltz; or taking down some lady to supper
| with his eyes fixed as Hogarth fixed the eyes
| of the pew-opener in the christening scene. All
| that is visible Silenus will look at, and he
misses nothing worth seeing, according to his
| theory of observation And assuredly no sim
| gle glance of his-old as his wicked eyes are
| but makes the blood boil of the husband, lover
| or brother who follows it. Very often he
| pauses in his survey to admire himself in the
| nearest looking-glass; the leer then gets sharp
| er; the grin in the teeth more slxull-like; he
has leisure to touch his shirt collar, to pass
| tremulous finger over his back hair. Then he
| falls to staring again and holds to this enjoy
ment until he collects few young men around
him, when in a low voice and with quick
| glancing eyes, and amid smothered coughing
laughter, he tells them stories.
| OF this evil old man no picture can be drawn
| but must fall short as o representation of his
| wickedness. You sometimes find yourself
wondering about him. What sort of woman
was his mother? used she to kneel down by his
cradle and pray for him? did he break her
heart? or was she dead when he girded up his
loins and started on his race with the devil?
When you look at him in the smoking room OF
the club, sucking his mustache after drink
from his glass; glancing his horribly bright
eyes around him in search of an ear to drop his
greasy and wicked old memories into; chuck
ling to himself with the sound of death rattle.
over some odious incident of his afternoon
walk fumbling slowly in his pocket for his
cigar-case, while his lips inarticulately form
the words which are to embody the incident of
that afternoon walk to the first who comes to
his side, you ask yourself-Is it possible that
yonder grisly purple animal, that forked figure
of vice and meanness and shame, has an i'm
mortal soul? that it still possesses the faculty
of distinguishing between what is pure and
what is foul, having no relish but for the foul,
and affecting the pure in hope only that by
contagion it may render it foul? How is il
that the Thing stands upright? Why is it not
on all-fours like its betters? But it can smoke
and drink; it can tell stories; it has had its ev
triumphs its memory is stored with foul con
quests; there is an audience that finds it kind
of entertainment, as Yahoo might be in a
cage, through the bars of which he could no
throw his missiles. Therefore, Silenus is held
to be man. in spite of himself; and when ht
is lord, Snob has been seen to fall down ant
worship him.