THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE
A FAIRY TALE FOR TIRED MEN
BY MAX BEERBOHM
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD.
| Published Sq. 16mo | April 1897 |
| Reprinted | December 1897 |
| Reprinted | February 1904 |
| Reprinted | May 1908 |
| Reprinted | May 1913 |
| Cr. 4to Illus. Edition | October 1918 |
| Cr. 8vo Edition | December 1919 |
| Reprinted | February 1922 |
| Reprinted | August 1924 |
| Reprinted | July 1928 |
Made and Printed in Great Britain
by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh
CONTENTS
The Happy Hypocrite
I
None, it is said, of all who revelled with the Regent, was half sowicked as Lord George Hell. I will not trouble my little readers with along recital of his great naughtiness. But it were well they should knowthat he was greedy, destructive, and disobedient. I am afraid there isno doubt that he often sat up at Carlton House until long after bedtime,playing at games, and that he generally ate and drank far more than wasgood for him. His fondness for fine clothes was such that he used todress on week-days quite as gorgeously as good people dress on Sundays.He was thirty-five years old and a great grief to his parents.
And the worst of it was that he set such a bad example to others. Never,never did he try to conceal his wrong-doing; so that, in time, everyone knew how horrid he was. In fact, I think he was proud of beinghorrid. Captain Tarleton, in his account of Contemporary Bucks,suggested that his Lordship's great Candour was a virtue and shouldincline us to forgive some of his abominable faults. But, painful as itis to me to dissent from any opinion expressed by one who is now dead, Ihold that Candour is good only when it reveals good actions or goodsentiments, and that when it reveals evil, itself is evil, even also.
Lord George Hell did, at last, atone for all his faults, in a way thatwas never revealed to the world during his life-time. The reason of hisstrange and sudden disappearance from that social sphere in which he hadso long moved, and never moved again, I will unfold. My little readerswill then, I think, acknowledge that any angry judgment they may havepassed upon him must be reconsidered and, maybe, withdrawn. I will leavehis Lordship in their hands. But my plea for him will not be based uponth