BRAVE GIRL!
Millicent (from the country). "Now, Mabel! let's make a Dash!!"
(Who had made "Copy" of Me.)
The bright September when we met
My prospects were not over healthy,
Though you were, I do not forget,
Extremely wealthy.
I know not why it chanced to be,
But this I recollect most clearly—
It never once occurred to me
To love you dearly.
'Twas not your fault, so do not vex
Yourself, for I admired your beauty,
Since admiration of your sex
Is Man's Whole Duty.
And thus it came to be our lot
To part without a sign or token;
I went upon my way, but not
The least heart-broken.
My "fatal pride" does not object
At your fair hands to be made verse on;
But p'raps next time you will select—
Some other person!
Unanswerable.—The Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking at Folkestone last week, said that "The Disestablishment Bill does not need any answering: it answers itself." An' it please your Grace, if it does "answer," and answers its purpose, what more can be required of this Bill or any other?
The New Weather Proverb.—It never rains—but it snows!
Millicent (from the country). "Now, Mabel! let's make a Dash!!"
Freezing the Vertebræ.—I am in the last stage of bronchitis, complicated with pneumonia, influenza, and asthma, and a friend has advised me to try the new French cure of applying ice to the spine. Will some obliging physician tell me whether he considers such a course safe? None but a recognised specialist need trouble to reply; and if he does so, I shall have the satisfaction of feeling that I have saved his fee, as well as my own life. My boy advises me to go skating, and "I shall be sure then to have my back applied to the ice," which he says is the same thing as applying ice to my back. But is it? A nephew who is staying in the house also kindly offers to "shy hard snow-balls at my spine," if that would help me in any way. It is a pity that the newspaper (from which I derived this medical hint) was not clear as to details; for instance, when I have applied the ice, what is to prevent its melting and trickling all over me?
'Tis an ill-wind which blows nobody good,
And one man's meat another's poison is.
What is disaster to one man or mood,
Is to another mood or man "good biz."
What to your dramatist means love's labour's lost,
Your would-be skater craves—"a perfect frost!"
By the publication of The Play Actress (S. R. Crockett) Mr. Fisher Unwin fully maintains the success attained by his Autonym Library. My Baronite is least attracted by the scenes which possibly pleased the author most—those in which he describes life in the purlieus of London theatres. Mr. Crockett is much more at home in Galloway, and with the people who sparsely populate it. The opening chapter, describing Sabbath day in the Kirk of the Hill is in his best style, as are others describing the Great Preacher's tender caring for his little grand-daughter. The Play Actress is just the sort of thing to buy at a bookstall on starting for a journey. It will be felt to be a matter of regret if the journey isn't quite long enough to finish it at a sitting.
In The Worst Woman in London ("and other stories," a subtitle craftily suppressed on the outside of the book by F. C. Philips) the author gives us a number of capital detached stories of a most irritating abruptness. Almost every one of these stories is a novel thrown away; that is, every story is in itself the germ of what might have been a good novel. They are little more than "jottings for plottings." Yet, to be read with a pipe or small cigar, they just suffice to wile away time and obviate conversation. They are dedicated to Mr. Walter Herries Pollock, who has on more than one occasion shown himself an adept at real good short stories—not merely as plots, but genuinely complete in themselves and full of humour—and from whom the Baron expects something more in the same line, or, rather, on the same lines.
The Baron de B.-W.
Scene—A Crowded Thoroughfare. Enter Strephon and Phyllis on bicycles, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.
Strephon.
We care not, Phyllis, my own, to-day,
For walking in Kensington Park,
To flirt in the old conventional way,
And saunter home in the dark.
Nay, pleasanter far it is to "scorch"—
To hear your silvery bell,
While the answering squeak of my horn may speak
For the fact that I love you well!
Both.
Oh, isn't it sweet to clear the street,
While elderly persons frown!
"Now, stoopid, look out!" we pleasantly shout,
And bang goes a gentleman down!
Phyllis.
Strephon, I love you, I confess,
For who could fail to admire
The humorous way you spoil a dress
And ruin a girl's attire?
To see you silently creep along,
And then with a burst of speed
Spread liberal dirt on the feminine skirt
Is a sight for the gods, indeed!
Both.
Oh, isn't it glee to do it, and see
The lady-pedestrian flinch,
With jubilant rush to scatter the slush
And miss her foot by an inch!
Strephon.
I frightened those horses, I'm much afraid,—
The excellent coachman's riled!
Phyllis.
And I've demolished a nursery-maid,
And certainly hurt a child!
Strephon.
I made that stately dowager jump,
She leapt to one side, and puffed!
Phyllis.
That leisurely cur, I'm inclined to infer,
To-morrow will go to be stuffed!
Both.
So side by side we merrily ride,
And scatter the murmuring throng,
Who think the police should compel us to cease,
And mournfully ask, "How long?"
Just a little too much.—When a parliamentary candidate or popular Member is received with a torchlight procession, it is almost unnecessary for his constituents to present him, on a dark night, with "an illuminated address."
"I intend to protect the principle of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as did my late and never-to-be-forgotten father."—Czar's Speech, Jan. 29.
Bruxelles, le 31. Janvier.
Monsieur,—I write to you, M. Punch, these some words, which I essay to write in english. I come of to receive—how say you la nouvelle?—the new of the amnesty in France. The government which banished the descendant of the great Napoléon has recalled some exileds. But he has not recalled me, ce gouvernement infâme! He has left to languish the heir of the crown imperial in this droll of little town. Nom d'une pipe, quelle ville! Rien qu'un Palais de Justice et quelques rues désertes! But I go to write in english. I rest here, at five hours of Paris, alldays ready, alldays vigilant. Mais que c'est triste! Tiens, it is not perhaps so sad as that—how write you the name?—that Stove, in your département of the Bukkinhammshir. At least one speak french in this country. It is not the french of Paris, or the french of Touraine, but all of same it values better than english—a language so difficult. Thus I rest here, I walk myself to horse in their Wood of Cambre, I visit of time in time the Palace of Justice and Ste. Gudule, et voilà c'est fini! Then I recommence and I see, encore une fois, the Bois, the Palais, and the Cathédrale. I go not to Waterloo, for people say my Great Ancestor there was conquered by your Duc of Welintong. One has wrong, the historians have wrong, mais enfin, que faire? I may not to write the history of new. A l'avenir nous verrons. En attendant j'attends. And I stand, like my Great Ancestor, the arms folded, and frown towards the frontier of the France, la patrie ingrate. It is a fine attitude, and I study it all the days.
Stowe, the 31. January.
Sir,—I tell you my thoughts as calmly as possibly, but my heart burns! Heaven, what injustice! To France—ah, I say not her name without emotion!—to France I offered my sword, my service, my life! She refused them! Ingrateful country! Me who—but I go to be calm! When Casimir-Périer resigns I voyage without to lose an instant to Dover, I wait, I receive each instant some despatch, I regard the coast of France and weep, I am photographed! Me, the descendant of St. Louis, I am photographed! But in vain! I desire even to die for France, but I may not! By blue, what ingratitude! And now she proclaims the amnesty and I am forgotten! Me, the descendant of St. Louis! Me who desire the struggle, the efforts of a life of soldier, of a life of king, me I rest here in simple renter of province! Me who wish to die for France, I am obliged to live in England! To live, just heaven! And in England, which I despise, though she shelters me! Perhaps she is not worse than Belgium, Buckingham or Bruxelles! It is equal to me! Nor the one nor the other is France! Again I weep! Ah, if I could shed tears of blood! I can not! Heaven, that I should not have even that consolation there! And Rochefort returns! He may die for his country, for France! Once more I weep bitterly! But me I may not! I conclude, and my last word shall be a word of order! It shall be, though she spurns me, though she mock herself of me, "Live France!" Again I weep! Receive, &c. P.
Anxious Tourist. "Since your Town has been newly drained, I suppose there is less Fever here?"
Hotel-Keeper (reassuringly). "Ach, yes, Sir! Ze Teefoose (Typhus) is now quite ze exception!"
["Let all know that, in devoting all my strength to the welfare of the people, I intend to protect the principle of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as did my late and never-to-be-forgotten father."
"It was my father's custom, and so it shall be mine!"—
One seems to hear those simple words 'midst all the show and shine
Of the great, gay, white-pillared hall. The gold and silver chains
Of deputies and delegates from distant steppes and plains
Gleam in the winter daylight. The tall white-tunic'd Guards
Stand with drawn swords, Autocracy's serene and stalwart wards.
All in the Winter Palace; from regions vast and far
They come of many a race and creed to welcome their young Czar.
The nobles and the Zemstros, too, are represented here.
With tribes of the wild Caucasus, the hosts who love—and fear—
The monarch of one hundred and twenty million souls.
And through thine Hall, St. Nicholas, in full firm accents rolls
The Voice of armed Autocracy, unbending and unchanged.
Unfaltering the youthful eye that boldly roved and ranged
Over that motley muster. He lifts his sire's great sword,
This youthful heir to power supreme, by freemen much abhorred,
But dear to bowing myriads of Slavdom's loyal hosts;
And with that calm cold dignity which despotism boasts
Establishes the Ego of Autocracy once more.
Voici le sabre de mon sire! What Alexander bore
Shall Nicholas not wear and wield? The appanage of our line!
"It was my father's custom, and so it shall be mine!"
Old rustic song, your refrain long shall echo round our world,
Until all burdens from the back of toiling men are hurled.
Far, far off day! Now proud and gay Autocracy's strong thralls
Muster to-day in fine array in those white-pillared halls.
To be—not snubbed, say reassured, that Autocrats, still strong,
Still give small heed to serfs who plead, to freedom's siren song,
Or to "absurd illusions," which, slipped from mouth to mouth,
Must still be silenced in the North, if heeded in the South.
Those Zemstros voices must be hushed. Autocracy's sole hand
Must wield the sabre of his sire, and sway a silent land;
The Bear from the new Bearward gentler treatment well may hope,
But hardly loosening of the chain or slackening of the rope.
The patient Northern Bruin stands and rubs a dubious ear.
Amnesty means not Liberty. Autocracy is clear
In "firmly and unswervingly," with strength that doth not tire,
Holding the mastery of its race, the Sabre of its Sire!
"Mr. Pepys's Parish Church."—The Rev. Alfred Povah's interesting work gives us the origin of the "Navy pew" in St. Olave's. In such a church how appropriate was the old "three-decker," as this structure, which contained clerk below, parson in the middle, and preacher in the topmost compartment, used to be termed.
A Just Correction.—In Macmillan's for this month there is an interesting article entitled "In the Wake of Captain Cook." An Irish member of the club threw the number down, exclaiming, "The man who wrote that can't write English! 'Tis not 'in the wake' at all. Sure it ought to be 'at the wake.'"
Legal Clockwork.—Towards the end of last week, the key of the difficulty having been found, the Justice-Vaughan-Williams'-winding-up business was wound up, and J. V. W., being wound up, was set going again. There is, however, still some difficulty, and a little oil on the troubled works will be necessary. Mem. to the Lord Chancellor.—"Please not to touch the figures."
Q. What is the best sort of cigar to smoke in a Hansom?
A. A Cab-ana.
THE SECOND ACT.
A little narrow glen, with a slope in the background, belonging to Alfred. Under the dripping trees a table and chairs, all made of thin birchstaves. Everything is sodden with wet, and mist-wreaths are driving about. Alfred Früyseck, dressed in a black mackintosh, sits dejectedly on a chair. Presently Mopsa Brovik comes down the slope cautiously behind, and touches his shoulder; Alfred jumps.
Mopsa. You shouldn't really sit about on damp seats in such miserable weather, Alfred. I have been hunting for you everywhere.
[Closing her umbrella with quiet significance.
Alfred (to himself). Run to earth! Oh, Lor'! (Aloud.) If you would only be kind enough to search for Mopsëman instead! I cannot unravel the mystery of his disappearance. There he was, just entering upon conscious intelligence—full of the infinite possibilities of performing poodlehood. I had charged myself with his education. After having been an usher at so many boarding-schools, I felt peculiarly fitted for such a task. And then a shady scoundrel has only to come his way with rats in a bag——!
Mopsa. But we don't in the least know how it really all came about.
Alfred. That infernal Varmint-Blök is at the bottom of it, you may depend upon that! Though what motive in the world—— (Quivering.) It's not as if Mopsëman would ever have faced a rat. He used to bolt at the mere sight of a blackbeetle even. The whole thing is so utterly meaningless, Mopsa. And yet, I suppose the order of the universe requires it.
Mopsa. Have you indulged in these abstruse philosophical speculations with Spreta?
Alfred (shakes his head hopelessly). She is so utterly incapable of—— (Mopsa nods.) I prefer discussing them with you. There is something unnatural in imparting confidences to a mere wife. What on earth have you got there?
Mopsa (takes a little housewife out of her pocket). Spreta said you had lost the button off the back of your collar. I thought I would sew it on for you. May I? (With quiet warmth.) I'll try not to run the needle into you.
Alfred (absently). Do; it may distract my thoughts a little. Where is Spreta, by the way?
Mopsa. Only taking a little walk with Blochdrähn. (Sewing.) Perhaps it is hardly the weather for a stroll; but then he was always so perfectly devoted to—h'm—to Little Mopsëman, you know.
Alfred (surprised). But Spreta wasn't. She never liked him—not even as a puppy. And now tell me—don't you think you could take a fancy to Blochdrähn—h'm?
Mopsa. Oh, no! Please! (Covers her face with her hands.) You mustn't really ask me why. (Looks at him through her fingers.) Because I know I should tell you; you have such an irresistible influence over me. Oh dear! oh dear! what will you think of me? (Moves close up to him.) There's a button off your shirt-front now!
Alfred (plaintively). Am I to have that one sewn on too?
Mopsa. Yes, it's the right thing to do. Though how Spreta can let you go about like this, I can't think!
Alfred (with a half smile). When I have you to look after me. This is quite like the dear old days!
Mopsa. Yes. (Sewing.) I remember I mended all your things, like a sister. Even then you never had quite all your buttons, had you, dear?
Alfred (patting her hand). Not even then. And do you remember how you used to follow me about, just like a little dog? And I used to call you "Little Mopsëman," because your name was Mopsa; and if I had had a dog, I should have called him Little Mopsëman. And then how you used to sit up and hold a biscuit on your nose, my dear faithful Mopsa!
Mopsa. I wonder how you can be so childish! (Smiling involuntarily.) It was a rich beautiful time; but it was all over when you married. I hope you have never mentioned all that nonsense to Spreta?
Alfred. I may have. One does tell one's wife some things—unintentionally. (Clutching his forehead.) But oh, how can I sit here and forget Little Mopsëman so completely? Have I no heart?
Mopsa. If you have lost it, I think I know where it is. And you must surely give your grief a rest occasionally, too.
Alfred. I mustn't. I won't. I will think of him.... By the way, are we to have dried fish for dinner again?... Oh, there I go once more—in the very middle of my agony—just when I want to be torturing myself unspeakably with this gnawing crushing regret! What a wonderfully realistic touch it is, though, eh? So dramatic! But after all, I have you, Mopsa. I'm so glad of that!
Mopsa (looking earnestly at him). Surely you mean dear Spreta—not me, Alfred?
Alfred. What relation is a wife to her husband? None whatever. Now you, Mopsa, you are very nearly a second cousin once removed, not quite—because our family is a thing so entirely apart. We have always had vowels (the very best vowels) for our initials, and the same coloured spectacles, and poor relations we invariably cut, and great thick works we never get really on with. You take after your mother, Kaia.
Mopsa. And my Aunt—she that was a Miss Rebecca West. I feel so irresistibly drawn to disturb other people's domestic harmony. But you must really forget me, and try to care for poor Spreta a little.
Alfred (vehemently). It's no use. I can't. You've entranced me so thoroughly. (Helplessly.) I knew you would! Do let me remain here with you!
[Seizes her hand.
Mopsa (looks warmly at him). Of course, if you really mean that, I cannot pretend that such comradeship is——Hush! let go my hand—there's somebody coming!
[Spreta and Blochdrähn enter in waterproofs, sharing the same umbrella.
Alfred (annoyed). Why do you come bothering here? Surely you must see that such an interruption is most ill-timed.
Spreta (with a cutting laugh). We did gather that, Alfred. I came to see what you were about.
Alfred. Mopsa was simply sympathising with me over Little Mopsëman's disappearance—that was all.
Spreta. Sympathising and philandering, Alfred, are synonymous terms in the Norwegian Drama. And I may be allowed to observe that other people can philander if they're driven to it.
[Glances at Blochdrähn.
Mopsa (taking her umbrella quickly, to Blochdrähn). We seem to be somewhat de trop here. Suppose we withdraw?
[They do.
Spreta. Doesn't it strike you, Alfred, that all this morbid harping on that missing mongrel may be just a little monotonous—for a popular audience, I mean?
Alfred (gloomily). They'll have to sit through another Act and a half of it—that's all. I shall harp if I choose. I like harping. And you always detested Mopsëman. You said he ate too much, and had evil eyes.
Spreta. So he did—so he had! And you never really and truly loved him either, or you would never have made such a fool of the dog as you did!
"Yes, Alfred, Retribution!"
Alfred. I had renounced my wonderful thick book. I needed something to fill up my life!
Spreta. You might have chosen something better than a miserable little poodle with no hair on his tail!
Alfred (turns pale). It is you—you, who were the guilty one in that. (Harshly and coldly.) It was your hand that spilt the hot water over him as he lay comfortably on the hearthrug. It was! And you know it!
Spreta (terrified, yet defiant). Better own at once that you came behind me and jogged my arm!
Alfred (in suppressed desperation). Yes, that is true. You looked so entrancingly beautiful as you were putting the kettle on for tea, that I was irresistibly impelled to kiss you!
Spreta (exasperated). Alfred! This is intolerable of you. Do I deserve to be reproached for looking entrancingly beautiful?
Alfred (with sarcasm). Not in the least—now. You are subject to the Law of Change. But what does all that matter? We have both sinned, if you like. While we had him, we both shrank in secret from him—we could not bear to see the tail he dragged about after him!
Spreta (whispers). You were so perpetually putting paraffin upon it, Alfred!
Alfred (calmer). Yes, that. I tried to perfect its possibilities. But it was no use—I could never, never make it good again. And after that I dressed him up in military uniform, and then he had to remain too much indoors, so, of course, he followed the Varmint-Blök, and then the street curs chevied him over the pier. And after I had trained him so thoroughly to shoulder a musket, he was so totally unable to swim. Oh, it all works out into quite a logical Retribution. And I must go away into the solitudes and writhe with remorse—by myself.
Spreta (bitingly). Unless, of course, you can induce Mopsa to——I think you mentioned once that she used to follow you about like a little dog?
Alfred (in a hollow voice). I did. I remember now. That time when the tea-kettle——Retribution!
[He staggers into the thinnest birchstave chair, which collapses under him.
Spreta (menacingly standing over him). Yes, Alfred, Retribution!
[Mopsa and Blochdrähn return.
Mopsa (pleasantly). Well, my dear Spreta, have you and dear Alfred talked things thoroughly out?
Spreta. Oh, yes; quite thoroughly enough, I really will not be left alone with Alfred any more; he is too depressing!
Alfred (on the ground). One cannot be expected to rollick when one is being gnawed with remorse! But perhaps Blochdrähn would be a more cheerful companion for you; go on with him, while Mopsa helps me up again. We'll follow you—presently.
[Spreta and Blochdrähn go off together; Mopsa tenderly assists Alfred to rise.
Mopsa. Oh, dear me! it does seem such a pity! But Spreta always was peculiar. It must be so trying for you, dear!
Alfred. So much so that I can't stand her any longer. I must get away, anywhere—quite alone. Mopsa, will you come too?
Mopsa (shocked). Alfred! How can you? What have I said or done to encourage such a proposal? So utterly unexpected!
Alfred (feebly). I really couldn't help it. It's the troll inside me. What am I saying? That belongs to another Norwegian drama!
Mopsa. All this part belongs to several other Norwegian dramas, dear. But we must see if we can't get out of the old groove this time!
Alfred. But why in the world——? When you showed such a wonderful preference for my society, too!
Mopsa (gently). I know, dear. But that was before——. Let me tell you something. (Slow music; Alfred sits down, cautiously.) I've just been looking through my big portfolio, and I've discovered—what do you think? (Alfred shakes his head hopelessly.) I'm not Kaia's daughter at all, really. I'm only adopted!
Alfred. But what difference does that make in our relations? Practically, none whatever!
Mopsa. All the difference, Alfred. I always pursued you about with reluctance and under protest. Being, as I supposed, descended from Kaia Fosli, and related to Rebecca West, it seemed so utterly the right thing to do. But I know now that I am nothing of the sort, and that if my real mother ever possessed such a thing as a Past at all, it was Plu-perfect. So heredity doesn't come in, and, rather than interfere between you and poor dear Spreta, I have decided to go right away and never see you again. I really mean it, this time!
[She opens her umbrella and runs off up the slope.
Alfred (takes up his hat sadly). Isn't this play going to end pessimistically after all, then? (Shudders.) Are we actually going to be—moral? (More hopefully.) After all, there's another Act left. There's a chance still!
[He follows hastily after Mopsa.
Motto for the President of the French Republic.—"Faure-warned, Faure-armed."
(Pity the Sorrows of a poor Hunting Man!)
Sportsman (suffering from intense aberration of mind in consequence of the Weather, in reply to Wife of his bosom). "Put out? Why, o' course I'm put out. Been just through the Village, and hang me if at least half a dozen Fools haven't told me that it's nice Seasonable Weather!"
(Wrought by a cheap Foreign Cigar.)
I'm feeling—great heavens!—all sixes and sevens,
And dizzy, and giddy, and green;
Knocked flat as a pancake, I've got a blank, blank ache
All over—a sight to be seen!
Alas! for the reason 'tis easy to seize on—
The same I'll proceed to relate:—
I've just come from Brussels, whence, after some tussles
With conscience, I rushed to my fate.
For by Calais and Dover I safely brought over
A contraband hatful of weeds;
Ah, why did I struggle to juggle and smuggle,
Thus paying the price for my deeds?
They cost each five farthings, and goodness! they are things
You'd not get your worst foe to smoke,
This "Cabbagio Fino" has giv'n me a beano—
But there! I'm too seedy to joke!
So this crude composition I pen in contrition,
My state of collapse to explain;
I thought to be clever, but never, oh never,
Will make such a bargain again!
Contradiction.—A fortnight ago, in the law reports of the Times, were reported proceedings in bankruptcy "in re Toby." We have been requested to state that this gentleman is not Mr. Punch's "Toby, M.P.," nor is "our Mr. Toby" the gentleman mentioned in the same case as "the bankrupt's brother, M. P. Toby." The coincidence was, naturally, somewhat startling. Our M.P. for Barks will, by now, have appeared in his place at St. Stephen's.
"I wonder why he's so Black, Mummy? I suppose he was Born in the Dark!"
["I have had occasion to speak on the difficulties of a minister who finds himself pledged to a very large and extensive programme, to each point of which programme there is a large circle of adherents who consider it the foremost and the preeminently important point."—Lord Rosebery.]
Westminster Pavement Artist loquitur:—
Who would be a political "screever"? A drudge
Foredoomed to designing, and destined to smudge,
Like impressionist painters of posters?
Art's in a rum way. Lor! what humbug it is!
Far better the days of old Cruikshank and Phiz,
Than our era of blobbers and boasters.
With chalks, and my thumb, and a bit of old rag,
I can do better work on a rough slab of flag
Than they do on smooth hot-pressed paper.
But oh! what a bother to squat and to smear
All sorts of strange subjects, quaint, squiffy and queer,
To please every lounger and gaper.
There once was a time when the old repertore
The public would fetch. Now they want a lot more,
And always a somethink that's novel,
And then such a choice of 'em! Not one or two
Seascapes, with a liberal yaller and blue,
Or some picture of cottage or hovel.
Two mackerels crossed, or a slice o' red salmon,
A rasher o' bacon, or lump o' brown "gammon,"
A ginger-beer bottle and candle.
A rat in a trap and a portrait or two,
Say old Garibaldi, the Wandering Jew,
And p'raps Julius Cæsar or Handel.
These gave satisfaction to parties all round;
But 'tisn't so now as I lately have found.
They ask a whole National Gallery.
And every one wants his own fav'rite fust off.
Good old "Moonlight Scene"? Why, a yokel would scoff
At anythink bluey-and-yallery.
They claim fancy-chalks now, or pollychrome pastel;
It's no use to tip 'em a storm or a castle;
They want "local colour"—a lot of it.
Yes, something distinctly Welsh, Irish, or Scotch;
My pitch in these critical days is no cotch;
I'm sick of the worry and rot of it!
Pity the artist! What boots that appeal?
No! "Many help one," or "A heart that can feel,"
Won't fetch 'em, however well flourished.
I did think that Guy Fawkes blow-up of the Lords
Would call out the coppers; but shrugs and cold words
Have damped the last hope that I nourished.
Awful cynicle lot! Scarcely one a believer
In me, it would seem, since that there Grand Old Screever
To my hands has turned his pitch over.
There! I've touched up the lightning, and now I am ready!
But, though I must look bright, expectant, and steady,
I don't feel percisely in clover!
"One love, one life," was my ancient manner,
For introspection I had no brain,
But I would have died beneath her banner,
Or I would have lived, her grace to gain.
I loved her silent, I loved her sprightly,
With Grecian braid or with glossy curl;
I loved her wrongly, I loved her rightly,
But ever I loved a single girl.
But now with ennui my love is laden
Before it really has quite begun;
If I win the heart of any maiden
It makes me prefer another one.
Dim passions stir me, deflections fleeting;
I feel myself in a hopeless whirl.
There never are less than six competing.
Why can I not love a single girl?
Contented I and my love were mated
In those brave days when we both were young.
For marriage I'm now too complicated,
Too many-natured, too finely-strung.
My spreading canvas all zephyrs vary
For one calm funnel how can I furl?
In truth, the statute is somewhat chary.
And old, and grey, grows the dearest girl!
Oh, love that was loyal, losing, winning,
That time and change had no power to quell,
That once could even dispense with sinning,
And that possession could not dispel!
Your day is done, and your star's declining,
The hero was but a brainless churl
Who ever dreamed that without repining
His whole life long he could love one girl!
And yet, I feel there is something wanting.
The knowledge that love is sure to die
To every lover is disenchanting.
I would I loved as in days gone by.
'Twas braver folly the height to capture,
Though down from the height Fate often hurls.
He misses woe, but he misses rapture,
Who falls in love with too many girls!
In throbbing silence my glances stray
O'er her unreciprocal face,
And I haven't a notion what to say
Now I've finished with commonplace.
How I hate the slope of that cheerless chin,
And the stare of those vacant eyes,
That take the commonest objects in
With placid and cool surprise.
And I sit in a calm that she will not break,
A desert that is not peace,
And ever and ever the windows shake
To a dance that will never cease.
I cannot join the rout again,
I am far too weary and warm.
So I needs must suffer this speechless pain,
In a draught, on the red baize form.
There is one remark—it has proved a key
Already to one long chat,
Of course—I'll start it, for even she
Must answer awhile to that.
But horror! my agonised fingers curl,
Did I say it to her? I think
It must have been to that other girl
In the delicate shrimp-sauce pink.
Shall I chance it again! I must! I will!
With a stammer I've half begun—
Saved! saved! the music at last is still.
Thank goodness, the dance is done.
Mrs. Grimes. "No, Sir, Mr. Smith ain't a-bin in 'is Chambers not for a Week, Sir."
Mr. Broom. "Oh! You're sure now you know the Gentleman I Mean—Mr. Meldon Smith?"
Mrs. Grimes. "Hi knows 'im right enough. Wy, I does all 'is Washin' and Mendin' for 'im!"
When bleak, bluff, blatant blizzards blew,
And hats from storm-tossed heads were carried,
My enterprising friend, then you
Got married!
Soon spring had come, when doves can coo,
And flowers blossom, had you tarried;
Instead, in January you
Got married.
Then in your honeymoon you two
The gloom and snow of winter parried;
It's two to one two won when you
Were married.
And thus henceforward may you do;
By life's rough storms be never harried,
Together face them all now you
Are married.
[M. Félix Faure, having gone out into the garden at about six o'clock in the evening, was making for the door leading to his private apartments, when he was stopped by a sentinel. The President could not give the pass-word, and was accordingly marched off to the Elysée guard-room, where he was fortunately recognised.—Daily Paper.]
That Gallic statesmen rather like
Trade Union methods can we doubt?
President Perier went "on strike";
Now, Faure has been "locked out."
Deux Mots.—The retirement of one of the oldest and most popular actors of the Comédie Française may be summed up in two words, "Got: gone."
The Daily Graphic of February 1, commenting on the time-contest between two pianists, suggests that exponents of the other fine arts should follow their example. The idea has been taken up at the Royal Aquarium with great success, as will be seen from the following press-cuttings:—
From the "Magazine of Art."
The Directors of the Aquarium are to be congratulated on their new departure, which takes the form of a highly exciting and sportsmanlike contest between those two well-known entertainers Professor Herr Komer and Señor Hardli Duddi in their great poster-painting exhibition. This consists of a trial of strength and endurance, the challenger, Señor Duddi, having given out that he will beat Professor Komer's previous record in time and area combined by one hour and a hundred square yards. As the public are well aware, the latter performer's sensational achievement, "Miss Letty Lind," stands at present unbeaten as an artistic poster, having far eclipsed his "All Beautiful in Naked Purity," which attracted such attention on the Royal Academy hoardings last year. As to time, his Lind tour de force (shown at the Society of Portrait Painters at the New Gallery last autumn) was painted in one continuous whirl or sitting of fifty hours duration, and would have taken even longer, had not the accomplished danseuse fainted from exhaustion. (It is understood, by the way, that Miss Lind has issued a challenge that she will pirouette against the world, including Lord Yarmouth and Little Tich.)
Señor Duddi has hitherto made his mark with presentments of ultra-chic young ladies, which have certainly taken up a great deal of space, and fulfilled their purpose as "eye-openers." We have no details as to the time in which they were designed, but we should think about twenty minutes on an average.
As the Aquarium contest will not be concluded until after we go to press, we cannot give the result, but at the time of writing, after three days' painting without cessation, Mr. Komer had covered a quarter of an acre of canvas, while Mr. Duddi had traversed three hundred yards of advertisement hoarding. Both were going well and strong, the only people showing signs of exhaustion being the umpires and spectators.
From the "Sporting Times."
What will our dear friends of the Anti-Sporting League say to this? Here's yet another form of iniquity, the Poet Stakes at the Aquarium! We looked in last night at that classic abode, and found them all hard at it in the Bijou Theatre. We soon made a pretty book, and only regret we hadn't entered Ballyhooly and Doss Chiderdoss. A black-haired colt was making the pace with what he called "beautiful prose music," quite as good as any we turn out in our first page. But the backers rather fancied a Chestnut Pegasus, who was going well within his stride with his "Odes and Poems." There were one or two other dark horses in the field, that we put down for a place. That worthy and veteran sportsman, and cutest of tipsters, G. Allen, wielded the flag, and got his little lot off, as we were told, with only ten false starts. We left at the fifty-seventh hour, when the leaders had completed two hundred and twenty laps of very blank verse and other paces, it being a go-as-you-please contest. A sonnet divided the first and second, and there was an epigram and a half between the second and the third. As it promised to be a long-winded affair, and rather too noisy for our refined and delicate constitutions, we retired early. We give the odds, however, on another page.
(Parties are often rendered very Attractive by the adoption of Fancy Dress!)
EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
Tuesday, February 5.—House filled once more with bustle of new Session. Lobby crowded. Corridors, long silent, burst into bustling life. "Seems to me," says Jemmy Lowther, looking on with his juvenile-veteran air, "that the happiest day in a member's life is the first of a Session, if indeed the cup of his joy isn't fuller on the day of prorogation."
For some the jubilation of the hour is toned down by saddened thought. There is one step that will never more be heard in the lobby, one familiar face seen here no more, one voice, wont to sway the passions of the House, that now is still. Lycidas is dead, not quite ere his prime, but in what, had fate been kinder, should have been the fulness of his rich gifts.
The House knew Grandolph, as he presented himself to its notice from various points of view. First, an unknown new Member, rising from bench immediately behind Ministers, a situation which, deliberately chosen, seemed to observant Whips to indicate pleasurable prospect of docility. Next, whilst his Party was still in office, he popped up from front bench below gangway, and pricked at ponderous hide of Sclater-Booth, pink of respectability, sublimation of county-gentry-Toryism. Then, with sudden brilliancy and sustained force, he rose on the firmament below the gangway in Opposition, tilting almost single-handed at the panoplied host, a majority over a hundred strong, that seemed to make Mr. G.'s second Administration invulnerable. For a moment in a famous night in June he was seen standing jubilant on his seat at the corner of the bench, waving his hat, shouting himself hoarse with cries of victory. From this elevation he sprang lightly on to the Treasury Bench, and astonished Members who, with him, had heard the chimes at midnight and after, by the quiet dignity of his manner, his unerring tact, his unfailing skill of management. Never since the time Prince Hal, boon companion of Falstaff, became King Henry the Fifth, has there been seen such transformation.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.
The succeeding Session had a fresh surprise. It found our Grandolph, self-reduced to the ranks, caressing his moustache on the corner seat behind the Treasury Bench. After a while he wearied of the invidious position, and went off to the races, to Norway a-fishing, to South Africa to observe the ways of lions from precarious proximity. But his heart was, after all, at Westminster. He came back broken in health, undaunted in spirit. Nothing pluckier, nothing more pathetic seen in the House than his long stubborn fight against the paralysis that crept over him even as he stood at the table and tried to weave again the magic spell by which he once held the House.
He died as he lived, fighting, keeping Death at arm's length for a full month after the highest authorities had said it was a mistake to be such an unconscionably long time in dying.
The House of Commons will know Grandolph no more. But it will never forget one who will through all time rank among the most brilliant of its sons.
Something decidedly hysterical about jubilation of the hour. Prevalent hilarity suggests case of crowded passenger ship, having been in imminent danger of shipwreck, suddenly steams into comparatively placid seas.
Mr. R-s-b-ry. "Hullo! Where's the House of Lords?"
Spectral Caretaker. "''Ouse o' Lords,' Sir? Why, it's GONE!!"
"If," says Wilfrid Lawson, an authority on Church matters, "it were customary to commence the Session by singing a hymn I know what Squire of Malwood would give out. It's the one beginning
And are we still alive
And see each other's face?
Thought it was to be all over before Christmas; Cabinet broken up; everybody retiring; Parliament dissolved; demoralised Party finally smashed up at polls; the other side left to settle who was to be who in best of all Governments. 'Instead of which,' as the Judge said, here we are in for a long Session, with, as usual, more work on hand than could be done in two."
"So you haven't resigned after all?" I remarked, getting up on a chair to have a chat with the Squire of Malwood.
"Et tu, Toby!" he cried. "I thought better of your intelligence. I welcome re-opening of Session for one thing. Obliged to be in my place every night. Whilst House is sitting people will see I haven't resigned. That should—don't know that it will—check to certain extent what at Derby I ventured distantly to allude to as mendacious inventions. I have, as you know, had a somewhat troublesome time during recess. Rarely got up in morning but found by newspapers I had resigned overnight. Seldom went to bed without conviction derived from glancing over evening papers that I had upset the Ministerial coach—I, the mildest mannered man that ever sat in Cabinet Council. Daresay you remember incident in almost equally troubled career of Louis the Sixteenth. When he was brought back to Paris and lodged in Tuileries after his flight to Varennes, the sans-culottes, Messieurs et Madames, could not sleep in their beds at night from apprehension that king had again escaped. They used to make up little family parties, stroll down to Tuileries, mass themselves before the King's bedroom window, and call upon Louis Capet to show himself. The King thereupon got out of bed, put on red Cap of Liberty and showed himself at the window. 'Mes enfants,' he said, 'you see I am here.' 'Tres bien,' said Monsieur, Madame, et le Bébé, and trudged back content to the Faubourg St. Antoine. Now that was all very well for a King. But you know, Toby, it can't be expected of me in so-called holiday times to be constantly attending knocks at the front door, or even getting up in the dead of night, showing myself at the window, and saying, 'My good newspaper friends, I have not resigned.'"
Business done.—Just commenced.
"The Portrait of Nobody."—When the signature "Oυτις" first appeared to a pamphlet or an article, people wondered "who 'tis?" and "'ow 'tis he knows all about it?" The signature appearing again to an article in The New Review, No. 69, suggests that though the author has an anti-scriptural objection to a single-eyed individual, perhaps 'Oυτις' simply indicates a person who, with the majority of us, detests an egotist. Only one would hardly gather this explanation of the assumption of this classic and poetic signature from the style of the article.
Not a Gilt-edged Security.—The investment of Wei-hai-wei.
I.—THE PINK HIPPOPOTAMUS. (continued.)
It did not take me long to make my preparations and devise my plans. In such matters as these I have always found it best to prepare for every possible contingency, and then, with a trustful heart, to leave the rest to chance. I therefore calculated to a nicety the number of miles we should have to traverse, took into account the physical configuration of the country through which we should have to pass, the height of its various mountains, the depth of its valleys, the breadth and current of its rivers, its capacity for food supply, and the nature of its inhabitants. Having done all this, I spare the reader unnecessary details. It would profit him but little if I were to set down exactly the equipment, the clothing, the arms, and all the other preparations which my matchless experience prompted me to make. Such an expedition as that which I was about to engage in can never be undertaken again, for the simple reasons that there are now no pink hippopotami in the world, and that improved methods of communication, ridiculous railways, absurd telegraphs, preposterous telephones, and ludicrously well-metalled roads have robbed life, even in Seringapatam, of all the romance which, in my younger days, cast a halo of adventure round the smallest undertaking. How gloriously we revelled, how grandly we fought, how magnificently contemptuous we were of danger! But now we clothe ourselves in patent wool, we tremble at the shadow of a policeman, we judge everything by the mean standard of its money value. Some day we shall awake from our dreams of false security, when the crash of invasion sounds in our ears, and we see our homesteads ruthlessly trampled down by the hoof of some despised and foreign foe. Then, when it is too late, the public will remember that England still possesses one great leader inured to hardship and danger from his earliest youth, one whom, though a perverse Parliament has slighted him, the greatest warriors and the gallantest sportsmen have been proud to salute as their unquestioned superior. I shall answer to the call with what strength I may still possess, and my prematurely grizzled hair shall be seen waving in the van of my country's defenders; but even an Orlando Wilbraham (have I mentioned that that was my name?) must fail if he has only shop-reared dummies to support his efforts. Enough, however, of these mournful prognostications.
My preparations, then, were quickly made. I resolved on confining the numbers of the expedition within the smallest possible limits, and, after much thought, I decided to take only one associate. My choice fell upon Major Theophilus Ganderdown. He had gone through the whole of the previous campaign with me, and had proved his solid worth on many a hard-fought field. A man, like myself, of herculean strength, and of inexhaustible endurance, he was eminently fitted to help me in those perilous situations in which I had no doubt we should find ourselves before the adventure was over and the task performed. It was not his fault that he lacked those brilliant powers of initiative, that wonderful ingenuity of resource for which I had already become famous. But one genius of that kind is sufficient in any adventure, and I knew that for courage, strength, and bulldog tenacity, I could reckon on Ganderdown to the death.
We fixed our start for a Thursday, always a lucky day for any expedition in which I have been engaged. I gave Ganderdown rendezvous at the western gate, at midnight, and bade him maintain the complete secrecy in which all our plans had hitherto been involved. I myself set forth when dinner was over to bid farewell to the beautiful and affectionate Chuddah, the last scion of the glorious Rampore dynasty, who was at that time dwelling in the little marble palace on the outskirts of the park of her vindictive aunt, the Ranee of Seringapatam.
Ah, Chuddah, loveliest of olive maidens, even now, when I think of thee, this war-worn heart beats faster in my breast, and the unaccustomed tear trickles down a cheek seamed by many a scar. How different would my life have been had cruel fate not stepped in to prevent us from fulfilling those mutual vows of eternal love which we had pledged to one another, I, who water these lines with my tears, might now have been the ruler over hosts of dusky myrmidons, the acclaimed chief of the fierce and warlike Châl tribes, whilst thou, a queen, a wife, a mother, wouldst have—— But, bah, these wailing regrets are unmanly. To my story.
(To be continued.)