Punch (12.1847)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

JENNY LIND AT DEXJEY LANE.

Mr. Bunn has certainly kept faith with the
VKgfefg? public, by presenting the long-promised

jpL si!0$s£fc JtNNY Lind on his stage, though in the
am mm^llS^s shape of an elephant. She is undoubtedly the
ymi i£S& lillF^ greatest creature that ever trod the dramatic
JpalSi ffllSm _ ^ hoards, and stands higher than any other
llilillllk $Pui<!§lil\ member of the profession. Her compass is
llllllllilli /fec^^^V extraor(iinary; for she can reach to the middle
^1111111!; L'Mw °^ ^ ^at witnout an>' difficulty, and in a

fy^W^^^M^^, slow movement her aplomb is truly wonder-
H*> ful. We do not think she excels in rapid

passages, but her run, if she were to give
full vent to it, would, n > doubt, make a powerful impression on her
audience.

CAPSICUM HOUSE FOR YOUNG LADIES.

CHAPTER II.

MISS GRIFFIN UPON TIIE TEA-POT. " MORALS AND EXAMPLES."
WASPS AND HUSBANDS.

Miss Griffin was about to plant her foot upon the door-step : she
paused. " With your leave," she said, " we '11 take a turn down the
Tea-Table Walk. A little more air will do me good ; for that Miss
Fluke does so distress me ! Well ! I suppose I must go through
with it ; but sometimes I fear I have hardly strength for my mission."

Anxious as we were to enter Capsicum House—the Great Vestibule,
as we considered it, to all the Domestic Virtues—nevertheless, we sup-
pressed the wish with the strong hand of gallantry, and, with Miss
Griffin turning, turned about.

Three or four minutes, and we entered Tea-Table Walk. Here,
as in other parts of the garden, there were household lessons for the
iemale mind in the greenest and fullest leaf. In one bed was a most
charming tea-service, in the tenderest coloured and most delicate box ;
whilst on either side were two huge bushes, trimmed and taught to
shoot as tea-k ettles. They struck us with a blow of fine art. " How
noble!" we cried.

"What ! the kettles ? Yes, they are fine," said Miss Griffin, with
humble, chastised pride ; " the kettles are natural, and when the bees
are buzzing about 'em you'd positively think they boiled."

" And a complete tea-service 1" we cried ; and admiration simmered
in our soul

" Everything but the spoons," remarked Mi6s Griffin ; " but all
in good time. As I say to the girls, be patient ; patience is a virtue
—peculiarly a female virtue, for though it is greatly encouraged, it
meets with so little reward. Pardon me, my dear sir," Baid Miss
Griffin, laying the sprig of parsley very gently on our coat sleeve,
" but I feel that I can talk to you as to a sister."

We made no reply to this ; but it was plain that Miss Griffin saw
doubt rippling the corners of our mouth.

" Pray understand me," she quickly followed. " I mean, I am so
impressed—have such a rock-like confidence in your sympathy with
women, in their great social struggle with their natural enemies—"

" Natural enemies ! " we exclaimed. " Impossible !"

" Oh !" cried Miss Griffin, " it's no use denying it—none at all,
now. Eor six thousand years—and I don't know how much longer,
according to Doctor Buckland—all your sex have worn a mask, and
gone under a false name. But it is my mission to discover you. In
Capsicum House things aie called by their proper titles. In this place
Man "—added Miss Griffin, solemnly—" so long disguised, is taught
to be what he is, a natural enemy. And you know you are."

There was an emphasis in this that enforced a polite confession.
We therefore bowed.

" To be sure," cried Miss Griffin, " I knew I might rely on
your frankness. Well sir, I will be equally open. The whole aim
and tendency of the Griffinian system is to confound and conquer this
natural enemy ; or, as I once happily observed to the girls in this
very walk, to turn the tea-tables upon man."

" The happy thought," we observed, " was no doubt suggested by
the genius of the place. Nothing can be more charming, more natural,
than this evergreen service. What cups and saucers—what a tea-pot!"

" I assure you, my dear sir," said Miss Griffin, " in the depth of
winter, walking here, you may, with a very little fancy, absolutely
smell the toast and muffins. Once a week, in summer, I deliver a
lecture here ; I have a complete series—' On the Use and Abuse of Tea
tjt connexion with the Social Position of Woman.' "

" A large subject," we observed; " a subject with many branches.'"'

" Not a tree in the garden has a greater number," cried Miss Griffin,
a little vivaciously. " I look upon the tea-pot, properly directed, as a
great engine in the hand of woman—an engine, sir, of subjugation ot
her natural enemy."

M Can it be possible ? Is it really so ? " we said, a little doubtingly.

" As I observed," said Miss Griffin, " I can—I am sure of it—
speak to you as to a sister. Such a large, and pure, and tender heart as
you possess is quite thrown away upon a man. I know all your good-
ness, my dear sir ; and this I will say—you deserve to be nothing less
than one of us."

At this we made the lowest of bows, all but touching the gravel-
walk with the tips of our fingers.

"And some afternoon, when I'm upon Tea, I trust I may be honoured
with your presence. If I am proud of anything, it is perhaps my Gun-
powder Class, sir. The classics—people who never knewwhat realPekoe
was—talk of their magic herbs, and philtres, and love- charms. Now,
sir, every wife with a tea-caddy may be more powerful than any good-
for-nothing goddess of 'em all Let the young wife fascinate the
husband with the tea-pot—let her only bring him into habits of
intoxication with tea—let her, so to speak, make household honey-
suckles clamber up his chair-back and grow about the legs of his
table—let the hearth-rug be a bed of heart's-ease for feet in slippers,
—and the wickedness of the natural enemy must die within him, and,
as I say, his subjugation be complete." Unconsciously, we shook our
head. " Don't tell me," said Miss Griffin ; " kindness is the true
killer. I often illustrate the agreeable fact ; for in Capsicum House
no natural object is lost upon us. Por instance, last Tuesday, whilst
the Milk Punch Class was on, an enormous wasp came like a Lillipu-
tian dragon into the room, and flew from girl to girl. Immediately,
they began to scream. I own it; this is the sad weakness that I have
to fight against j but, somehow, girls consider screams as property
they 're born to. Some of the girls flew at the wasp with hand-
kerchiefs, and that little rebel Miss Fldke seized a fire-screen. Peel-
ing that the time was come for me to show my energy, I exclaimed
with all my natural vigour, ' Silence, ladies ! silence, for a moral and
an example !'—my usual mode of speech when about to submit any
natural object to a social, or, I should rather say, to a conjugal
illustration.

" 'A moral and an example !' cried the girls, and, except that Fluke,
they were still as mice.

'"Bring me the salad cruet,' was my command ; and, with a thought,
the salad cruet Btood upon the table. 'Now, young ladies,' I observed,
taking a pen ; ' now for the moral and example. You are here to
be finished for sensible, affectionate, but above all, controlling wives.
You are here to learn how best to subdue your natural enemies, that
is, to govern the men who may become your husbands. Yes, ladies,'
—for somehow (I can always tell) I felt the flow of words was coming,
and it was not for me as a woman to stop it—' Yes, ladies, the Grif-
finian system will teach you how to control and overthrow your
tyrants. Man, marrying us, puts a gold ring upon our third finger,
and, in the arrogance of his heart, makes us, as he thinks, his blushing
captive. And shall not man, also, wear a ring—our ring ? Yes ; he
shall!' Here that Miss Fluke proposed three cheers, but, with a
look and brow of thunder, I stopt her. ' If,' said I, 1 we must wear
his ring upon our ringer, let him—and not know it, poor wretch ! for
that's the true triumph—let him wear our ring in his nose.' Here
Miss Fluke jumped upon a chair and huzzaed, and—well, this time
I did not attempt to suppress the natural buist of delight so honour-
able to their feelings—all the other girls joined in the shout.

"'A ring in his nose,' I repeated; 'not the bit of shining gold
that declares our slavery, but an invisible, a fairy ring, that—like a
fish with a hook—he knows nothing about, only that he must follow
wherever it pulls him. Bless you, my dears ! there's such rings in the
noses of thousands of husbands, though—for all they shave every
morning—they never see 'em.'

" ' And dearest madam,' asked Miss Pebbles, a girl I have the
greatest hopes of—' dearest madam, how is the nose of our natural
enemy to be rung ?'

"'Listen,' said I, 4 listen and attend, and you shall have a moral
and an example When the wasp now in the window entered the
room, you flew at it with all kind of violence. I wonder it didn't sting
every one of you. Now, in future, let a wasp when it comes have
its little bout, and make its little noise. Don't stir a muscle—don't
move a lip—but be quiet as the statue of Venus or Diana, or any-
body of that sort, until the wasp seems inclined—as at this moment—
to settle. Then do as I do now.' Whereupon, dipping the feather
end of the pen in the cruet of salad oil, I approached the wasp, and in