Punch (55.1868)

August 15, 1868.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

65

MRS. PUNCH’S LETTERS TO HER DAUGHTER.

INCERELY, MY DEAR

Child,—it is the
source of the great-
est gratification to
me that you receive
these lucubrations
of your Mamma in
a meek and appre-
ciative spirit ; for
nothing would have
more completely
harrowed up my
feelings and those of
your anxious Papa,
than the discovery
that in spite of all
our training — in
spite of the educa-
tional conclave we
summoned on your
behalf, consisting of
Mr. Ruskin, Mr.
Mudie, and all his
novelists, male and
female, Lord
Shaftesbury, the
Author of “ The
Girl of the Period
and oilier social and
educational authorities you were a mere “ Girl of the Period,” after
all, with no sort of respect for your mother and her ol(f fashioned,
homely notions.

You ask me, and I respect you for putting the question.—“What
books of instruction do you advise me to read before setting out on
this foreign trip, Mamma ? ’’—but I am sorry to tell you, my daughter,
that reading for instruction would be sadly out of place upon such an
occasion, and that if you wish to compete with the other young ladies
abroad for social and matrimonial successes, you must store your mind
with the utmost possible number of fictions, such as, “ Unwisely, but not
too well," “ Cometh up as a Nettle,” &c. Thus prepared you can travel
all over Europe with advantage, no matter through what scenes of
historic or artistic interest you pass through. As much history as you
get in “ Byron,” will not, perhaps, do you any harm, but do not venture
bejumd that.

Music is an important element in English life abroad. I have seen
the occupants of a salon hi a fashionable hotel entirely taken by storm,
awed, thunderstruck, enslaved for ever, by an audacious maiden of
seventeen who without any ceremony, or invitation, sat down at the
piano and played noisy operatic airs for upwards of an hour. It was
so coolly and charmingly done that she carried everything before her
ever after, and married the gentleman she had startled the utmost.

If you wish, therefore, to do as others do, you must get up your
music, and create a sensation with it whenever opportunity offers. But
what is music in comparison to dress ?

Ah ! how well I remember the last time I went to Switzerland with
dear Mr. Punch (who had worn himself to a skeleton in the effort to
educate his party during one or two trying parliamentary seasons) with
what admiration we noticed the modest demeanour and sweet simple
dress of the young Swiss ladies at Neufchatel, Geneva, and other
towns. We looked from one of these to one of our young country-
women, and Mr. Punch said,—“ Look on this picture and on that,”
and sighed, and could hardly eat any dinner.

If I consulted my own wishes, I should take you abroad in the
costume we both admired so much, but I think of the future, and
hesitate. May not your whole prospects in life be at stake, and have
I the right to sacrifice my child’s interests for any motive whatever ?
No, I arm myself with the thought that I am doing my duty, and march
off to Regent Street to buy pork-pie hats, flimsy dresses stuck all over
with ribbons, two chignons, one brown and one golden, with long
curls to match, pinched up little boots trimmed with tassels, miles’
length of coloured ribbon to make streamers of, little bonnets, little
gloves, little parasols, everything little that ought to be big, and every-
thing big that ought to be little. Then I say to my daughter—go and
conquer.

But a dashing toilet does not suffice alone. A dashing manner must
accompany it, or all the arts and crafts of milliner and dressmaker will
end in defeat. Have no fear of anything or anybody. Set at defiance
the ordinary rules of etiquette. Elirt m season, and out of season.
Talk to any amount on any topic. Improve upon the models with
which modem fiction supplies you, and wait the issue with hope and
triumph.

Such, my Judiana, is the advice that I give you before setting out

on your travels, not wise adrice perhaps, but the only advice possible
under the circumstances. We shall not see much of the countries we
visit; we shall be subject to many mortifications ; we shall perhaps sit
down to table with Mr. Soles, the shoemaker, and his family, or Mr.
and Mrs. Marrow, our worthy butcher’s wife : we may find after all
that. Lord and Lady Churchmouse are only gracious when it is
raining hard and nobody else is in the way, and begin to snub us
directly the sun shines ; or the trip may end in no grand acquaintances
at all.; but we shall have gone to a certain number of places and to a
certain number of fashionable hotels: we shall have none as other
people do ; and if that is not a crowning satisfaction, what is ?

I must tell you that your Papa is very vexed about the Boy in Buttons,
and will not hear of it for a moment. “ I did not expect it of you,
Mrs. Punch ; I did not indeed,” he said, and summoning the boy, who is
a very nice little boy and was quite delighted at the idea of seeing
foreign parts, “ Samuel,” says Mr. Punch very sternly, “ I believe
your calling is Penny Papers ? ” “ Yes, Sir,” said the boy, very down-
cast.” “ Then resume it,” Mr. Punch added, and has not again alluded
to the topic.

How do other people manage, I wonder ? If we cannot afford a
Buttons for six weeks, how can Mrs. So-and-So, over the way, afford
a footman all the year round ? I don’t envy people their flunkeys, but
I envy their management. If good management does it all, are not
we to blame who manage badly, and go without the elegancies of
life ? Mr. Punch known what our friends’ incomes are, and says they
make a rule of not paying their bills. But why should we be compelled
to pay, if tradesmen let others off?

Let that be as it may, we must yield the Boy in Buttons, and cut as
good a figure as we can with maid and courier.

The courage is a little taken out of me by this act of Mr. Punch’s.
I would just as soon go to Bournemouth or Brighton, since we cannot
make a grand appearance abroad; but the tourist tickets are taken,
our plans are noised among our friends, and if we gave them up at the
eleventh hour, they would think that there was something in it, which
would never do. Let your actions appear accountable to fools, and
their tongues will not wag about you.

We, therefore, obey .Mr. Punch’s mandate with the best grace we are
able, and go abroad, to see as much of English societiq and rattle over
as many miles of railroad as possible, in the holiday allotted to us. Upon
our adventures I will duly moralise to you in another letter,

Your excited Mother,

Mrs. Punch.

P.S. I have just heard that the Dowager Lady Crab, with her
maid, man, and their dogs will cross over in the mail-packet with us
to-morrow.. Put your gold-stoppered scent-bottle in your pocket, and
if my lady is ill and my lady’s-maid incapable of waiting upon her, offer
your bottle with your sweetest smile, and feed the dogs with biscuit. It
will be a fine opportunity of commencing an acquaintance.

P.S. No. 2. English is the language of the countries through which
we pass. I name this as you naively suggested taking “ Murray’s
Travellers’ Talk” in your pocket—unsophisticated Juliana !

NARCISSUS PER DEYIA LUSTRA VAGANS.

Mr. Narcissus (as he called himself) Reed does not resign the
Constructorship of the Navy, and go into the House to defend his
mistakes. It. is not that the reed has been shaken by the wind, but
that the. Admiralty has. They know that he is wrong, and that Cowper
Coles is right about the turrets, but sooner than have a disturbance
with Narcissus, they let him conquer them and the British Navy. He
has piped and they have danced, and soon they will

“ Tetl us how with eager speed
They flew to hear their vocal Reed,

And how with Bumbledom profound,

They came to judgment quite unsound.”

On the whole we are sorry, partly for the sake of the Navy, though
“ that’s but a trifle here,” chiefly because we should like to see
Narcissus in Parliament. Now, his classic hard-heartedness returned,
he scorns the Echo qf St. Stephens, and is as much in love with himself
as ever. Vale, inquit et Echo.

Fire ! Fire I

Archbishop Manning announces (a Pall Mall Gazette reminds us)
that the Pope is for the separation of Church and State. Therefore,
of course, Dr. Manning is for it. But the Pope, in an edict of no old
date, announced that, to advocate such separation, was a something-
able Error. Ergo, either the Pope or the Archbishop, or both, must
be Heretical. Now, as Rome is entirely under Church rule, there is
nothing to prevent an auto da fe, and, in justice to the tourists, it
ought to be dulv advertised.

Vol.

3