DOI issue:
August 1, 1874
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16939#0056
AMONG THE OLD MASTERS.
Master Tommy. “ I suppose that when this nice, bright, clean, new Picture is finished, that nasty dingy old one will
BE TAKEN DOWN, AND THIS ONE PUT IN ITS PLACE ! ”
BETTER DO-NOTHING THAN DO-ILL.
(“ Surtout, point de zele.” A Hint to Lothair.)
“ Months, idle months! ” You know not what they mean !
Nor, since you sketched your boyish hero Vivian,
A Cabinet-maker of about nineteen,
One single idle moment have you seen—
You hate repose, which for you means oblivion.
You select Castle Indolent for seat!
Who fancied that, was singularly hazy:
You, who the war of words delight to meet;
Who love the arena heated to blood-heat;
Whom a do-nothing week would drive clean crazy.
You ’d fain, you say, curb passions in the Church;
Secure more comfort to the peasant’s hovel,
Restore to life the Pious Founder’s birch—
And, if your following leave you in the lurch,
Your idlest month might yield its brilliant novel.
Premier, mystery-man, and novelist,
Sharp as you are, you have subs who would use you.
Wield your keen rapier with a facile wrist,
Brave e’en Achilles as antagonist,
But “ point de zele ”—’tis too soon yet to lose you.
From Mansion House to Marlborough House you came,
That night when Fashion Haunted a new feather,
Where Titian’s beauties graced an English frame,
And pretty Puritans set hearts a-flame
With coquetry and Quakerism together.
Where ransacked records of Romance and History
Yielded their quaintest and most witching fashions;
Where capered the Court cards, in quaint consistory,
Each tabarded quadrille a moving mystery,
And you, the Sphinx, calm gauger of all passions!
That was a pageant with the night that fades ;
And so may fade the triumph of a Minister.
Then while the nation’s wish for quiet aids,
Do you refrain from crass reaction’s raids,
Lest Augur Punch should say “ The signs grow sinister.
WONDERS OF MODERN TRAVEL.
Wonder whether accidents will be as numerous as usual during
this excursion season.
Wonder if a train, conveying third-class passengers, was ever
known to start without somebody or other exclaiming, “ Now we’re
Wonder why it is that foreigners in general, and fat Germans in
particular, always will persist in smoking with the windows shut. .
Wonder whether anybody was ever known to bellow out the name
of any station in such a manner that a stranger could succeed in
understanding him.
Wonder whether it is cheaper to pay for broken bones, or for such
increase of service as, in very many cases, might prevent their
being broken.
Wonder how a signalman can by any means contrive to keep a
cool head on his shoulders, while working as one sees him in a
signal-box of glass, and the temperature of the tropics.
Wonder if upon an average there are three men in a thousand
who have never been puzzled by the hieroglyphics in Bradshaw.
Wonder whether any Railway Guard or Porter has ever been
detected in the very act of virtuously declining to accept a proffered
tip, on the ground that money, by the bye-laws, is forbidden to be
taken by Servants of the Company.
Wonder how many odd coppers the boys who sell the newspapers
pocket in a week by the benevolence of passengers.
Wonder what diminution there would be in the frequency of
accidents, supposing Directors were made purse-onally liable.
Wonder whether people take to living at Redhill because it is so
redhilly accessible by railway.
Master Tommy. “ I suppose that when this nice, bright, clean, new Picture is finished, that nasty dingy old one will
BE TAKEN DOWN, AND THIS ONE PUT IN ITS PLACE ! ”
BETTER DO-NOTHING THAN DO-ILL.
(“ Surtout, point de zele.” A Hint to Lothair.)
“ Months, idle months! ” You know not what they mean !
Nor, since you sketched your boyish hero Vivian,
A Cabinet-maker of about nineteen,
One single idle moment have you seen—
You hate repose, which for you means oblivion.
You select Castle Indolent for seat!
Who fancied that, was singularly hazy:
You, who the war of words delight to meet;
Who love the arena heated to blood-heat;
Whom a do-nothing week would drive clean crazy.
You ’d fain, you say, curb passions in the Church;
Secure more comfort to the peasant’s hovel,
Restore to life the Pious Founder’s birch—
And, if your following leave you in the lurch,
Your idlest month might yield its brilliant novel.
Premier, mystery-man, and novelist,
Sharp as you are, you have subs who would use you.
Wield your keen rapier with a facile wrist,
Brave e’en Achilles as antagonist,
But “ point de zele ”—’tis too soon yet to lose you.
From Mansion House to Marlborough House you came,
That night when Fashion Haunted a new feather,
Where Titian’s beauties graced an English frame,
And pretty Puritans set hearts a-flame
With coquetry and Quakerism together.
Where ransacked records of Romance and History
Yielded their quaintest and most witching fashions;
Where capered the Court cards, in quaint consistory,
Each tabarded quadrille a moving mystery,
And you, the Sphinx, calm gauger of all passions!
That was a pageant with the night that fades ;
And so may fade the triumph of a Minister.
Then while the nation’s wish for quiet aids,
Do you refrain from crass reaction’s raids,
Lest Augur Punch should say “ The signs grow sinister.
WONDERS OF MODERN TRAVEL.
Wonder whether accidents will be as numerous as usual during
this excursion season.
Wonder if a train, conveying third-class passengers, was ever
known to start without somebody or other exclaiming, “ Now we’re
Wonder why it is that foreigners in general, and fat Germans in
particular, always will persist in smoking with the windows shut. .
Wonder whether anybody was ever known to bellow out the name
of any station in such a manner that a stranger could succeed in
understanding him.
Wonder whether it is cheaper to pay for broken bones, or for such
increase of service as, in very many cases, might prevent their
being broken.
Wonder how a signalman can by any means contrive to keep a
cool head on his shoulders, while working as one sees him in a
signal-box of glass, and the temperature of the tropics.
Wonder if upon an average there are three men in a thousand
who have never been puzzled by the hieroglyphics in Bradshaw.
Wonder whether any Railway Guard or Porter has ever been
detected in the very act of virtuously declining to accept a proffered
tip, on the ground that money, by the bye-laws, is forbidden to be
taken by Servants of the Company.
Wonder how many odd coppers the boys who sell the newspapers
pocket in a week by the benevolence of passengers.
Wonder what diminution there would be in the frequency of
accidents, supposing Directors were made purse-onally liable.
Wonder whether people take to living at Redhill because it is so
redhilly accessible by railway.