Punch (73.1877)

268

PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHAEIVAEI. [December 15, 1877.

GRADGR1ND ON GOSCHEN.

Mr. Punch, Sir,

S a man of business, I have
seldom been more dis-
gusted than I was in
reading the report of the
speech which Mr. Goschen
delivered the other day
before the Liverpool Insti-
tute. Mr. G. said that he
wished to speak to his
audience "as a business
man " !!! It is precisely
in that character I feel
bound to enter my vehe-
ment protest against the
pernicious fudge which he
advanced on that occa-
sion. Things are, indeed,
come to a pretty pass when
a man of facts and figures
is found singing the praises
of Imagination! Mr. G.
has evidently mistaken his
vocation. He a merchant,
a man of business, a finan-
cier, a possible Chancellor
of the Exchequer ? Pooh!
He was intended for a poet,
or a writer for the Family
Herald. Listen to him !

""While others pleaded on behalf of useful knowledge .... he wished to
speak on behalf of the cultivation of the imaginative faculties in the broadest
sense of the term; and he was not afraid to say this before a Liverpool
audience, because he would not admit that there was any antagonism between
business and the cultivation of the imaginative faculties."

The deuce he wouldn't! I wonder the Liverpool audience didn't
hiss him out of the hall.

" He wanted men to cultivate the power of forming ideal pictures."

Ideal pictures! Is this to be borne ?

"He did not want them to know only ordinary facts."

I should say not. Facts are the pitiless foes of fudge.

" He regretted the theory which regards as stuff and nonsense all that does
not bear upon the immediate practical duties of life."

Of course, Sir, a wholesale dealer in "stuff and nonsense" will
reject any theory that interferes with his trade.

"He wanted them to breathe the bracing ozone of imagination."

Now, Sir, what, in the name of outraged common sense, is "the
bracing ozone of imagination P " It is not an article quoted in the
markets of the world. Is it a new quack medicine devised by this
charlatan ? He proceeds to defend the brain-softening practice of
reading novels. Possibly, following his own prescription in this
particular has reduced him to his present pitiable estate. He dis-
parages the_only kind of fiction for which a good word might be said,
that in which daily life is faithfully photographed, in favour of
that in which imagination is dominant, romance rampant, senti-
ment supreme. Sir, this is the very perversity of imbecility.

He eulogises Alice in Wonderland. Sir, some pernicious believer
in "ideal pictures" surreptitiously presented that book to my
youngest daughter, aged eight. I examined the volume. It is a
tissue of the most insane absurdities, that would do credit to Colney
Hatch. Of course, I burned the book, and put my daughter on bread
and water for twenty-four hours as a penance for looking into it. And
now this—this man of business—publicly praises it! Sir, he should
be gagged. Coming from his lips, that one avowal may cause
infinite mischief, and put practical parents to endless trouble. He
proceeds to say that he would like boys to read anything rather than
prose. Of course he would. Prose is the language of sense, poetry
the jargon of lunacy. Naturally Mr. G. prefers the latter. Here,
however, is his crowning imbecility: " Imagination, in its highest
and broadest sense, is necessary for the noble discharge of imperial
duties." _ Merciful powers! "We are to rule India, I suppose, by
imagination, instead of the strong hand. Perhaps that's why they
have made a poet Governor-General. A nice mess he will probably
make of it! Sympathy, imagination, sentiment, in dealing with
subject-races and alien creeds! Fudge! "Why I couldn't keep
my clerks in order with such maudlin milk-and-water, '' Toe the
line, and no nonsense ! "—that's the only rule for rulers.

Sir, this self-styled "business man" has started a crusade
against facts. Yes, Sir, incredible as the fact may appear, so it is.

He disparages facts. I say there is nothing else in creation worth a
sucked orange. He defends novels. I would do as Omar Pasha.
did with the lot of 'em, when he burnt the Alexandrian Library.
He'd import imagination into commerce, daily life, even into the
Art of Puling, possibly—for I really don't know where he'd stop—
into the very Ledges itself! I would confine it to lunatic asylums.
I am confident that all the real business men of this practical land
will be on my side. " Facts for ever, and no quarter to Fudge! "
That is our motto. It is our bounden duty to rally round our
standard in uncompromising hostility to this driveller with his
"ideal pictures" and his "bracing ozone of imagination." Let
Mr. Goschen give up commerce;and politics, and take to rhyme-
spinning, leaving the all-important, the only important, sphere of
Facts and Figures to men of the same mind as,

Yours, uncompromisingly,

L. S. D. Gradgrind.

OBEDIENTIA DOCET.

[From the " Rev. A. H. Mackonochie's Complete Letter Writer"
compiled for the use of all who may be in doubt as to how
they ought to address " those who are placed in authority over
them.")

i.

From a Subaltern on receiving a Private Reprimand from his

Colonel.

My Dear Colonel,

I have received your " friendly" protest, dated the 3rd of
March last, and if I have not thought fit to take any notice of that
communication for nine months, you are at liberty to set it down
to the fact that I have been engaged a portion of that time in play-
ing in a cricket-match in the north of Scotland. "With regard to
what you urge against my wearing "the cocked hat of a Field Mar-
shal and a false nose on parade," I have merely to point out to you
that I consider your objections trivial in the extreme. Moreover,
let me add for your enlightenment in a matter in which I as your
subordinate, obviously the proper person, am to instruct you, that
the decay of military enthusiasm can be traced directly to the dis-
appearance of suitable adjustments of this kind. I shall, therefore,
continue to appear in them as usual, and not deprive the noble
fellows, who enjoy the spectacle, of this spur to duty which neither
you nor six dozen Colonels shall compel me to relinquish. How-
ever, believe me, yours considerately,

A. Flatx {Ensign).

ii.

From a Hopeful Child, about to return Home for the Holidays,
to his anxious Parents.

My Dear Parents,

On the eve of that pleasing relaxation from my studies,
which, with a creditable regard for his own pocket, our worthy
Principal has this term announced his intention of extending to
the length of six weeks, I am writing you a few lines, and I trust you
will both find them as palatable as they are meant to be premoni-
tory. It must be fresh in your recollection that, on a former occa-
sion of this kind, you took serious exception to the manufacture
and discharge of fireworks in my bedroom, while, if my memory
does not fail me, there was some sort of protest raised, either by one
or by both of you, against, not only the preservation of live eels in
the filter, but even the tuning of the piano with the firetongs, and a
general attention to the entire clockwork of the house with hair-oil.

Now, it is not for me to have to argue about such obvious frivoli-
ties (you must pardon my frankness) as are your "reasons " for any
abandonment by me of these interesting pastimes and pursuits, and
so I leave it to your natural good sense and discretion to appreciate
the position a child, who will be eleven next birthday, should
assume and preserve in a matter of this sort. Let me then con-
clude, my dear Parents, by simply expressing a wish that I shall
hear no more of this affair, and that my advent in the midst of the
family circle with five pounds of gunpowder may be hailed, if not
with open enthusiasm, at least with tacit but cordial acquiescence.

Wishing you, in the meantime, ridiculous though they are, all

the usual compliments of the season, I am your dutiful but always

judicious son, m _

Thomas Btjmpus.

hi.

From an Ophicleide Player, who is given to extemporising, to the
Conductor who has sent him a remonstrance.

Sir

The unmanly and insolent protest which you have regarded
it as "your province" to address to one who "plays under your
leadership " (!), shall meet from my hands the contempt it deserves.
It would be beneath my dignity, as a musician and as a man, to
prove to you why it is not only a recreation, but a duty, to intro-