Punch (86.1884)

THE TOWN.

II.—Bond Street.

From crowded Chepe to Bond Street! Scarce the range
Of a two-shilling fare, yet what a shift

In the kaleidoscope of Cockney change !

Here lounging dandies negligently drift,

And damosels, in vesture quaint and strange,

Languish along, with slow and languid lift
Of Art-enravisht eyes, each orb a cavern
As mystical as Omar Khayyam’s Tavern.

Here heat and hurry are as little known
As in the creed of Oscar. Bosoms pant,

Not as in Mammon’s mightv gold-chase blown,

But with Art ecstasy. LEsthetic Cant
Succeeds the slang of ’Change. At Art’s high throne,

As at Gold’s altar, Cant is hierophant;

But Cit, who “ bulls” or “ bears,” and Scribe, who twaddles,
Construct their argots upon different models.

Here Art is Fashion ; which interpreted
Means Art’s a ruling fad, like pugs or gambling.

And what is Fad ? You ’ve seen, when day has tied,

A sheep-dock after a bell-wether scrambling !

The throngs, gregarious soul and empty head,

Who up and down these oft-paced dags go ambling,

Are nought but modish Muttons, held in tether
By “Form,” Society’s mystical bell-wether.

Observe yon gasping girl! Her pendulous lip
Bespeaks incarnate silliness. At her side
A matron waddles ; dry as the last chip
Of some old hulk which long has left the tide
Her wrinkled face ! The girl’s affected trip,

The broad brocaded dame’s slow solid stride,

Seek the last Show, pictorial or plastic,

Of the edeminate or the fantastic.

The dame has no aesthetic thought which soars
Above a pattern-plate ; the high-heeled maiden
Feels “ dear Burne-Jones ” the dreariest of bores :

And yet, with catalogue and pencil laden,

They pass, unwilling Peris, the smart doors
Of the last-advertised artistic Aidenn,

To spend two hours wdthin its solemn hush,

Of groaning weariness and gasping gush.

These Fragoline Fitz-Fluke, with smiling scorn,

Remarks, and to young Sandytop appraises.

Poor victims in a sham Art-era born,

And caught by the most comical of crazes.

Behold them! Picture : Pale Persephone borne
From Enna’s stilf-stalk’d asphodels and daisies
By a dun-coloured Dis, dishevelled, flopping
O’er his broad biceps, all her blossoms dropping.

“ Hoiv lovely! ” Gwenda gasps, and hides a yawn
Behind her catalogue. “ My dear, what is it F ”

Whispers the elder dame, whom Pluto’s brawn
Amazes but instructs not. Ah! why quiz it,

Her natural ignorance F She is hut drawn
Waif-like by social currents. Every visit
To carpeted saloon and close-hung gallery
Is penance, borne with pluck that checks one’s raillery.

0 myriad martyrs of the idol Mode,

That Juggernauth of the much-vaunting west,

With what dull patience do ye drag your load,

Herded and chained ! Silent in many a breast
Burns sullen hatred of the social code
Which makes gregarious boredom Fashion’s test,

Yet Spartan smiles defy the cynic’s scrutiny,

And mute endurance never dreams of mutiny.

Art must be “ done ” ! Shall Fragoline Fitz-Fluke,
Whose second cousin is an A.R.A.,

And whom the younger son of a Scotch Duke
Is prosing to before the big Millais—

Shall she with her slow scornful smile rebuke
Poor Gwenda’s ignorance of, let us say,

The Great Impressionist’s wild show of smudges,

Art’s last evangel, say the accepted judges!

Perish the thought! Fitz-Fluke, with snowy vest
And sprawling chain, is posing at the table.

He means to buy—his purse can stand the test—

That mystic masterpiece “ The Tower of Babel.”

He does the public chaffering with much zest,

Fingering his broadly-flowing gold-link’d cable ;

His wife, that solid and capacious matron,

Bridling with pride at playing the Art-Patron.

Shall Gwenda be eclipsed by Fragoline

And the paternal cheque-book thus paraded?

Never ! Persephone, in pallid green
Must grace Gwen’s Yellow Guamber. Lank and faded,
Fitz-Fluke’s plump-dowered girl awmkens spleen.

The chit, Mamma perceives, is to be traded
For that on which her own sharp soul’s a-watch,

And which is precious e’en when young and Scotch.

And so she flutters like a critic-hen
About the picture ; in a stage-aside
Declares ’tis all the taste of her dear Gwen,

Which even Buskin praised. Papa’s great pride
Is fostering it. ’Tis pleasant when the pen
Can with four figures even rank o’erride!

And then she smiles at the Fitz-Flukes serenely,

And leaves them with the stride she thinks so queenly.

See her anon o’er chocolate and cream,

Or cates more solid and more savoury, sitting,

Her worn eyes lighting wflth some zestful gleam ;

Whilst Bond Street butterflies, about her flitting,

Move Gwenda, as no pallid High Art dream

May move her, with light badinage, slang twitting,
That unconsidered incoherent cackle,

Which, somehow, prigs and saps can seldom tackle.

Their horses champ without, their harness glows
In the May sunshine. Slim, stiff-collared stalkers
Upon the Bond Street flags slip in: there flows
An endless flood of those word-clipping talkers ;

Each hat’s at the same cock, and so’s each nose ;

From caramels at Charbonnel and Walker’s
To Private Views, they know their Bond Street well
As rattling Captain Morris knew Pall Mall.

Meanwhile “ Mamma ” has finished. Gwenda quits
Her “ darling pictures,” inwardly quite willing.

These seek a quarter whither prosperous Cits
Do gravitate. Gwenda will he quite killing
To-night on Dis and Enna. What small wits
Owe what wild talk to the all-opening “ shilling,’’
Which Bond Street boardmen advertise, slow-trudging,
And maybe earn—by a long day of drudging F

Art F Nature F Yes, we babble make-believe
In both great names. But just deduct sheer flam
From Bond-Street Art, the struggles to deceive,

Of those who huckster and of those who sham,

The “ rapture,” whose cessation is reprieve ;—

And what’s the nett result of crush and cram F
If solid gain is to be held the test of it,

’Tis surely Trade, not Taste, that has the best of it!

Two Medals Beward !—Becently, at Chatham, Sergeant Harry
Hart was presented with a second good-conduct medal, after forty-
two years’ exemplary and meritorious service. The Telegraph said—
“ The Colonel-Commandant remarked that, in the wholeof his experience,
he knew of only one other similar case, and he urged his men to let this
stimulate them to follow so good an example.”

Our surprise is that there should be any other similar case. Forty-
two years’ exemplary and meritorious service, and to be still a
Sergeant with only a couple of good-conduct medals, is hardly likely
to stimulate Privates to “ follow so good an example.”

288

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

TJune 14. 1884