DOI issue:
July 12, 1884
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17757#0024
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 9^-ly 12. 1884.
THE TOWN.
Bo. Y.—The Strand. Amusement.
PART II.
JYoblesse oblige ! And young Lord Pimpernel
Was very noble. Heir to an old race
And many-centuried title, tutored well
In each nobiliary art and grace,
Assured her friends, in that line free vernacular
In which “the Baby” could be so oracular.
Eton and Oxford knew him, and he knew
As much of what at Oxford and at Eton
Is taught as is absorbed like air or dew.
“ Sapping ” the young Olympian was not “ sweet on,”
But while he stroked his College-boat, the crew
Pimpernel boasted, had not once been beaten,
And such a record surely should he plenty
For any young “ Barbarian ”—at twenty.
If thews gave manhood, Pimpernel, indeed,
Had been a man of men. Alas ! virility
Comes neither from athletics nor from breed.
Yet he’d ambition to display ability
Beyond the cinder-path or cricket-mead,
In something more than vigour or agility,
And so, with generous ardour, joined the band
Of neophytes whose shrines adorn the Strand.
A curious cultns, with a creed as strange
Could it be formulated. The belief
In self and sensual stir has no wide range,
And those beatitudes of which the chief
Is Ballet-beauty furnish little change
Of rapturous enticement; dull as brief
The joys our Pimpernels must chase and treasure,
Because, forsooth, they’re “ Life,” and therefore “ Pleasure ” !
How picture Pleasure ? It is deftly done
By painters of the florid school of Etty ;
A luscious nymph with eyes half love, half fun,
Free breasts, and Hying hair of radiance jetty,
In whose bright track bewildered myriads run:
All which on canvas looks complete and pretty,
But ’tis not much of life’s amazing story
That can be compassed in an allegory.
Great Epicures, could you pace the Strand,
And penetrate its darker penetralia,
You’d scarcely hnd your doctrine sagely bland
Regarded in these silly Saturnalia.
Lord Pimpernel had blood, he would have land,
And yet to be on terms with “ Miss Id alia ”—
Her name was Jenny Glitters—he’d turn dangler
Upon that youthful but experienced angler.
An “ Extra in the Ballet,” speech-debarred,
^With scarce a step to foot! A face—well, scan it;
You’ll find the harpy lines astute and hard
Beneath the baby-mask, graven as in granite.
Pimpernel saw her silken-hosed and starred.
His senses fired, and she knew how to fan it,
This sudden tinder-flame of boyish passion.
Phrenzy is hard to cure when ’tis the fashion!
To take his place, fool-envied, at her side,—
Canaille to the finger-tips, coarse, giftless,—
Stirred the mad boy’s blue blood with greater pride
Than his long pedigree. With freedom thriftless
He lavished gifts upon her, nought denied
That greed astute could grasp ; he’d have it riftless,
The lute of her delight; he might have said so,
But that all metaphor confused his head so.
How far vain-glorious pride at being first
In the mad race fashion’s late whim has started
Inspired the purblind passion, pander-nurst,
For a mere cockney siren, callous-hearted,
’Twere hard to measure. Little lordlings thirst
For vulgar fame by coarse success imparted ;
And, probably, of footlight-fired insanity,
If one-third’s passion, two at least are vanity.
At Amaranth Towers all was stir and glow;
The heir’s majority was close at hand.
The Duke’s delight, if coldly comme-il-faut,
Was deep—as his respect for blood and land ;
And land and blood love stalwart heirs, you know;
An Amaranth with physique so simply grand
Had not appeared for many a generation.
What wonder all was joy arid jubilation ?
And then—and then there came the palsying news:
The heir was wedded ! Lady Pimpernel,
Nee Jenny Glitters, owned the Titan thews
And shallow soul of the Strand-haunting Swell.
Owned them. E’en land and blood may not refuse
Law-hallowed bonds to bear, if fastened well.
When extra-legal “ honour ” is sole tether
It is a different matter altogether.
Then sires may scheme, and mothers may finesse,
And sons who ’ve played the fool may be persuaded
To play the cad as well, and so redress
The moral balance. Family pride, if shaded
From public scorn, may unctuously bless
The chance of private meanness, less degraded,
As it conceives, by any secret scurviness
Than open show of social topsiturviness.
But here was no such hope. The Amaranth strain
Was muddied past all mending. Clubmen mocked ;
They know the Idalian history, which ’twere vain
To tell the dupe. Society was shocked,
Hot all unpleasantly. ’Tis ever gain
To have the scandal-market freshly stocked:
Without due sequence of distinguished sinners
Dulness would reign supreme at balls and dinners.
The affair was “ quite dramatic,”—so soft lips
Impressively declared. At Amaranth Towers
Expectant gladness suffered chill eclipse.
Ah! betfer cypress than the orange flowers
Sometimes, sometimes! Pride lashed by scorpion whips,
And love that sheds hot tears in secret showers
Are vastly telling in a stage ideal,
But claim a mute respect when all too real.
A stage ideal ? The ideal Stage
Is yet more mythical. The crazy fancies
Of current fashion, fads of foolish age,
And lanes of crackbrained youth, which spies romances
In footlight posturings, all the unwholesome rage
For mimic mumming’s mad extravagances,
Are growths of vanity debased and prurient,
Jay-like conceit as silly as esurient.
This lured poor Pimpernel to such a fate
As fancy sickens at. Racecourse and Row
Behold “ My Lady” in the swaggering state
Of the proud parvenu, hard eyes aglow
With restless triumph. Something less elate
The heir of Amaranth ! Brainless boys who go
To the sham Eden of the Stage for Eves
Find not the Serpent only now deceives.
The world behind the footlights is a world
Society’s prying presence should eschew ;
Fashion’s fine dames and Swelldom’s darlings curled
Within its privacies have no more to do
Than in a clerk’s back parlour. Furred and pearled
By sensual wealth, the Idalian harpy-crew
J Degrade the Stage, make it, accursed twice,
) Pander to Vanity and nurse of Vice.
THE TOWN.
Bo. Y.—The Strand. Amusement.
PART II.
JYoblesse oblige ! And young Lord Pimpernel
Was very noble. Heir to an old race
And many-centuried title, tutored well
In each nobiliary art and grace,
Assured her friends, in that line free vernacular
In which “the Baby” could be so oracular.
Eton and Oxford knew him, and he knew
As much of what at Oxford and at Eton
Is taught as is absorbed like air or dew.
“ Sapping ” the young Olympian was not “ sweet on,”
But while he stroked his College-boat, the crew
Pimpernel boasted, had not once been beaten,
And such a record surely should he plenty
For any young “ Barbarian ”—at twenty.
If thews gave manhood, Pimpernel, indeed,
Had been a man of men. Alas ! virility
Comes neither from athletics nor from breed.
Yet he’d ambition to display ability
Beyond the cinder-path or cricket-mead,
In something more than vigour or agility,
And so, with generous ardour, joined the band
Of neophytes whose shrines adorn the Strand.
A curious cultns, with a creed as strange
Could it be formulated. The belief
In self and sensual stir has no wide range,
And those beatitudes of which the chief
Is Ballet-beauty furnish little change
Of rapturous enticement; dull as brief
The joys our Pimpernels must chase and treasure,
Because, forsooth, they’re “ Life,” and therefore “ Pleasure ” !
How picture Pleasure ? It is deftly done
By painters of the florid school of Etty ;
A luscious nymph with eyes half love, half fun,
Free breasts, and Hying hair of radiance jetty,
In whose bright track bewildered myriads run:
All which on canvas looks complete and pretty,
But ’tis not much of life’s amazing story
That can be compassed in an allegory.
Great Epicures, could you pace the Strand,
And penetrate its darker penetralia,
You’d scarcely hnd your doctrine sagely bland
Regarded in these silly Saturnalia.
Lord Pimpernel had blood, he would have land,
And yet to be on terms with “ Miss Id alia ”—
Her name was Jenny Glitters—he’d turn dangler
Upon that youthful but experienced angler.
An “ Extra in the Ballet,” speech-debarred,
^With scarce a step to foot! A face—well, scan it;
You’ll find the harpy lines astute and hard
Beneath the baby-mask, graven as in granite.
Pimpernel saw her silken-hosed and starred.
His senses fired, and she knew how to fan it,
This sudden tinder-flame of boyish passion.
Phrenzy is hard to cure when ’tis the fashion!
To take his place, fool-envied, at her side,—
Canaille to the finger-tips, coarse, giftless,—
Stirred the mad boy’s blue blood with greater pride
Than his long pedigree. With freedom thriftless
He lavished gifts upon her, nought denied
That greed astute could grasp ; he’d have it riftless,
The lute of her delight; he might have said so,
But that all metaphor confused his head so.
How far vain-glorious pride at being first
In the mad race fashion’s late whim has started
Inspired the purblind passion, pander-nurst,
For a mere cockney siren, callous-hearted,
’Twere hard to measure. Little lordlings thirst
For vulgar fame by coarse success imparted ;
And, probably, of footlight-fired insanity,
If one-third’s passion, two at least are vanity.
At Amaranth Towers all was stir and glow;
The heir’s majority was close at hand.
The Duke’s delight, if coldly comme-il-faut,
Was deep—as his respect for blood and land ;
And land and blood love stalwart heirs, you know;
An Amaranth with physique so simply grand
Had not appeared for many a generation.
What wonder all was joy arid jubilation ?
And then—and then there came the palsying news:
The heir was wedded ! Lady Pimpernel,
Nee Jenny Glitters, owned the Titan thews
And shallow soul of the Strand-haunting Swell.
Owned them. E’en land and blood may not refuse
Law-hallowed bonds to bear, if fastened well.
When extra-legal “ honour ” is sole tether
It is a different matter altogether.
Then sires may scheme, and mothers may finesse,
And sons who ’ve played the fool may be persuaded
To play the cad as well, and so redress
The moral balance. Family pride, if shaded
From public scorn, may unctuously bless
The chance of private meanness, less degraded,
As it conceives, by any secret scurviness
Than open show of social topsiturviness.
But here was no such hope. The Amaranth strain
Was muddied past all mending. Clubmen mocked ;
They know the Idalian history, which ’twere vain
To tell the dupe. Society was shocked,
Hot all unpleasantly. ’Tis ever gain
To have the scandal-market freshly stocked:
Without due sequence of distinguished sinners
Dulness would reign supreme at balls and dinners.
The affair was “ quite dramatic,”—so soft lips
Impressively declared. At Amaranth Towers
Expectant gladness suffered chill eclipse.
Ah! betfer cypress than the orange flowers
Sometimes, sometimes! Pride lashed by scorpion whips,
And love that sheds hot tears in secret showers
Are vastly telling in a stage ideal,
But claim a mute respect when all too real.
A stage ideal ? The ideal Stage
Is yet more mythical. The crazy fancies
Of current fashion, fads of foolish age,
And lanes of crackbrained youth, which spies romances
In footlight posturings, all the unwholesome rage
For mimic mumming’s mad extravagances,
Are growths of vanity debased and prurient,
Jay-like conceit as silly as esurient.
This lured poor Pimpernel to such a fate
As fancy sickens at. Racecourse and Row
Behold “ My Lady” in the swaggering state
Of the proud parvenu, hard eyes aglow
With restless triumph. Something less elate
The heir of Amaranth ! Brainless boys who go
To the sham Eden of the Stage for Eves
Find not the Serpent only now deceives.
The world behind the footlights is a world
Society’s prying presence should eschew ;
Fashion’s fine dames and Swelldom’s darlings curled
Within its privacies have no more to do
Than in a clerk’s back parlour. Furred and pearled
By sensual wealth, the Idalian harpy-crew
J Degrade the Stage, make it, accursed twice,
) Pander to Vanity and nurse of Vice.