Punch (90.1886)

182

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON

CHARIVARI. [April 17, 1886.

CRUSHING !

Smith {late). '"Been assh'isht'n Brown, my Dear! Bal'nsh'n' 'sbooksh.:
Wife. ' 'Better keep your own Balance, Sir ! "

THE MAN OF THE SIX CONDITIONS.

A Letter to the S. S. S. S. {Secretary Sicklycal Sensation Society), care of Medium Punch.

Sir,—I have been reading about you in the Spectator, and you alone can
help me at my need. I've never suffered so much from night-Mayor' since
dining at the Mansion House. Is that stately periodic making a joke, or does
"Multiple Personality" (the title of the article) really mean anything? The
areh-thinkist, Mr. Leslie Stephen, says that you can always think if you
shut your eyes. There are men who seem^ to look on " thinking" as a kind of
tangible profession, like brewing. If shutting your eyes does it, good. "The
thinking man ! the thinking man! "—remarkable person, and hints for jiarodies.
There is a suggestion of Poet Gosse about it. The main point about the think-
ing man is, that, like the wise cobbler, he sticks to his last, and never does any-
thing. I often shut my eyes. So do many. But, as a rule, I think I .think
best, for practical purposes, when I keep them open. But I digress; it's a way
I have as a non-thinkist. About that article on "Multiple Personality," dear
Mr. Secretary. "You do more good," it says, " by the facts to which you call
the public attention, than by your own ideas about them." Prom one thinkist
to another, that seems a little rude. But I dare say it's true. Probably you
might reply with equal force that the article does more good by calling atten-
tion to you, than by anything on earth it has to say about you. Prom thinkist to
thinkist, rude again. But again, I dare say it's true. _ My own impression is—
(in a drama this would be called an " aside ")—that neither of you does any good
at all to anybody, and that if either gets any attention at all, it will be my doing.
At all events, I will do all for both of yon that I can. For I am essentially
a Philistine. I think but little ; but I manage to do a good deal, and I imagine
mat that is what a Philistine means. Not a bad idea to have called this an
Epistle to the Philistines, or an Epistle from a Philistine. I will remember it
another time. But how I do digress. "Why didn't I shut my eves ?

"Brief let me be"—as The Facts remarked to the Attorney-General. But
those Facts were not in it with these. Mr. F. "W. H. Myers (the number of
whose initials is not, under the circumstances, at all to be wondered at) has dis-
covered a man called Louis the Fifth. "Why, I don't know. He has six different
conditions of being. In one, he remembers the whole of bis life. In the other
five, only five different parts of it. Beyond this, Spectator drops four conditions,
and only treats, from your report, of two. But they are quite enough. Louis V.

is sometimes paralysed on the right side, and only
his left brain acts, whatever on earth that may mean.
Louis V. is then _ " arrogant, violent, and profane."
But tickle him with a _ soft iron (though I never
saw one) on his right thigh, and the paralysis'and the
thinking-business change sides. The left side stiffens,
and the right brain acts. Louis V. then becomes "in-
stantaneously quiet, modest, and respectful, speaking
easily and clearly, and able to write a fair hand." He
ought to be kept tickled. But Spectator ought to have
gone on to tell us about your four other conditions,
whereas he only speculates upon the effect of one-quarter
right brain and three-quarters left brain; five-sixths

profanity, and one of a fair hand; and-but no, it

is impossible to proceed. Louis V., I am not sur-
prised to learn, is in an Asylum. The wonder is that
everybody who sees him tickled isn't. I am, nearly, from
reading about it. But if Louis V. would like to
go round the country on a show tour, and requires a
boss, let him remember me. I will give him a round
per-centage, and provide the softest iron I can. Think
of me, Mr. Secretary, from that point of view.

But there is a moral to all things, and I want you to
think of me from another. Consider me as a case for
the Sicklycal myself: for I can positively confirm
Louis V.'s experience. I have long been engaged upon
writing a history of the French Revolution, and as soon
as I began to write it, I got a stiff neck. The expe-
rience regularly recurred, and the stiffness was always on
the right side. I found too, in spite of myself, that my
sympathies were always with the aristocrats, whereas I
wished to be impartial. When I read of Mr. F. "W. H.
Myers' friend, all became clear. The guillotinable
muscles were sicklycally affected. It was my left brain
which had this one-sided tendency. I saw the cure. I
tickled the right side of my neck with my softest poker.
At once the stiffness went out of it, and attacked the left.
At the same moment all my sympathies were transferred
to the mob; and ever since I have known where to tickle,
in order to get my sympathies in the right place for the
moment. I can be one-sided either way I want: and
what more can historian desire ? As Spectator remarks
(wisely premising, if there be evidence for it) " the right
hemisphere of my brain implies the activity of my lower
nature." My right hemisphere sympathises at once
with Communism. I can curse fearfully when my left
neck is stiff. I place myself unreservedly in the hands of
the man of the three initials. "What a shilling dreadful's
worth I should be! Or for the matter of that, Louis V.
either. Convincedly yours,

Steatton Stbawless.

The Grand Old Man and the Clock.

(A Song of the Great Speech Day.)
Air—" Grandfather's Clock.'"

Biff Ben has been booming for many a year
The heads of our Senators o'er,

Unchecked by the loudest Conservative cheer,
The noisiest Radical roar.

But a crisis like this even clock-works puts out,
Makes them " strike " against movement and stroke,

So the Clock stopped—'twas to listen, no doubt-
When the (Grand) Old Man spoke.

For Use op Chappell-goers. —"Will shortly be pub-
lished, The History of_ the Pops and the Ante-Pops.
"With a preface considering the necessity for keeping up
the Concerts, for fear of exciting a series of No Monday
Pop-ery Riots.

An American paper said of a Gentleman who was cast
in a breach of promise action brought against him by
an Actress, that he had to give up "50,000 dols."
Quite so; and to give up "one doll" besides.

Question for "Question Time."—Considering that
the House of Commons is too small for a sufficiency of
seats, will any steps be taken to provide room for
Standing Committees ?