DOI issue:
September 14, 1889
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17688#0126
September 14, 1889.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
121
UNTILED; OR,
“ Tres volontiers,” repartit le demon.
THE MODERN ASMODEUS.
“ Yous aimez les tableaux changeans: je veux vous contenter.”
Le Liable Loiteux.
III.
Night once again, dusk un-
revealing night,
Which, like MoTtanna's veil,
withdraws from sight
The city’s foulest features,
A veil transparent to our wan-
dering glance.—
“How droll the universal
puppet-dance
Of Mammon’s motley crea-
tures ! ”
So my guide whispered keenly.
“Wealth, Work, Wage!
These sum the salient ques-
tions of the Age.
To fix their right relations
Puzzles the pundits self-
esteemed most wise
In all the esoteric mysteries
Of Socialist equations.
‘1 Study the problem here,
friend.” Overhead
Lush roses like a sky of crim-
son spread,
Starred with the snowy
sweetness
Of stephanotis blooms ; bright hues and balm
Lend to long vistas green of fern and palm
Voluptuous completeness.
A hard-faced man, yet with the eager eyes
Of elderly love-fever, stoops and tries
To snatch a hand unwilling.
Incarnate calculation looks the churl, _
Yet with blind passion for that shrinking girl
His every pulse seems thrilling.
And she is poor in all save beauty’s dower,
And he a cockney Croesus. Danae’s shower
Such wooing symbolises.
And Danae, shuddering, yet perforce must
yield ;
All lesser lovers beaten from the field.
So Fortune deals her prizes.
“ A Bendemeer in Babylon, is it not ? ”
Chuckled my strange conductor. “Passion
hot
And chill indifference meeting
In such an artificial Paradise,
Present a pregnant picture. Art—with eyes—
Might fix the lesson fleeting.
“ Such are poor Beauty’s Wages ! ” “True,”
I cried,
“ And what are his, the huckster at her side ?”
‘ ‘ Look round, good friend, and reckon,”
The Shadow answered. ‘ ‘ Forty years his feet
Have followed, followed, masterful and fleet,
Wherever gain hath beckoned.
“Wealth has he, wide-spread power, and
fair renown;
Now Beauty stoops his patient work to crown
With rapture ere it closes.
An image he of mingled gold and clay ?
Doubtless. But it is such we see to-day
Crowned with Cat-ullian roses.
‘ ‘ Her sister now, child of the same light sire,
Finds other Wages ; hers the starveling hire
Of dull, unlovely labour.
Behold ! ” A sombre, small, suburban room,
The sort of den where Toil plods on in gloom,
With Poverty for neighbour.
So dingy-draped, dim-lighted, coldly neat,
The solitary rosebud looks less sweet
Set on that work-piled table. _
Sedulous stitchery scarce competes with smiles
From pretty lips, or semi-wanton wiles,—
Save in dull moral fable.
W Cli ' 'Ad II,
'v£ flJx AWi A fV .
\ A „, > i i A ,
Toil and self-sacrifice,” my Mentor said,
“ Seek their small stipend here. And, over-
head,
Talent is sitting—idle. [hair.
See! A broad brow’s beneath that matted
But the wild wrath of genius in despair
Is difficult to bridle.
1 ‘ He had the incommunicable gift,
Invention. Shrewd self-seeking, cautious
thrift
Capricious Fate omitted.
Our Croesus yonder sucked his brain, and here
He hides, joint thrall of blank despair and
beer,
Unmarked, unpaid, unpitied.
“ ‘ Strange, most unjust ’ ? Good friend, the
fortunes built
On such cold theft are many, and the guilt
Sits on Wealth’s conscience lightly.
In yonder book-lined chamber sits a scribe,
An honest soul, gold would not buy or bribe
His pen alert and sprightly.
“Draw near, and over his bowed shoulder
look. [book.
‘ Men who Succeed.’ The name of his new
Bun down the lines and ponder.
He writes of Crossus on this very page.
Think you he ’ll give e’en honour’s barren
wage
To his poor j ackal yonder ?
“ He knows him not; for it is not Success
To serve another in the social press,
And miss the glittering guerdon.”—
The scene changed swiftly. ’Tis a thing of
dread
To see a radiant brow, a golden head
Bowed beneath sorrow’s burden.
So gay a chamber—and so sad a face !
So grim a skeleton ’midst so much grace!
Rahab amidst the roses
Shows bravely ; hut alone, at dead of night!
What spectral presence on her shrinking sight
Its warning shape discloses ?
These be her Wages! Honey hers and milk,
In passion’s promised land, poor thing of silk ;
But solitude’s revealings,
Amidst the fripperies of her flaunting state,
Show that, though crowned with flowers,
stone-lipped Fate
Is deadly in its dealings.
The great Wage (Question,” quoth my quiet
guide,
Confronts a hurried age on every side.
I offer no solution.
Showman, and not Philosopher, am I.
Judge you ’twixt radiant Rascality
And ruthless Retribution! ”
m (To be continued.)
“ The Murmur of the Shell.”—From the
“Consular Reports” it appears that a com-
pletely new trade has been lately developed
in South-Eastern Europe through the ex-
portation of eggs. If the Reports had called
attention to the importation of shells, they
would, under existing circumstances, have
been nearer the mark. It is the foreign
fowling-piece, and not the home-bred fowl,
that is likely to cause some startling develop-
ments in the trade of South-Eastern Europe,
LOVE A _LA MODE.
He.
The moonlight’s on the sea, and on her hair;
She is a real beauty ! How they’d stare,
The boys, if I brought home a wife—but there,
What bosh it is to think of love and
marriage
She’d want a house,
we ’ll say in Gros-
venor Place,
Ascot and Goodwood,
one must go the
pace,
And such a fashion-
able lady’s face
Must smile upon the
world from out a
carriage.
She.
The moonlight’s on
the sea. I know
each word
That trembles on his lips, as though I heard
Their passionate utterance. Is the thought
absurd,
That we two could join hands and live
together,
Through all the coming years, a peaceful life,
As happy husband and contented wife,
Disdaining all the wild world’s ceaseless
strife ?
Love would find blue skies e’en'in stormy
weather.
He.
The moonlight’s on the sea. I feel, by Jove,
That what" those poet-Johnnies have called
Love,
Does stir one’s heart. I think if she would
move, [over:
And look at me once more, all would be
Yet, after all, where would one’s freedom he ?
While my amount of yearly £ s. d.
Would not suffice, that’s clear, for her
and me;
And wild oats seem uncommonly like
clover.
She.
The moonlight’s on the sea. What idle tales
The poets tell of moonlight. What avails
My love and his?—for love in these days
fails, _ [one guerdon.
Though girls would risk it to gain love’s
He thinks that I want diamonds ; and I,
Who for his sake and love’s would gladly die,
Know that between us must for ever lie
His coward fear lest life should prove a
burden.__
“Churchy” Tendencies of the Prime
Minister.—Why, of course, hasn’t he just
provided the very Cabinet with a Chaplin r
VOL. XCVH.
M
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
121
UNTILED; OR,
“ Tres volontiers,” repartit le demon.
THE MODERN ASMODEUS.
“ Yous aimez les tableaux changeans: je veux vous contenter.”
Le Liable Loiteux.
III.
Night once again, dusk un-
revealing night,
Which, like MoTtanna's veil,
withdraws from sight
The city’s foulest features,
A veil transparent to our wan-
dering glance.—
“How droll the universal
puppet-dance
Of Mammon’s motley crea-
tures ! ”
So my guide whispered keenly.
“Wealth, Work, Wage!
These sum the salient ques-
tions of the Age.
To fix their right relations
Puzzles the pundits self-
esteemed most wise
In all the esoteric mysteries
Of Socialist equations.
‘1 Study the problem here,
friend.” Overhead
Lush roses like a sky of crim-
son spread,
Starred with the snowy
sweetness
Of stephanotis blooms ; bright hues and balm
Lend to long vistas green of fern and palm
Voluptuous completeness.
A hard-faced man, yet with the eager eyes
Of elderly love-fever, stoops and tries
To snatch a hand unwilling.
Incarnate calculation looks the churl, _
Yet with blind passion for that shrinking girl
His every pulse seems thrilling.
And she is poor in all save beauty’s dower,
And he a cockney Croesus. Danae’s shower
Such wooing symbolises.
And Danae, shuddering, yet perforce must
yield ;
All lesser lovers beaten from the field.
So Fortune deals her prizes.
“ A Bendemeer in Babylon, is it not ? ”
Chuckled my strange conductor. “Passion
hot
And chill indifference meeting
In such an artificial Paradise,
Present a pregnant picture. Art—with eyes—
Might fix the lesson fleeting.
“ Such are poor Beauty’s Wages ! ” “True,”
I cried,
“ And what are his, the huckster at her side ?”
‘ ‘ Look round, good friend, and reckon,”
The Shadow answered. ‘ ‘ Forty years his feet
Have followed, followed, masterful and fleet,
Wherever gain hath beckoned.
“Wealth has he, wide-spread power, and
fair renown;
Now Beauty stoops his patient work to crown
With rapture ere it closes.
An image he of mingled gold and clay ?
Doubtless. But it is such we see to-day
Crowned with Cat-ullian roses.
‘ ‘ Her sister now, child of the same light sire,
Finds other Wages ; hers the starveling hire
Of dull, unlovely labour.
Behold ! ” A sombre, small, suburban room,
The sort of den where Toil plods on in gloom,
With Poverty for neighbour.
So dingy-draped, dim-lighted, coldly neat,
The solitary rosebud looks less sweet
Set on that work-piled table. _
Sedulous stitchery scarce competes with smiles
From pretty lips, or semi-wanton wiles,—
Save in dull moral fable.
W Cli ' 'Ad II,
'v£ flJx AWi A fV .
\ A „, > i i A ,
Toil and self-sacrifice,” my Mentor said,
“ Seek their small stipend here. And, over-
head,
Talent is sitting—idle. [hair.
See! A broad brow’s beneath that matted
But the wild wrath of genius in despair
Is difficult to bridle.
1 ‘ He had the incommunicable gift,
Invention. Shrewd self-seeking, cautious
thrift
Capricious Fate omitted.
Our Croesus yonder sucked his brain, and here
He hides, joint thrall of blank despair and
beer,
Unmarked, unpaid, unpitied.
“ ‘ Strange, most unjust ’ ? Good friend, the
fortunes built
On such cold theft are many, and the guilt
Sits on Wealth’s conscience lightly.
In yonder book-lined chamber sits a scribe,
An honest soul, gold would not buy or bribe
His pen alert and sprightly.
“Draw near, and over his bowed shoulder
look. [book.
‘ Men who Succeed.’ The name of his new
Bun down the lines and ponder.
He writes of Crossus on this very page.
Think you he ’ll give e’en honour’s barren
wage
To his poor j ackal yonder ?
“ He knows him not; for it is not Success
To serve another in the social press,
And miss the glittering guerdon.”—
The scene changed swiftly. ’Tis a thing of
dread
To see a radiant brow, a golden head
Bowed beneath sorrow’s burden.
So gay a chamber—and so sad a face !
So grim a skeleton ’midst so much grace!
Rahab amidst the roses
Shows bravely ; hut alone, at dead of night!
What spectral presence on her shrinking sight
Its warning shape discloses ?
These be her Wages! Honey hers and milk,
In passion’s promised land, poor thing of silk ;
But solitude’s revealings,
Amidst the fripperies of her flaunting state,
Show that, though crowned with flowers,
stone-lipped Fate
Is deadly in its dealings.
The great Wage (Question,” quoth my quiet
guide,
Confronts a hurried age on every side.
I offer no solution.
Showman, and not Philosopher, am I.
Judge you ’twixt radiant Rascality
And ruthless Retribution! ”
m (To be continued.)
“ The Murmur of the Shell.”—From the
“Consular Reports” it appears that a com-
pletely new trade has been lately developed
in South-Eastern Europe through the ex-
portation of eggs. If the Reports had called
attention to the importation of shells, they
would, under existing circumstances, have
been nearer the mark. It is the foreign
fowling-piece, and not the home-bred fowl,
that is likely to cause some startling develop-
ments in the trade of South-Eastern Europe,
LOVE A _LA MODE.
He.
The moonlight’s on the sea, and on her hair;
She is a real beauty ! How they’d stare,
The boys, if I brought home a wife—but there,
What bosh it is to think of love and
marriage
She’d want a house,
we ’ll say in Gros-
venor Place,
Ascot and Goodwood,
one must go the
pace,
And such a fashion-
able lady’s face
Must smile upon the
world from out a
carriage.
She.
The moonlight’s on
the sea. I know
each word
That trembles on his lips, as though I heard
Their passionate utterance. Is the thought
absurd,
That we two could join hands and live
together,
Through all the coming years, a peaceful life,
As happy husband and contented wife,
Disdaining all the wild world’s ceaseless
strife ?
Love would find blue skies e’en'in stormy
weather.
He.
The moonlight’s on the sea. I feel, by Jove,
That what" those poet-Johnnies have called
Love,
Does stir one’s heart. I think if she would
move, [over:
And look at me once more, all would be
Yet, after all, where would one’s freedom he ?
While my amount of yearly £ s. d.
Would not suffice, that’s clear, for her
and me;
And wild oats seem uncommonly like
clover.
She.
The moonlight’s on the sea. What idle tales
The poets tell of moonlight. What avails
My love and his?—for love in these days
fails, _ [one guerdon.
Though girls would risk it to gain love’s
He thinks that I want diamonds ; and I,
Who for his sake and love’s would gladly die,
Know that between us must for ever lie
His coward fear lest life should prove a
burden.__
“Churchy” Tendencies of the Prime
Minister.—Why, of course, hasn’t he just
provided the very Cabinet with a Chaplin r
VOL. XCVH.
M