DOI Heft:
October 26, 1889
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17688#0198
October 26, 1889.]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
193
UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.
“ Tres volontiers,” repartit le demon. “ Yous aimez les tableaus changeans : je veux yous contenter.”
Le Dlable Boiteux.
Till.
Dulness, unmitigated dulness,
reigns [Wearied brains,
In this grey southern suburb.
Dead hearts, and pallid faces,
Seem native to this worse than
desert waste
Of stony streets untouched by
human taste,
Untoned hy Nature’s graces.
Even decay and desolation lone
Some semblance of the pictu-
resque put on ;
But these rectangular ranges
Of close-packed dwellings never
seem to know
Dawn’s radiance gay, the even-
ing’s golden glow,
The seasons’ kindly changes.
Unroof these sordid sheds spread
on the sight [mirk of night,
In miles monotonous through the
And what will greet our vision ?
Close toil, keen pain, coarse mirth, and vulgar
vice,
All that might move sleek Culture’s soul of
ice
To cynical derision.
Beneath yon glimmering garret’s sloping
slates,
What sordid scene our searching eye awaits ?
“ See! ” sighed the Shadow. Slowly
Through the thick gloom a tragic tableau
shaped.
Not with fine trappings of the stage are
draped
The dramas of the lowly.
“The secrets of’the strong,” remarked my
guide,
“Like basking sharks, lie hid beneath the
tide
That ripples calm above them.
This is the day of ‘ Booms,’ of those ‘ Big
Things ’
The leader-writer, our true Laureate, sings.
How lesser things must love them!
‘ ‘ The little things of life await the doom
Of yeomen and the dodo. Where is room
In the great huckster hustle
Eor petty independence ? Though it strive
How can it hope to conquer and survive
’Midst Trade’s belligerent bustle ?
4 4 The world adopts the great Darwinian test;
The fittest are the strongest, not the best.
What use to war with Nature ?
The Town is strewn with scattered wrecks of
those
Who strove to hold their own with giant foes,
Though dwarfs in strength and stature.
“ See one of them, in this dismantled room,
His grey head bowed in dull despairing gloom
Upon the scant-spread table!
No, friend, the Tragedy of Trade to-day
Has not the dignity of classic play,
The grace of epic fable.
He was a prosperous petty tradesman once,
And held his head up— poor deluded dunce !—
With quite amusing vanity.
' ’Tis low enough at present, is it not ?
How should the earthen brave the brazen pot ?
The effort shows insanity.
4 4 He serves a Big Store bully humbly now,
A gorgeous creature whose Olympian brow
Scowls, and he shrinks and shivers.
The bully sold him down and bought him
up.”— [sup,
44 Strange,” muttered I, 44 how souls on sorrow
Whilst there are ropes and rivers! ”
“Eriend,” said the Shadow, “ yonder hlack
Thames stream
Holds more crushed pride than pride un-
crushed may dream ;
But this poor broken 4 duffer ’
Possessed a conscience and six children; ties
Which nerve e’en his unheroic energies
To live,—which means to suffer.
4 4 4 Duffer ’ his rich supplanter calls his tool.
Knavish success dubs honest failure fool,
A charge the world endorses.”—
44 Is it,” I asked, 44 Leviathan’s fault, orfate’s?
Tends not our world to huge compacted states
And concentrated forces ? ”—
The Shadow smiled. “’Tis scarcely strange
to find
Bismarcks and Big Store bullies of a mind.
Yet Behemoth may hellow,
Loudly and long about the glorious goal
Of the Absorbing Arts ere he ’ll console
Their prey—like this poor fellow.
44 Could you have seen him, pompously polite,
Behind his counter trim with apron white,
Scaling out lard or gammon,
Watching him now you ’d question the great
gain . , ,
Of sweeping him, sad slave, m the huge tram
Of all-absorbing Mammon.
44 Him, and so many like him. Yonder dines
Mammon himself. Fair women, dainty wines
Adorn his glittering table.
How bright eyes gleam upon the lord of gain!
So some would smile upon full-coffered Cain
Fresh from the grave of Abel.
A huge Trade-Octopus he knows the arts
Which make such monsters masters of our
marts.
Mere huckstering will not fatten
The creatures fast enough; they must pull
down
In herds the peddling toilers of the Town,
And on them gorge and batten.
4 4 So swell huge fortunes; by such spider-craft
Wealth plumps on wreckage, and no tainted
waft
From the trade shambles reaches
Society’s dainty nose. There Croesus sits,
Admired by women and amused by wits,
Amidst his pines and peaches.
“And one poor broken tool, whom but to-day
He flung with words of callous scorn away,
Bows there, in hopeless ruin. _
Redress ? Resistance ? He as well might hope
To strive with Croesus, as a child to cope
1 With the brute-clutch of Bruin.
“His daughter—she was once a trim
coquette,
Is now a haggard slattern, comely yet,
But chill from long despairing—
Out of her cheerlessness essays to cheer
Greed’s victim, but his eyes are dim, his ear
Is dull, well-nigh past caring. ”
“Father! ” -—I hear her voice — 44 Take
heart, look up!
You ’ll need your strength to-morrow, rouse
and sup.
See, father, J’ve forgotten
Our tyrant’s words of insult. Years ago
He flattered me on my good looks, you
know.”
44 Base brute, and misbegotten! ”
(So the poor father, stung at last, outflames)
“Flattery from him is worse than scorn; it
shames
Me—you—but to remember
The glosing words which schemed your ruin.
Yes!
Now you’ve no witchery,—in that draggled
dress—
To fan dead passion’s ember.
44 Shrink not, girl! What have you and
I to do
With sensibilities ? Put on the screw,
Rich brute, turn hard, turn often !
What matter though our hearts, our lives it
crush ? [blush
Your heart nor man’s appeal nor woman’s
Hath any strength to soften.”
44 Let us be gone! ” I cried. 441 little care
To play eavesdropper upon mad despair,
Or spy on passion’s anguish.”
44 So be it! ” sighed the Shade. 44 He thrives,
yon knave,
Whilst his poor victim to a pauper’s grave
Must lingeringly languish!
4 4 Said I not that the secrets of the strong
Were sinister f The ceaseless tale of wrong
Hums through this opulent City
In scarce-heard undertones. The countless
slain [plain,
Cumbering the clods of Mammon’s battle-
Few mark, and fewer pity.”
(To be continued.)
A 44 Universal” and a 44 Particular.”—
Harry Quilter of the ever Red-y Universal
Review has attacked Merry Andrew Lang,
under the impression that he had been pre-
viously attacked by the latter in an article on
Wilkie Collins in the Saturday Review.
The Saturday replies denying that Merry
Andrew wrote, or knew anything about the
article in question. Instead of being neat of
fence, and pinking the Red ’Un with a rapier,
as we should have expected of the Saturday's
Editor, he goes in for quilting Quilter. The
quarrel is a very pretty one as it stands, till
next month, when we shall see if it’s a case
of 44 Q,. in the corner ” or not. Logically, the
“particular” upsets the 44 Universal."
Mansfield College.— Those benighted.
Londoners who only connect the name _ of
“Mansfield” with a memorable occupation
of the Lyceum, ask if the two leading pro-
fessors in this Educational establishment will
be Dr. Jehyll and Mr. Hyde, both taken by
one person to save a salary ? We beg to inform
these ignorant individuals that Mansfield
College is not theatrical but Nonconformist,
and the artful Dissenters are congratulating
themselves on having been able to 44 take a
site ” at the Old University.
Mem. for the Directors.—The Aquarium
ought certainly not to be a place for 4 4 loose
fish.”
vo:. xcvi>.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
193
UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.
“ Tres volontiers,” repartit le demon. “ Yous aimez les tableaus changeans : je veux yous contenter.”
Le Dlable Boiteux.
Till.
Dulness, unmitigated dulness,
reigns [Wearied brains,
In this grey southern suburb.
Dead hearts, and pallid faces,
Seem native to this worse than
desert waste
Of stony streets untouched by
human taste,
Untoned hy Nature’s graces.
Even decay and desolation lone
Some semblance of the pictu-
resque put on ;
But these rectangular ranges
Of close-packed dwellings never
seem to know
Dawn’s radiance gay, the even-
ing’s golden glow,
The seasons’ kindly changes.
Unroof these sordid sheds spread
on the sight [mirk of night,
In miles monotonous through the
And what will greet our vision ?
Close toil, keen pain, coarse mirth, and vulgar
vice,
All that might move sleek Culture’s soul of
ice
To cynical derision.
Beneath yon glimmering garret’s sloping
slates,
What sordid scene our searching eye awaits ?
“ See! ” sighed the Shadow. Slowly
Through the thick gloom a tragic tableau
shaped.
Not with fine trappings of the stage are
draped
The dramas of the lowly.
“The secrets of’the strong,” remarked my
guide,
“Like basking sharks, lie hid beneath the
tide
That ripples calm above them.
This is the day of ‘ Booms,’ of those ‘ Big
Things ’
The leader-writer, our true Laureate, sings.
How lesser things must love them!
‘ ‘ The little things of life await the doom
Of yeomen and the dodo. Where is room
In the great huckster hustle
Eor petty independence ? Though it strive
How can it hope to conquer and survive
’Midst Trade’s belligerent bustle ?
4 4 The world adopts the great Darwinian test;
The fittest are the strongest, not the best.
What use to war with Nature ?
The Town is strewn with scattered wrecks of
those
Who strove to hold their own with giant foes,
Though dwarfs in strength and stature.
“ See one of them, in this dismantled room,
His grey head bowed in dull despairing gloom
Upon the scant-spread table!
No, friend, the Tragedy of Trade to-day
Has not the dignity of classic play,
The grace of epic fable.
He was a prosperous petty tradesman once,
And held his head up— poor deluded dunce !—
With quite amusing vanity.
' ’Tis low enough at present, is it not ?
How should the earthen brave the brazen pot ?
The effort shows insanity.
4 4 He serves a Big Store bully humbly now,
A gorgeous creature whose Olympian brow
Scowls, and he shrinks and shivers.
The bully sold him down and bought him
up.”— [sup,
44 Strange,” muttered I, 44 how souls on sorrow
Whilst there are ropes and rivers! ”
“Eriend,” said the Shadow, “ yonder hlack
Thames stream
Holds more crushed pride than pride un-
crushed may dream ;
But this poor broken 4 duffer ’
Possessed a conscience and six children; ties
Which nerve e’en his unheroic energies
To live,—which means to suffer.
4 4 4 Duffer ’ his rich supplanter calls his tool.
Knavish success dubs honest failure fool,
A charge the world endorses.”—
44 Is it,” I asked, 44 Leviathan’s fault, orfate’s?
Tends not our world to huge compacted states
And concentrated forces ? ”—
The Shadow smiled. “’Tis scarcely strange
to find
Bismarcks and Big Store bullies of a mind.
Yet Behemoth may hellow,
Loudly and long about the glorious goal
Of the Absorbing Arts ere he ’ll console
Their prey—like this poor fellow.
44 Could you have seen him, pompously polite,
Behind his counter trim with apron white,
Scaling out lard or gammon,
Watching him now you ’d question the great
gain . , ,
Of sweeping him, sad slave, m the huge tram
Of all-absorbing Mammon.
44 Him, and so many like him. Yonder dines
Mammon himself. Fair women, dainty wines
Adorn his glittering table.
How bright eyes gleam upon the lord of gain!
So some would smile upon full-coffered Cain
Fresh from the grave of Abel.
A huge Trade-Octopus he knows the arts
Which make such monsters masters of our
marts.
Mere huckstering will not fatten
The creatures fast enough; they must pull
down
In herds the peddling toilers of the Town,
And on them gorge and batten.
4 4 So swell huge fortunes; by such spider-craft
Wealth plumps on wreckage, and no tainted
waft
From the trade shambles reaches
Society’s dainty nose. There Croesus sits,
Admired by women and amused by wits,
Amidst his pines and peaches.
“And one poor broken tool, whom but to-day
He flung with words of callous scorn away,
Bows there, in hopeless ruin. _
Redress ? Resistance ? He as well might hope
To strive with Croesus, as a child to cope
1 With the brute-clutch of Bruin.
“His daughter—she was once a trim
coquette,
Is now a haggard slattern, comely yet,
But chill from long despairing—
Out of her cheerlessness essays to cheer
Greed’s victim, but his eyes are dim, his ear
Is dull, well-nigh past caring. ”
“Father! ” -—I hear her voice — 44 Take
heart, look up!
You ’ll need your strength to-morrow, rouse
and sup.
See, father, J’ve forgotten
Our tyrant’s words of insult. Years ago
He flattered me on my good looks, you
know.”
44 Base brute, and misbegotten! ”
(So the poor father, stung at last, outflames)
“Flattery from him is worse than scorn; it
shames
Me—you—but to remember
The glosing words which schemed your ruin.
Yes!
Now you’ve no witchery,—in that draggled
dress—
To fan dead passion’s ember.
44 Shrink not, girl! What have you and
I to do
With sensibilities ? Put on the screw,
Rich brute, turn hard, turn often !
What matter though our hearts, our lives it
crush ? [blush
Your heart nor man’s appeal nor woman’s
Hath any strength to soften.”
44 Let us be gone! ” I cried. 441 little care
To play eavesdropper upon mad despair,
Or spy on passion’s anguish.”
44 So be it! ” sighed the Shade. 44 He thrives,
yon knave,
Whilst his poor victim to a pauper’s grave
Must lingeringly languish!
4 4 Said I not that the secrets of the strong
Were sinister f The ceaseless tale of wrong
Hums through this opulent City
In scarce-heard undertones. The countless
slain [plain,
Cumbering the clods of Mammon’s battle-
Few mark, and fewer pity.”
(To be continued.)
A 44 Universal” and a 44 Particular.”—
Harry Quilter of the ever Red-y Universal
Review has attacked Merry Andrew Lang,
under the impression that he had been pre-
viously attacked by the latter in an article on
Wilkie Collins in the Saturday Review.
The Saturday replies denying that Merry
Andrew wrote, or knew anything about the
article in question. Instead of being neat of
fence, and pinking the Red ’Un with a rapier,
as we should have expected of the Saturday's
Editor, he goes in for quilting Quilter. The
quarrel is a very pretty one as it stands, till
next month, when we shall see if it’s a case
of 44 Q,. in the corner ” or not. Logically, the
“particular” upsets the 44 Universal."
Mansfield College.— Those benighted.
Londoners who only connect the name _ of
“Mansfield” with a memorable occupation
of the Lyceum, ask if the two leading pro-
fessors in this Educational establishment will
be Dr. Jehyll and Mr. Hyde, both taken by
one person to save a salary ? We beg to inform
these ignorant individuals that Mansfield
College is not theatrical but Nonconformist,
and the artful Dissenters are congratulating
themselves on having been able to 44 take a
site ” at the Old University.
Mem. for the Directors.—The Aquarium
ought certainly not to be a place for 4 4 loose
fish.”
vo:. xcvi>.