Punch (99.1890)

22

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 12, 1890.

THINGS ONE WOULD EATHEE HAVE LEFT UNSAID.

Frivolous Lady [making conversation). "Oh, the Academy! I never saw
such Rubbish as there is this Year I" {Suddenly remembers that the Gentle-
man she is talking to is an R.A.) " Have you anything there ? "

R.A. ''Yes; the Five big Pictures you saw in my Studio, and said

you could live with for ever i "

EPITHALAMIUM.

{Westminster Abbey, July 12, 1890.)

"Hymen, To Hymen, Hymen, they do shout."

Spenser, " Epithalamion.'"

" Being home the triumph of our Victory,"

Sings Spenser. From wide wanderings you have
Victorious, yet, as all the world may see, [come
Your sweetest, crowning triumph find—at home.
Say, would Ulysses care again to roam
Wed with so winning a Penelope

As Stanley's Dorothy ?
Loyal like her of Ithaca, and dowered
With charms that in the Greek less fully flowered,
The charms of talent and of character,

Which blend in her
Who.'won, long waited, and who, waiting, won

The virile, valiant son
Of our adventurous England. May the bays
Blend well with Hymen's roses, and long days
Of happiness and honour crown the pair
For whom to-day loud plaudits rend the air.
" Hymen, Io Hymen, Hymen, they do shout,"—
Health to brave Dorothy and Stanley stout I

REALLY ENTERTAINING.

Capital entertainment the German Reeds have just
now. Mr. Alfred Reed immensely funny in Carnival
Time, written by Malcolm Watson and Corny G-rain.
You should have heard Miss Nellie Earren's hearty
laughter at the drolleries in St. George's Hall last Thurs-
day afternoon. Nelly Farren's as good an audience as
she is a comic actress, and that's saying a good deal. Miss
Fanny Holland and Miss Kate Tully excellent. Then,
after the Carnival, Corny Grain's Society Peepshow for
1890 sent everybody into fits. That austere Indian Judge,
Mr. Justice Straight, was straight no longer, but bent
double by convulsions of laughter. Mr. Corny Grain
deals out pleasantly some hard bits all round, but as
everyone applies them to his or her neighbour, everyone
naturally enjoys the joke immensely. We used the word
" drolleries " just now. Happy Thought; As we have
had the Fisheries, and the Sogeries, and any number of
other " eries," why not re-name St. George's Hall "The
Drolleries f " Advice gratis:—Before the Season's over,
it is a place to spend a happy afternoon or evening. As
Samlet, if he had thought of it, would have said to
Ophelia, " Go! to the Drolleries! Go! "

A DIALOGUE UP TO DATE.

(With some Remarks on the Importance of Talking an infinite deal
of Nothing.)

Scene— A Room. Persons—Gilnest and Erbert.
[For further details, see Mr. Oscar Wilde's Article in The Nineteenth
Century for July.]

JBrbert {at the banjo). My dear Gillie, what are you doing ?

Gilnest {yawning). I was wondering when you were going to begin.
We have been sitting here for an hour, and. nothing has been said
upon the important subject we proposed to discuss.

E. {tapping him lightly on the cheek). Tut, tut, my dear boy, you
must not be petulant. And yet, when I come to study you more
closely, your face looks charming when you make a moue. Let me
ses you do it again. Ah, yes. You look into my eyes with the
divine sullenness that broods tragically upon the pale brow of the
Antinous. And through your mind, though you know it not (how
indeed should you ?), march many mystical phantoms that are not of
this base world. Pale Helen' steps out upon the battlements and
turns to Flaubert her appealing glance, and Cellini paces with
Madame de Sevigne through the eternal shadows of unrevealed
realism. And Browning, and Homer, and Meredith, and Oscar
Wilde are with them, the fleet-footed giants of perennial youth,
like unto the white-limbed Hermes, whom Polyxena once saw, and
straight she hied her away to the vine-clad banks of Ilyssus, where
Mr. Pater stands contemplative, like some mad scarlet thing by
Dvorak, and together they march with the perfect significance of
silence through realms that are cloud-capped with the bright dark-
ness that shines from the poet's throne amid the stars.

[Stops, and lights a cigarette.

G. Oh, beautif ul, beautiful! Now indeed I recognise my Erbert's
voioe ; and that is—yes, it must be—the scent of the cigarettes you
lately imported. Grant me one, only one. (Takes one and lights it.)
But what were you talking about ?

E. {pinches his cheek). There you are horrid again. But you
smile. Je te connais, mon brave. Yiyvaaita <re irtu (never mind the
accents). Ich kenne dich, mein alter. Cognosco te, amice. I know
you, old fellow. You are only chaffing. As if you had not dis-
covered that whioh all truly great indolence has taught ever since
the first star looked out and beheld chaotic vastness on every hand.
For to say something is what every puny whipster can do. To talk
much, and in many languages, and yet to have said nothing, that,
my dear Gillie, is_ what all have striven for, but only one, gifted
above his fellows with magic power of weaving the gossamer thread
of words, has truly attained. For it is in that reconcilement of
apparent qpposites, and in the cadenced measures of a musical voioe,
that the dignified traditions of an testhetic purity, repellent to the
thin, colourless lips of impotence, reside and make their home.
But- [Breaks off, and lights a cigarette.

G. {lighting a cigarette). Is that really so ?

E. Yea, even as Lucian- [Short notes, to be afterwards filled

out:— Throw in Hector, the Myrmidons, Coleridge, Ruskin, Ohnet,
Lewis Morris, Aristotle, Lionaedo, St. Anne, Juno, Mr. Howells,
Longint/s, Fronto, Lessing, Narcissus. Stir up with Shakspeare
and Milton. Add Cicero and Balzac]

G. Erbert, Erbert, how learned you are, and how lovely! But
I am weary, and mutt away.

[lie moves off. Erbert attempts to detain Mm. In the end
they quarrel. Erbert breaks the banjo over Gilnest's head.
E. You are a horrid pig. and I don't like you at all!

(Not to be continued.)

James's Hair Apparent.—Everyone recognises ex-President
James, author of the Whistlerian book on The Gentle Art of
Making Enemies, by his distinguished white lock just over his
forehead. No one dare call this "a white feather," as he has never
shown it. Some people looked upon it as caused by James's
powder. This is not so. It may be correctly described as an
illustration of " Locke on the Understanding."