Punch (100.1891)

January 24*1891.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 41

England, her lawful sovereign lady—(uncovering)—out gracious
Mary of Austria-Este, the legitimate descendant of Charles the
Blessed Martyr!

The S. S. 'Old on, Guv'nor I Me and my friends are with yer so
fur as doing away with these 'ere hidle Gtjelphs ; but blow yer
Maby of Orstria, yer know. Blow 'er .'

Mr. W. (horrified). Hush—this is rank treason! Remember—
she is the lineal descendant of the House of Stuart!

The S. S. What of it? There won't be no lineal descendants
when we git hour way, 'cause there won't be nothing to descend to
nobody. The honly suv'rin we mean to 'ave is the People—the
Democrisy. But there, you're young, me and my friends '11 soon
tork you over to hour way o' thinking. I dessay we ain't fur apart,
as it is. I got yer address, and we '11 drop in on yer some night
—never fear. No hevenin' dress, o' course ?

Mr. W. Of course. I—I '11 look out for you. But I'm seldom in
—hardly ever, in fact.

The S. S. Don't you fret about that. Me and my friends ain't
nothing partickler to do just now. We'll wait for yer. I should
like yer to know ole Bill Gabb. You should 'ear that feller goin'
on agin the Gtjelphs when he's 'ad a little booze—it 'ud do your 'art
good! Well, I on'y come in 'ere as a deligate like, to report, and I
seen enough. So 'ere's good-day to yer.

Mr. W. (alone). I shall have to change my rooms—and I teas so
comfortable! Well, well,—another sacrifice to the Cause!

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

There was a bronze group by Poleet among the specimens of
sculpture in the French Salon, some twenty years ago,—"It may
be more or less an hour or so," as the poet sings,—representing a
female form being carried upwards in the embrace of a rather evil-

looking Angel. It illustrated a
r^plPiSp . poem by the Vicomte Aleeed de

/•~T^Sf^|v, WSW&J -y vigny, which I remember read-

/; \|,\w^^^w^f ^^i^M' ! ing> in consequence of this very
l^vP^^oC'--s*^^'JsS'' •' !f\ ^atue having come into my pos-
'^wiM^r^V^^^^Sal^1 session (it was afterwards sold at

ijM^^ 'fc^rt'^^essrs- Christie, Mxxsox <£
WIP^eia2i^^> Woods, under the style and title
\»jWWAfilMM$FitW*i of "Lot 121, JElsa"), and it
^^^SLZj^^W^ m f%i!r ' occurs to me .that it was on pre-
'n^^^^S^'^ m. -'\^-J ® cisely the same theme as the
'Iwwll' ^'J^mHiW^W other Alfred's—not the Vicomte
' ''^ but Mister Aleeed Austin's-

4*^1' ''^WWi&Wk// \ " The Tower of Babel," which
^^^^^jlljawiffl^^^^^CX 1 have just read with muchplea-
S^^^^^S^^^^^- "^s sure, and, with some profit; the

v:^%21|i moral, as I take it, being favour-
^2?^^r5i - . able to the Temperance cause, as a

warning against all spirits, good,
bad, or indifferent. Afrael, the inhabitant of a distant star, falls
in love with Noema, the wife of the atheistical Babelite Aran, to
whom she has borne a son, aged in the poem, as far as I can make
out, about eight years, and a fiae boy for that. Anyhow, it makes
Noema at least twenty-five, supposing she married at sweet seven-
teen^ and, indeed, Bhe alludes to herself in the poem as no longer in
her first youth.

Well, Aran, who is very far from being a domestic character, is
struck down by avenging lightning at the destruction of the Tower
of Babel, and Noema is left a widow, with her child, who has been
protected in the melee by the Spirit AfraeVs taking him out of it, and
restoring him to his mother's arms. When, after this, the infatu-
ated spirit-lover Afrael requests Noema to say the word which shall
make a man of him, and a husband of him too at the same time,
she modestly refuses, until she has had a decent time to order her
widow'8 weeds at her milliner's and wear them for about a month or
so, at the expiration of which interval Afrael may, if he be still of
the same mind, call in again, and pop the question.

Afrael bids good-bye to the Upper House, and, his heart being ever
true to Poll—meaning Noema—he returns, makes an evening call
upon her, and asks her, in effect, "Is it to be 'Yes-ema,' or
' No-ema' f " The bashful widow chooses the former, and the Spirit-
lover Afrael, renouncing his immortality, i.e., giving up spirits,
becomes plain Mr. Afrael, and an ordinary, as far as anybody can
judge, a very ordinary mortal, showing what a change a drop of
spirits can effect in a constitution. Now I should like the poem 1' con-
tinued in our next." I should like to hear how they got on together ;
and, as longevity was considerable in those patriarchal days, I should
like to know how they got on together when Afrael Esquire was 195,
and_ his wife, Noema, was 200. Did Afrael never again take to his
spirits ? Or, did hebecome miserable and hipped having entirely lost his
spirits ? Did his wife never make sarcastic reference to the " stars "
with whom he had formerly been acquainted? And how about her boy,
his step-son ? Did they have any family ? Whence came the money r

Perhaps Mr. Aleeed Austin (whose works are being printed by
Macmlllan in a collected form, and among them The Satire now
historic) will give us an entirely new volume on the same subject,
telling an expectant public all about Mr. and Mrs. Afrael chez
eux, and, in fact, something spicy about this strangely assorted
couple ; for Poet Alfred will do well to remember and act upon his
own dictum when, in the preface to The Satire, he observed, and
with truth, that had he originally "written with the grave decorum
of a secluded moralist, he would" by this time "have gone down
into the limbo of forgotten bores."

Into that limbo A. A. will never descend. It is delightful to find
him dedicating his book to Lord Lytton, to whom—when L. L.
was Owen Meredith, Alfredo mio had pointed out that, " in one
serious particular, he had overlooked parental admonition," and
observing on that occasion that, "had Owen Meredith even a
glimpse of the truth, we" (A. A. himself, in 1861, much "we"-er
then than now—" et alors, il grandira, il grandira ! ") " should have
been spared the final tableau of repentance and forgiveness which
concludes Lucile." But, thank goodness, we (the Baron, and his
literary friends) have not been spared the touching picture of
repentance and forgiveness in Alfred Austen's dedicating his
latest poem to Lord Lytton. Sic transit ira poetarum !

In The Season Alfredo sang—

" I elaim the preeioui pririlege of youth,
Nerer to »peak extept t© speak the truth."

But those lines were not written the day before yesterday, and as
he can no longer " claim" the aforesaid "precious privilege," he can
in his more mature years " go as he pleases." And there is so much
" go " in him that he always pleases ; so the Baron anticipates the
sequel to The Tower of Babel on the lines already suggested, pre-
sumptuous as it may seem to suggest lines to a poet.

Phra the Phoenician, a very clever idea, with which Btjlwer
would have performed mysteriously thrilling wonders, but which
Mr. Arnold has written at once too heavily and treated too lightly,
in too much of a " so-called nineteenth century style ; " which is a
pity, as it is full of dramatic incident, and the interest well kept up
through some two thousand years or so, more or less. He is a
wonder is Mister Phra, and might well be called Phra Diavolo
instead of Phra the Phoenician. Sir Edwin Arnold has written a
preface to the volume, and seems to express a wish that the wonders
here recorded could be possibilities of everyday life. But, if so, as
Mr. Welter, Senior, observed, a propos of " there being a Providence
in it," " 0' course there is, Sammy ; or what 'ud become o' the under-
takers ? " And as to cremation—well, such an utter corporeal extinc-
tion would be the only way of putting an end to the terrestrial
existence of Phra the Phoenician, who, however, "might rise," as
Mrs. Malaprop would say, " like a Phoenician from the ashes."

The appearance of A New Lady Audley is rather late in the half-
century as a " skit " on Miss Braddon's celebrated novel. Now and
then I found an amusing bit in it, but, on the whole, poor stuff,
says The Baron de Book-Worms.

My faithful'' Co." has been reading poetry and prose, and thus oom-
municates the result of his studies :—There is genuine but unassum-
ing poetry, which is, after all, only another way of saying tine
feeling finely expressed, in Corn and Poppies, by Cosmo Monkhotjse
(Elkin Mathews). Much of the verse is musical, and there is
throughout a vein of thoughtfulness which never degenerates into a
morbid brooding. I commend particularly "Any Soul to any Body,"
"A Dead March," and "Mysteries," as good examples of Mr.
Monehouse's style. So much for verse. Let me now to prose.
Like my baronial Chief, I say, " Bring me my boots! " and let them
be thick, so that I may trudge safely through Mr. Budy^rd
Kipling's^latest, " The Light that Failed" (Lippincott's Monthly
Magazine, January). This is described as Mr. Kipling's first
long story. His publishers, moreover, are good enough to take ali
the trouble of criticism upon their own shoulders. They declare
that "there is more stern strength in this novel than in anything
which Mr. Kipling has written; " but that is, after all, only a com-
parative statement, which profits me little, as I never yet estimated
the amount of " stern strength " in Mr. Kipling's previous writings.
I am, however, told, in addition, that the tale " is as intensely moving
as it is intensely maieuline" (there's lovely language!) "and. it
will not be surprising if it should prove to be the literary sensation
of the year." To such an expression of opinion by competent judges
it would be futile to attempt to add very much. I will only say,
therefore, that the " sensation " produced in me by this novel is one
of the most disagreeable I ever experienced. The characters are,
for the most part, inordinately dull, preposterously conceited, and
insufferably brutal. As for Dick Heldar, the hero, no more dis-
agreeable and hateful bully-puppy ever thought and talked in discon-
nected gasps through ninety-seven pages. The catastrophe moves
no pity. Mr. Kipling seems to despise the public, "who think
with their boots, and read with their elbows ; " but so clever a man
might surely show his contempt less crudely. K [fling, I lovejthee,
but never more write such another tale !