Punch: Punch (101.1891)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [December 19, 1891.

BY GEORGE!

[Ik a recent libel action, brought against an author by an African
merchant, Mr. George Meredith was called as a witness. He
said:—

" The story in dispute passed through his hands as reader for the publishers.
Asked in cross-examination if he thought that the opening of the story relat-
ing to the hero's mother did not offend against the canons of good taste, the
•witness answered that it was the attempt of a writer of serious mind to be
humorous. It might be almost called a stereotype of that form of the
element of humour. It was a failure, but still passed with the public.—The
Judge : A kind of elephantine humour ?—The Witness: Quite so. I did not
like it, but one would have to object to so much."

There the report of Mr. Meredith's evidence ends. Exigencies of
space apparently caused the omission of a great deal of it. Fortunately
it is in our power to supply this deficiency.—Ed.]

The Judge. Quite so, Mr. Meredith. I may say for myself that

I fully understand you. But
perhaps it would be well to
explain yourself a leetle more
clearly for the benefit of the
jury-

Mr. George Meredith. My
Lord, I will put it with a con-
vincing brevity, not indeed a
dust-scattering brevity fit only
for the mumbling
recluse, who per-
chance in this
grey London
marching East-
ward at break of
naked morn,
daintily protrud-
ing a pinkest foot
out of compas-
sing clouds, co-
piously takes
inside of him
doses of what is
denied to his ex-
ternal bat- r e-
sembling vision,
but with the
sharp brevity of
Very much En Evidence ; or, George in the Box. a rotifer astir in

that curative

compartment of a homoeopathic globule—so I, humorously purposeful

iu the midst of sallow-

The Judge. One moment, Mr. Meredith. Have you considered-

Mr. G. M. Consideration, my Lord, is of them that sit revolving
within themselves the mountainously mouse - productive problems
of the overtoppingly catastrophic backward ages of empurpled
brain - distorting puzzledom: for puzzles, as I have elsewhere
said, come in rattle-boxes, they are actually children's toys,
for what they contain, but not the less do they buzz at our under-
standings and insist that they break or we, and, in either case, to
show a mere foolish idle rattle in hoilowness. Nor have the antic
bobbings-

Sir Charles Russell [cross-examining). Really, Mr. Meredith, I
fail to follow you. Would it not be possible-

Mr. G. M. Ay, there you have it. In truth, the question looks
like a paragraph in a newspaper, upon which a Leading Article sits,
dutifully arousing the fat worm of sarcastic humour under the ribs
of cradled citizens, with an exposure of its excellent folly. For the
word. That is it. The word is Archon, with extended hand sum-
moning the collaboratorically ordained, misbegotten brood of shock-
shilling pamphlets to his regal presence-

The Judge {testily). No doubt that would be so, but it brings us
no nearer to a decision upon the question of humour in the particular
passage of the book which contains the alleged libel.

Sir Charles Russell. Perhaps I can shorten matters, my Lord.
Now, Mr. Meredith, will you be kind enough to explain the
following passage from a book with which you may perhaps be
acquainted. (Reads.) " This he can promise to his poets. As for
otherwhere than at the festive, Commerce invoked is a Goddess that
will have the reek of those boards to fill her nostrils, and poet and
alderman alike may be dedicate to the sublime, she leads them,
after two sniffs of an idea concerning her, for the dive into the
turtle-tureen. Heels up they go, poet first—a plummet he! " Is
that humorous, or, if not, what is it ?

Mr. G. M. Elephantine, I think; yet not elephantine altogether,
since of them that crash amid jungle of atrophied semi-conscfousness,
strivingly set upon an overtopping mastery-

Sir Charles Russell (interrupting). Thank you. The passage is

from One of our Conquerors. Here is another:—"Reverting to
the father and mother, his idea of a positive injury, that was not
without its congratulations, sank him down among his disordered
deeper sentiments, which were a diver's wreck, where an armoured
livid subtermarine, a monstrous puff-ball of man, wandered
seriously light in heaviness ; trebling his hundredweights to keep
him from dancing like a bladder-block of elastic lumber." And
while you are about it, pray inform the Court what you mean by
"the vulgarest of our gobble-gobbets," or by "a trebly cataphractic
Invisible."

Mr. G. M. Truly, the louder members of the grey public are
fraternally instant to spurn at the whip of that which they do not
immediately comprehend. But to me, plunged chokingly in trans-
lucent profundities of aquamarine splendour, not of a truth that
in the heights above splendour resides not, chidingly offering a fat
whiskerless cheek to the blows of circumstance, this was ever the
problem of problems. How to write. How not to write. This way
and that the raging fates tug the hapless reader, pillowed he upon
the vast brown bosom of his maternal earth, or lurefully beckoning
the dim shadow-shapes of dodecahedronic cataplasmatic centipede
fatally conditioned to the everlasting pyramid of a star-pointing
necessity. So-

The Judge (with determination). Mr. Meredith, the Court is
sincerely obliged to you for your extremely valuable evidence. We
are unwilling to detain you any longer. Besides, after what you
have said, the point is as clear as daylight. Good morning, Mr.
Meredith, good morning. You may become a trebly cataphractic
Invisible.

THE THINNING OF THE THATCH.

Oh, the Autumn leaves are falling, and the days are closing in,
And the breeze is growing chilly, and my hair is getting thin !
I 've a comfortable income—and my age is thirty-three ;
But my Thatch is thinning quickly—yes, as quickly as can be !

I was once a
merry ur-
chin — cur-
ly-headed I
was called,
And I laugh-
ed at good
old people
when I saw
them going
bald ;

But it's not
a proper
subject to
be lightly
joked about,
For i t 'a
dreadful to
discover
that your
roof is wear-
ing out!

I remember
asking
Uncle — in
my inno-
cent sur-
prise—
How he liked
his head
made use of
as a Skating
Rink by
flies;

But although their dread intrusion I shall'manfully'resist, _
I'm afraid they '11 soon have got anotherJR.ink|uponItheir list.

When invited to a party I'm invariably late,
For I waste the time in efforts to conceal my peeping pate—
Though I coax my hair across it—though I brush away for weeks,
Yet I can't prevent it parting and dividing into streaks !

I have tried a Hair Restorer, and I've rubbed my head with rum,
But the thatch keeps getting thinner, and the new hair doesn't come-
So I gaze into the mirror with a gloomy, vacant stare,
For the circle 's getting wider of that Open Space up there !

People tell me that my spirits I must not allow to fall,

And that coming generations won't have any hair at all—

Well—they '11 never know an anguish that can adequately match

With the pangs of watching day by day the thinning of your Thatch !

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