These hapless homes of middle class,
Can they escape annihilation
When come, in place of trees and grass,
A filthy goods-yard and a station?
If such seclusion sheltered Peers,
Their wealth and influence might save it;
No speculator ever fears
Artists or writers such as crave it;
Or if it housed the WORKING MAN,
Would Lords or Commons dare eject him?
Picture the clamour if you can!
His vote, his demagogues, protect him.
But you, who only use your brains--
The people's voice, the noble's money,
Not yours--why save you from the trains?
For quiet, do you say? How funny!
Perhaps you think, because in May
The talk is all of Art and beauty,
The Commons also think that way;
Not so, they have a higher duty.
If only speculators shout,
And millionnaires take up the story,
They thrust all Art and Nature out,
For Trade is England's greatest glory.
Then, if a careless House some day
Permit the Channel Tunnel boring,
Think how this railway line would pay;
If you had shares you'd cease deploring.
Think of the cotton-laden trains
Direct from Manchester to Asia!
Think of the Sheffield Railway's gains,
Not of your lilac or acacia!
* * * * *
"ONE TOUCH OF NATURE."
To introduce in a monument to a great writer a presentment of one of
his most popular characters, as Mr. F. EDWIN ELWELL has done in his
bronze statue of "_Charles Dickens and 'Little Nell,'_" is decidedly
a pretty notion. "The child," looking up into the face of the great
creative genius, who loved this offspring of his sympathetic fancy
better than did all her other admirers, is a pathetic figure, and
gives to the monument a more human and less coldly mortuary aspect
than, unhappily, is usual in such work. It is a "touch of Nature" that
makes even the adjunct of the mausoleum akin to the quick world of
the living and loving. The vivid valiant genius, who so detested and
denounced the superfluous horrors with which we surround death and
the tomb, would cordially have approved it, little as was his love for
monumental effigies, or care for the fame that is dependent on them.
* * * * *
VERY "FRENCH BEFORE BREAKFAST."--It was reported in the _Times_ that a
M. ROULEZ fought four duels between nine and ten on Wednesday morning,
severely wounded his four adversaries, and then, after this morning's
pleasure, went about his business, that is his ordinary business, as
if nothing particular had happened. To this accomplished swordsman the
series of combats had been merely like taking a little gentle exercise
"_pour faire Rouler le sang_." The combatants, as it turns out, appear
to have been like _Falstaff's_ "men in buckram."
* * * * *
THE LIMB AND THE LAW.--"To whom does an amputated limb belong?"
queries the _Standard_ (_à propos_ of the case of the boy HOUSLEY,
whose father demanded that the arm cut off in the Infirmary should be
given up to him). The answer is clear. An amputated limb belongs to
_no body_!
* * * * *