Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
_WAYS AND MEANS_
I’ll tell thee everything I can;
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
“Who are you, aged man?” I said,
“And how is it you live?”
His answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.
He said, “I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,” he said,
“Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread--
A trifle, if you please.”
But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, “Come, tell me how you live!”
And thumped him on the head.
His accents mild took up the tale;
He said, “I go my ways
And when I find a mountain-rill
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland’s Macassar Oil--
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.”
But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue;
“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,
“And what it is you do!”
He said, “I hunt for haddock’s eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny
And that will purchase nine.
“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom cabs.
And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)
“By which I get my wealth--
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honor’s noble health.”
I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.
And now if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know--
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly, and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo--
That summer evening, long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.
_SOME HALLUCINATIONS_
He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
“At length I realize,” he said,
“The bitterness of Life!”
He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
“Unless you leave this house,” he said,
“I’ll send for the Police!”
He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
“The one thing I regret,” he said,
“Is that it cannot speak!”
He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk
Descending from the ’bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
“If this should stay to dine,” he said,
“There won’t be much for us!”
Edward Lear, contemporary of Lewis Carroll, is the only peer of the
great writer of nonsense.
Lear’s nonsense is in different vein, but his verses are equally facile
and felicitous and his prose quite as delightfully extravagant.
If Carroll’s imagination was more exquisitely fanciful, Lear’s had
a broader scope, and both writers are masters of that peculiar
combination of paradox and reasoning that makes for delightful surprise.
Lear was the first to make popular the style of stanza since called
a Limerick, though the derivation of this name has never been
satisfactorily determined.
There was an old man of Thermopylæ,
Who never did anything properly;
But they said: “If you choose
To boil eggs in your shoes,
You cannot remain in Thermopylæ.”
There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!
I perceive a young bird in this bush!”
When they said, “Is it small?”
He replied, “Not at all;
It is four times as big as the bush!”
There was an Old Man who supposed
That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large Rats
Ate his coats and his hats,
While that futile Old Gentleman dozed.
There was an Old Man of Leghorn,
The smallest that ever was born;
But quickly snapt up he
Was once by a Puppy,
Who devoured that Old Man of Leghorn.
There was an Old Man of Kamschatka
Who possessed a remarkably fat Cur;
His gait and his waddle
Were held as a model
To all the fat dogs in Kamschatka.
_THE TWO OLD BACHELORS_
Two old Bachelors were living in one house
One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse.
Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse,
“This happens just in time, for we’ve nothing in the house,
Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey,
And what to do for dinner,--since we haven’t any money?
And what can we expect if we haven’t any dinner
But to lose our teeth and eyelashes and keep on growing thinner?”
Said he who caught the Mouse to him who caught the Muffin,
“We might cook this little Mouse if we only had some Stuffin’!
If we had but Sage and Onions we could do extremely well,
But how to get that Stuffin’ it is difficult to tell!”
And then these two old Bachelors ran quickly to the town
And asked for Sage and Onions as they wandered up and down;
They borrowed two large Onions, but no Sage was to be found
In the Shops or in the Market or in all the Gardens round.
But some one said, “A hill there is, a little to the north,
And to its purpledicular top a narrow way leads forth;
And there among the rugged rocks abides an ancient Sage,--
An earnest Man, who reads all day a most perplexing page.
Climb up and seize him by the toes,--all studious as he sits,--
And pull him down, and chop him into endless little bits!
Then mix him with your Onion (cut up likewise into scraps),
And your Stuffin’ will be ready, and very good--perhaps.”
And then these two old Bachelors, without loss of time,
The nearly purpledicular crags at once began to climb;
And at the top among the rocks, all seated in a nook,
They saw that Sage a-reading of a most enormous book.
“You earnest Sage!” aloud they cried, “your book you’ve read enough
in!
We wish to chop you into bits and mix you into Stuffin’!”
But that old Sage looked calmly up, and with his awful book
At those two Bachelors’ bald heads a certain aim he took;
And over crag and precipice they rolled promiscuous down,--
At once they rolled, and never stopped in lane or field or town;
And when they reached their house, they found (besides their want
of Stuffin’)
The Mouse had fled--and previously had eaten up the Muffin.
They left their home in silence by the once convivial door;
And from that hour those Bachelors were never heard of more.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose marvelous mastery of the lyric is
well known, is not so noted as a humorist.
Yet his parodies are among the finest in the language. His day was the
Golden Age of Parody, and the writers who achieved it were true poets
and true wits.
This parody of Tennyson is alike a perfect mimicry of sound and sense.
_THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSHELL_
One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is;
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.
What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without
thunder.
Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?
Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.
Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight;
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.
Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;
God, once caught in the fact, shews you a fair pair of heels.
Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which;
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.
One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two;
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.
Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks;
Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.
Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew.
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.
Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.
God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see;
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.
Swinburne’s parody of his own work is beautifully done in
_NEPHELIDIA_
From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable
nimbus of nebulous moonshine,
Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with
fear of the flies as they float,
Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of
mystic miraculous moonshine,
These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and
threaten with throbs through the throat?
Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor’s
appalled agitation,
Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the
promise of pride in the past;
Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with
radiance of rathe recreation,
Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom
of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?
Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on
the temples of terror,
Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who
is dumb as the dust-heaps of death;
Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional
exquisite error,
Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by
beatitude’s breath.
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and
soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that sobs in the
semblance and sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular
tenses,--
“Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the
dawn of the day when we die.”
Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute
as it may be,
While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of
men’s rapiers, resigned to the rod;
Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the
bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby,
As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies
growing green at a groan for the grimness of God.
Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is
blacker than bluer:
Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews
are the wine of the bloodshed of things:
Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is
freed from the fangs that pursue her,
Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the
hunt that has harried the kennel of kings.
Henry Austin Dobson, better known without his first name, was a
skillful writer of beautiful _vers de société_.
He also wrote much in the French Forms and seemed to find them in no
way trammeling.
_ON A FAN_
THAT BELONGED TO THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR
(Ballade)
Chicken-skin, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light,
Roses and vaporous blue;
Hark to the dainty _frou-frou_
Picture above, if you can,
Eyes that could melt as the dew,--
This was the Pompadour’s fan!
See how they rise at the sight,
Thronging the _Œil de Bœuf_ through,
Courtiers as butterflies bright,
Beauties that Fragonard drew,
_Talon-rouge_, falaba, queue,
Cardinal, duke,--to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue,--
This was the Pompadour’s fan!
Ah, but things more than polite
Hung on this toy, _voyez-vous_
Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do;
Things that, maybe, overthrew
Those in whose brains they began;--
Here was the sign and the cue,--
This was the Pompadour’s fan!
Envoy
Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
--But where is the Pompadour, too?
_This_ was the Pompadour’s _fan_!
_THE ROUNDEAU_
You bid me try, Blue-eyes, to write
A Rondeau. What! forthwith?--tonight?
Reflect? Some skill I have, ’tis true;
But thirteen lines!--and rhymed on two!--
“Refrain,” as well. Ah, hapless plight!
Still there are five lines--ranged aright.
These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright
My easy Muse. They did, till you--
You bid me try!
That makes them eight.--The port’s in sight;
’Tis all because your eyes are bright!
Now just a pair to end in “oo,”--
When maids command, what can’t we do?
Behold! The Rondeau--tasteful, light--
You bid me try!
Andrew Lang was perhaps the most versatile writer among English bookmen
of his day. Verse or prose, religious research or translations, to each
and all he gives his individual touch,--light, airy, humorous.
Fairies, Dreams and Ghosts are all his happy hunting ground, and he was
one of the first to experiment with the old French Forms, in which he
gave his own delightful fancy free play, while adhering strictly to the
inflexible rules.
_BALLAD OF THE PRIMITIVE JEST_
I am an ancient Jest!
Paleolithic man
In his arboreal nest
The sparks of fun would fan;
My outline did he plan,
And laughed like one possessed,
’Twas thus my course began,
I am a Merry Jest.
I am an early Jest!
Man delved and built and span;
Then wandered South and West
The peoples Aryan,
_I_ journeyed in their van;
The Semites, too, confessed,--
From Beersheba to Dan,--
I am a Merry Jest.
I am an ancient Jest,
Through all the human clan,
Red, black, white, free, oppressed,
Hilarious I ran!
I’m found in Lucian,
In Poggio, and the rest,
I’m dear to Moll and Nan!
I am a Merry Jest!
Prince, you may storm and ban--
Joe Millers _are_ a pest,
Suppress me if you can!
I am a Merry Jest!
_BALLADE OF LITERARY FAME_
Oh, where are the endless Romances
Our grandmothers used to adore?
The knights with their helms and their lances,
Their shields and the favours they wore?
And the monks with their magical lore?
They have passed to Oblivion and _Nox_,
They have fled to the shadowy shore,--
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!
And where the poetical fancies
Our fathers rejoiced in, of yore?
The lyric’s melodious expanses,
The epics in cantos a score,
They have been and are not: no more
Shall the shepherds drive silvery flocks,
Nor the ladies their languors deplore,--
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!
And the music! The songs and the dances?
The tunes that time may not restore?
And the tomes where Divinity prances?
And the pamphlets where heretics roar?
They have ceased to be even a bore,--
The Divine, and the Sceptic who mocks,--
They are “cropped,” they are “foxed” to the core,
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!
Envoy
Suns beat on them; tempests downpour,
On the chest without cover or locks,
Where they lie by the Bookseller’s door,--
They are _all_ in the Fourpenny Box!
William Schwenck Gilbert began as a youth his humorous contributions to
magazines, which included the immortal _Bab Ballads_.
Ten years later he joined forces with the composer, Arthur Sullivan,
and the result of this collaboration was the well known series of
operas of which _Trial By Jury_ was the first.
Gilbert is second to none in humorous paradoxical thought and sprightly
and clever versification. His themes, subtle and fantastic, are worked
out with a serious absurdity as truly witty as it is charming.
_THE MIGHTY MUST_
Come mighty Must!
Inevitable Shall!
In thee I trust.
Time weaves my coronal!
Go mocking Is!
Go disappointing Was!
That I am this
Ye are the cursed cause!
Yet humble second shall be first,
I ween;
And dead and buried be the curst
Has Been!
Of weak Might Be!
Oh, May, Might, Could, Would, Should!
How powerless ye
For evil or for good!
In every sense
Your moods I cheerless call,
Whate’er your tense
Ye are imperfect, all!
Ye have deceived the trust I’ve shown
In ye!
Away! The Mighty Must alone
Shall be!
_TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE_
By a Miserable Wretch.
Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space
Roll on!
What though I’m in a sorry case?
What though I cannot meet my bills?
What though I suffer toothache’s ills?
What though I swallow countless pills?
Never _you_ mind!
Roll on!
Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through seas of inky air,
Roll on!
It’s true I have no shirts to wear;
It’s true my butcher’s bill is due;
It’s true my prospects all look blue--
But don’t let that unsettle you:
Never _you_ mind!
Roll on!
(_It rolls on_).
_GENTLE ALICE BROWN_
It was a robber’s daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,
Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;
But it isn’t of her parents that I’m going for to sing.
As Alice was a-sitting at her window-sill one day
A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
She cast her eyes upon him, and he looked so good and true,
That she thought, “I could be happy with a gentleman like you!”
And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen;
She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten,
A sorter in the Custom House it was his daily road
(The Custom House was fifteen minutes’ walk from her abode).
But Alice was a pious girl and knew it was not wise
To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes,
So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed--
The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.
“Oh holy father,” Alice said, “’twould grieve you, would it not?
To discover that I was a most disreputable lot!
Of all unhappy sinners I’m the most unhappy one!”
The padre said “Whatever have you been and gone and done?”
“I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad,
I’ve assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad.
I’ve planned a little burglary and forged a little cheque,
And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!”
The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear--
And said “You mustn’t judge yourself too heavily, my dear--
It’s wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece;
But sins like these one expiates at half-a-crown apiece.
“Girls will be girls--you’re very young and flighty in your mind;
Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find:
We mustn’t be too hard upon these little girlish tricks--
Let’s see--five crimes at half a crown--exactly twelve-and six.”
“Oh father,” little Alice cried, “your kindness makes me weep,
You do these little things for me so singularly cheap--
Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;
But, oh, there is another crime I haven’t mentioned yet!
“A pleasant-looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,--
I’ve noticed at my window, as I’ve sat a-catching flies;
He passes by it every day as certain as can be--
I blush to say I’ve winked at him, and he has winked at me!”
“For shame,” said Father Paul, “my erring daughter! On my word
This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard.
Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand
To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!
“This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parents so!
They are the most remunerative customers I know;
For many, many years they’ve kept starvation from my doors,
I never knew so criminal a family as yours!
“The common country folk in this insipid neighbourhood
Have nothing to confess, they’re so ridiculously good;
And if you marry anyone respectable at all,
Why, you’ll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?”
The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown,
And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown;
To tell him how his daughter, who was now for marriage fit,
Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.
Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well,
He said, “I have a notion, and that notion I will tell;
I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.
“I’ve studied human nature, and I know a thing or two;
Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do,
A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small.”
He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square;
He watched his opportunity and seized him unaware;
He took a life preserver and he hit him on the head,
And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.
And pretty little Alice grew more settled in her mind,
She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind,
Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her pretty hand
On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band.
Francis C. Burnand, writer of many comedies and burlesques, was a long
time editor of _Punch_ and wrote much of his best work for that
paper.
One of his most delightful songs, so successfully sung by the Vokes
family is:
_TRUE TO POLL_
I’ll sing you a song, not very long,
But the story somewhat new
Of William Kidd, who, whatever he did,
To his Poll was always true.
He sailed away in a galliant ship
From the port of old Bris_tol_,
And the last words he uttered,
As his hankercher he fluttered,
Were, “My heart is true to Poll.”
His heart was true to Poll,
His heart was true to Poll.
It’s no matter what you do
If your heart be only true:
And his heart _was_ true to Poll.
’Twas a wreck. Willi_am_, on shore he swam,
And looked about for an inn;
When a noble savage lady, of a colour rather shady,
Came up with a kind of grin:
“Oh, marry _me_, and a king you’ll be,
And in a palace loll;
Or we’ll eat you willy-nilly.”
So he gave his _hand_, did Billy,
But his _heart_ was true to Poll.
Away a twelvemonth sped, and a happy life he led
As the King of the Kikeryboos;
His paint was red and yellar, and he used a big umbrella,
And he wore a pair of over-_shoes_!
He’d corals and knives, and twenty-six wives,
Whose beauties I cannot here extol;
One day they all revolted,
So he back to Bristol bolted,
For his _heart_ was true to Poll.
His heart was true to Poll,
His heart was true to Poll.
It’s no matter what you do,
If your heart be only true:
And his _heart_ was true to Poll.
William Ernest Henley, though better known for his serious work, waxed
humorous, especially when making excursions into the artificial verse
forms.
_VILLANELLE_
Now ain’t they utterly too-too
(She ses, my Missus mine, ses she)
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
Joe, just you kool ’em--nice and skew
Upon our old meogginee,
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?
They’re better than a pot’n’ a screw,
They’re equal to a Sunday spree,
Them flymy little bits of Blue!
Suppose I put ’em up the flue,
And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?
I do the ’Igh Art fake, I do.
Joe, I’m consummate; and I _see_
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
Which, Joe, is why I ses to you--
Æsthetic-like, and limp, and free--
Now _ain’t_ they utterly too-too,
Them flymy little bits of Blue?
Robert Louis Stevenson’s humor consists in an extravagance and
whimsicality of thought and expression and is usually subservient to a
greater intent.
His delightful _Child’s Verses_ show quiet roguery and humorous
conceits.
The lovely cow, all red and white,
I love with all my heart;
She gives me milk with all her might
To eat on apple tart.
The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
This original style of Juvenile verse, often imitated, has rarely been
successful in the hands of lesser artists.
James Matthew Barrie, one of the finest English humorists, may not be
quoted successfully because his work is only found in sustained stories
or plays, and few brief extracts will bear separation from their
contexts.
A short passage from _A Window in Thrums_ will hint at the
delightfulness of Barrie’s humor.
_A HUMOURIST ON HIS CALLING_
Tammas put his foot on the pail.
“I tak no credit,” he said modestly, on the evening, I remember, of
Willie Pyatt’s funeral, “in bein’ able to speak wi’ a sort o’ faceelity
on topics ’at I’ve made my ain.”
“Aye,” said T’nowhead, “but it’s no faceelity o’ speakin’ ’at taks me.
There’s Davit Lunan ’at can speak like as if he had learned if aff a
paper, an’ yet I canna thole ’im.”
“Davit,” said Hendry, “doesna speak in a wy ’at a body can follow ’im.
He doesna gae even on. Jess says he’s juist like a man aye at the
cross-roads, an’ no sure o’ his way. But the stock has words, an’ no
ilka body has that.”
“If I was bidden to put Tammas’s gift in a word,” said T’nowhead, “I
would say ’at he had a wy. That’s what I would say.”
“Weel, I suppose I have,” Tammas admitted, “but, wy or no wy, I couldna
put a point on my words if it wasna for my sense o’ humour. Lads,
humour’s what gies the nip to speakin’.”
“It’s what maks ye a sarcesticist, Tammas,” said Hendry; “but what I
wonder at is yer sayin’ the humorous things sae aisy-like. Some says ye
mak them up aforehand, but I ken that’s no true.”
“No, only is’t no true,” said Tammas, “but it couldna be true. Them ’at
says sic things, an’ weel I ken you’re meanin’ Davit Lunan, hasna nae
idea o’ what humour is. It’s a thing ’at spouts oot o’ its ain accord.
Some o’ the maist humorous things I’ve ever said cam oot, as a body may
say, by themselves.”
“I suppose that’s the case,” said T’nowhead; “an’ yet it maun be you
’at brings them up?”
“There’s no nae doubt about its bein’ the case,” said Tammas; “for
I’ve watched mysel’ often. There was a vera guid instance occurred
sune after I married Easie. The earl’s son met me one day, aboot that
time, i’ the Tenements, an’ he didna ken ’at Chirsty was deid, an’ I’d
married again. ‘Well, Haggart,’ he says, in his frank wy, ‘and how is
your wife?’ ‘She’s vera weel, sir,’ I maks answer, ‘but she’s no the
ane you mean.’”
“Na, he meant Chirsty,” said Hendry.
“Is that a’ the story?” asked T’nowhead
Tammas had been looking at us queerly.
“There’s no nane o’ ye lauchin’,” he said, “but I can assure ye the
earl’s son gaed east the toon lauchin’ like onything.”
“But what was’t he lauched at?”
“Ou,” said Tammas, “a humourist doesna tell whaur the humour comes in.”
“No, but when you said that, did ye mean it to be humourous?”
“Am no sayin’ I did, but as I’ve been tellin’ ye humour spouts oot by
itsel’.”
“Aye, but do ye ken noo what the earl’s son gaed awa lauchin’ at?”
Tammas hesitated.
“I dinna exactly see’t,” he confessed, “but that’s no an oncommon
thing. A humourist would often no ken ’at he was are if it wasna by the
wy he maks other fowk lauch. A body canna be expeckit baith to mak the
joke an’ to see’t. Na, that would be doin’ twa fowks’ wark.”
“Weel, that’s reasonable enough, but I’ve often seen ye lauchin’,” said
Hendry, “lang afore other fowk lauched.”
“Nae doubt,” Tammas explained, “an’ that’s because humour has twa
sides, juist like a penny piece. When I say a humorous thing mysel’ I’m
dependent on other fowk to tak note o’ the humour o’t, bein’ mysel’
taen up wi’ the makkin’ o’t. Aye, but there’s things I see an’ hear at’
maks me laucht, an’ that’s the other side o’ humour.”
“I never heard it put sae plain afore,” said T’nowhead, “an’, sal, am
no nane sure but what am a humourist too.”
“Na, na, no you, T’nowhead,” said Tammas hotly.
* * * * *
Sir Owen Seaman, present editor of _Punch_, is also one of the
finest parodists of all time. His humorous verse of all varieties is in
the first rank.
_A NOCTURNE AT DANIELI’S_
(Suggested by Browning’s _A Toccata of Galuppi’s_.)
_Caro mio, Pulcinello_, kindly hear my wail of woe
Lifted from a noble structure--late Palazzo Dandolo.
This is Venice, you will gather, which is full of precious “stones,”
Tintorettos, picture-postcards, and remains of Doges’ bones.
Not of these am I complaining; they are mostly seen by day,
And they only try your patience in an inoffensive way.
But at night, when over Lido rises Dian (that’s the moon),
And the vicious _vaporetti_ cease to vex the still lagoon;
When the final _trovatore_, singing something old and cheap,
Hurls his _tremolo crescendo_ full against my beauty sleep;
When I hear the Riva’s loungers in debate beneath my bower
Summing up (about 1.30) certain questions of the hour;
Then across my nervous system falls the shrill mosquito’s boom,
And it’s “O, to be in England,” where the may is on the bloom.
I admit the power of Music to inflate the savage breast--
There are songs devoid of language which are quite among the best;
But the present orchestration, with its poignant oboe part,
Is, in my obscure opinion, barely fit to rank as Art.
Will it solace me to-morrow, being hit in either eye,
To be told that this is nothing to the season in July?
Shall I go for help to Ruskin? Would it ease my pimply brow
If I found the doges suffered much as I am suffering now?
If identical probosces pinked the lovers who were bored
By the sentimental tinkling of Galuppi’s clavichord?
That’s from Browning (Robert Browning)--I have left his works at
home,
And the poem I allude to isn’t in the Tauchnitz tome;
But, if memory serves me rightly, he was very much concerned
At the thought that in the sequel Venice reaped what Venice earned.
Was he thinking of mosquitoes? Did he mean _their_ poisoned crop?
Was it through ammonia tincture that “the kissing had to stop”?
As for later loves--for Venice never quite mislaid her spell--
Madame Sand and dear De Musset occupied my own hotel!
On the very floor below me, I have heard the patron say,
They were put in No. 13 (No. 36, to-day).
But they parted--“_elle et lui_” did--and it now occurs to me
That mosquitoes came between them in this “kingdom by the sea.”
Poor dead lovers, and such brains, too! What am I that I should
swear
When the creatures munch my forehead, taking more than I can spare?
Should I live to meet the morning, should the climate readjust
Any reparable fragments left upon my outer crust,
Why, at least I still am extant, and a dog that sees the sun
Has the pull of Danieli’s den of “lions,” dead and done.
Courage! I will keep my vigil on the balcony till day
Like a knight in full pyjamas who would rather run away.
Courage! let me ope the casement, let the shutters be withdrawn;
Let scirocco, breathing on me, check a tendency to yawn;
There’s the sea! and--_Ecco l’alba!_ Ha! (in other words) the Dawn!
_TO JULIA UNDER LOCK AND KEY_
(A form of betrothal gift in America is an anklet secured by a padlock,
of which the other party keeps the key.)
When like a bud my Julia blows
In lattice-work of silken hose,
Pleasant I deem it is to note
How, ’neath the nimble petticoat,
Above her fairy shoe is set
The circumvolving zonulet.
And soothly for the lover’s ear
A perfect bliss it is to hear
About her limb so lithe and lank
My Julia’s ankle-bangle clank.
Not rudely tight, for ’twere a sin
To corrugate her dainty skin;
Nor yet so large that it might fare
Over her foot at unaware;
But fashioned nicely with a view
To let her airy stocking through:
So as, when Julia goes to bed,
Of all her gear disburdenèd,
This ring at least she shall not doff
Because she cannot take it off.
And since thereof I hold the key,
She may not taste of liberty,
Not though she suffer from the gout,
Unless I choose to let her out.
_AT THE SIGN OF THE COCK_
(FRENCH STYLE, 1898)
(_Being an Ode in further “Contribution to the Song of French
History,” dedicated, without malice or permission, to Mr. George
Meredith_)
I
Rooster her sign,
Rooster her pugnant note, she struts
Evocative, amazon spurs aprick at heel;
Nid-nod the authentic stump
Of the once ensanguined comb vermeil as wine;
With conspuent doodle-doo
Hails breach o’ the hectic dawn of yon New Year,
Last issue up to date
Of quiverful Fate
Evolved spontaneous; hails with tonant trump
The spiriting prime o’ the clashed carillon-peal;
Ruffling her caudal plumes derisive of scuts;
Inconscient how she stalks an immarcessibly absurd
Bird.
II
Mark where her Equatorial Pioneer
Delirant on the tramp goes littoralwise.
His Flag at furl, portmanteaued; drains to the dregs
The penultimate brandy-bottle, coal-on-the-head-piece gift
Of who avenged the Old Sea-Rover’s smirch.
Marchant he treads the all-along of inarable drift
On dubiously connivent legs,
The facile prey of predatory flies;
Panting for further; sworn to lurch
Empirical on to the Menelik-buffered, enhavened blue,
Rhyming--see Cantique I.--with doodle-doo.
III
Infuriate she kicked against Imperial fact;
Vulnant she felt
What pin-stab should have stained Another’s pelt
Puncture her own Colonial lung-balloon,
Volant to nigh meridian. Whence rebuffed,
The perjured Scythian she lacked
At need’s pinch, sick with spleen of the rudely cuffed
Below her breath she cursed; she cursed the hour
When on her spring for him the young Tyrannical broke
Amid the unhallowed wedlock’s vodka-shower,
She passionate, he dispassionate; tricked
Her wits to eye-blind; borrowed the ready as for dower;
Till from the trance of that Hymettus-moon
She woke,
A nuptial-knotted derelict;
Pensioned with Rescripts other aid declined
By the plumped leech saturate urging Peace
In guise of heavy-armed Gospeller to men,
Tyrannical unto fraternal equal liberal, her. Not she;
Not till Alsace her consanguineous find
What red deteutonising artillery
Shall shatter her beer-reek alien police
The just-now pluripollent; not till then.
IV
More pungent yet the esoteric pain
Squeezing her pliable vitals nourishes feud
Insanely grumous, grumously insane.
For lo!
Past common balmly on the Bordereau,
Churns she the skim o’ the gutter’s crust
With Anti-Judaic various carmagnole,
Whooped praise of the Anti-just;
Her boulevard brood
Gyratory in convolvements militant-mad;
Theatrical of faith in the Belliform,
Her Og,
Her Monstrous. Fled what force she had
To buckle the jaw-gape, wide agog
For the Preconcerted One,
The Anticipated, ripe to clinch the whole;
Queen-bee to hive the hither and thither volant swarm.
Bides she his coming; adumbrates the new
Expurgatorial Divine,
Her final effulgent Avatar,
Postured outside a trampling mastodon
Black as her Baker’s charger; towering; visibly gorged
With blood of traitors. Knee-grip stiff,
Spine straightened, on he rides;
Embossed the Patriot’s brow with hieroglyph
Of martial _dossiers_, nothing forged
About him save his armour. So she bides
Voicing his advent indeterminably far,
Rooster her sign,
Rooster her conspuent doodle-doo.
V
Behold her, pranked with spurs for bloody sport,
How she acclaims,
A crapulous chanticleer,
Breach of the hectic dawn of yon New Year.
Not yet her fill of rumours sucked;
Inebriate of honour; blushfully wroth;
Tireless to play her old primeval games;
Her plumage preened the yet unplucked
Like sails of a galleon, rudder hard amort
With crepitant mast
Fronting the hazard to dare of a dual blast
The intern and the extern, blizzards both.
Anthony C. Deane is also among the best of the modern parodists.
_HERE IS THE TALE_
(AFTER RUDYARD KIPLING)
_Here is the tale--and you must make the most of it:
Here is the rhyme--ah, listen and attend:
Backwards--forwards--read it all and boast of it
If you are anything the wiser at the end!_
Now Jack looked up--it was time to sup, and the bucket was yet to
fill,
And Jack looked round for a space and frowned, then beckoned his
sister Jill,
And twice he pulled his sister’s hair, and thrice he smote her
side;
“Ha’ done, ha’ done with your impudent fun--ha’ done with your
games!” she cried;
“You have made mud-pies of a marvellous size--finger and face are
black,
You have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay--now up and wash you,
Jack!
Or else, or ever we reach our home, there waiteth an angry dame--
Well you know the weight of her blow--the supperless open shame!
Wash, if you will, on yonder hill--wash, if you will, at the
spring,--
Or keep your dirt, to your certain hurt, and an imminent
walloping!”
“You must wash--you must scrub--you must scrape!” growled Jack,
“you must traffic with cans and pails,
Nor keep the spoil of the good brown soil in the rim of your
finger-nails!
The morning path you must tread to your bath--you must wash ere the
night descends,
And all for the cause of conventional laws and the soapmakers’
dividends!
But if ’tis sooth that our meal in truth depends on our washing,
Jill,
By the sacred right of our appetite--haste--haste to the top of the
hill!”
They have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay, they have toiled
and travelled far,
They have climbed to the brow of the hill-top now, where the
bubbling fountains are,
They have taken the bucket and filled it up--yea, filled it up to
the brim;
But Jack he sneered at his sister Jill, and Jill she jeered at him:
“What, blown already!” Jack cried out (and his was a biting mirth!)
“You boast indeed of your wonderful speed--but what is the boasting
worth?
Now, if you can run as the antelope runs and if you can turn like a
hare,
Come, race me, Jill, to the foot of the hill--and prove your
boasting fair!”
“Race? What is a race” (and a mocking face had Jill as she spake
the word)
“Unless for a prize the runner tries? The truth indeed ye heard,
For I can run as the antelope runs, and I can turn like a hare:--
The first one down wins half-a-crown--and I will race you there!”
“Yea, if for the lesson that you will learn (the lesson of humbled
pride)
The price you fix at two-and-six, it shall not be denied;
Come, take your stand at my right hand, for here is the mark we
toe:
Now, are you ready, and are you steady? Gird up your petticoats!
Go!”
And Jill she ran like a winging bolt, a bolt from the bow released,
But Jack like a stream of the lightning gleam, with its pathway
duly greased;
He ran down hill in front of Jill like a summer-lightning flash--
Till he suddenly tripped on a stone, or slipped, and fell to the
earth with a crash.
Then straight did rise on his wondering eyes the constellations
fair,
Arcturus and the Pleiades, the Greater and Lesser Bear,
The swirling rain of a comet’s train he saw, as he swiftly fell--
And Jill came tumbling after him with a loud triumphant yell:
“You have won, you have won, the race is done! And as for the wager
laid--
You have fallen down with a broken crown--the half-crown debt is
paid!”
They have taken Jack to the room at the back where the family
medicines are,
And he lies in bed with a broken head in a halo of vinegar;
While, in that Jill had laughed her fill as her brother fell to
earth,
She had felt the sting of a walloping--she hath paid the price of
her mirth!
_Here is the tale--and now you have the whole of it,
Here is the story, well and wisely-planned,
Beauty--Duty--these make up the soul of it--
But, ah, my little readers, will you mark and understand?_
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, writing often over the pseudonym of Q, is
most versatile and talented. He, too, loved to dally with the muse of
Imitation.
_DE TEA FABULA_
_Plain Language from Truthful James_
Do I sleep? Do I dream?
Am I hoaxed by a scout?
Are things what they seem,
Or is Sophists about?
Is our το τι ηυ ειναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?
Which expressions like these
May be fairly applied
By a party who sees
A Society skied
Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride.
’Twas November the third,
And I says to Bill Nye,
“Which it’s true what I’ve heard:
If you’re, so to speak, fly,
There’s a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended
as High.”
Which I mentioned its name,
And he ups and remarks:
“If dress-coats is the game
And pow-wow in the Parks,
Then I’m nuts on Sordello and Hohenstiel-Schwangau and similar
Snarks.”
Now the pride of Bill Nye
Cannot well be express’d;
For he wore a white tie
And a cut-away vest:
Says I, “Solomon’s lilies ain’t in it, and they was reputed well
dress’d.”
But not far did we wend,
When we saw Pippa pass
On the arm of a friend
--Dr. Furnivall ’t was,
And he wore in his hat two half-tickets for London, return,
second-class.
“Well,” I thought, “this is odd.”
But we came pretty quick
To a sort of a quad
That was all of red brick,
And I says to the porter,--“R. Browning: free passes; and kindly
look slick.”
But says he, dripping tears
In his check handkerchief,
“That symposium’s career’s
Been regrettably brief,
For it went all its pile upon crumpets and busted on gunpowder
leaf!”
Then we tucked up the sleeves
Of our shirts (that were biled),
Which the reader perceives
That our feelings were riled,
And we went for that man till his mother had doubted the traits of
her child.
Which emotions like these
Must be freely indulged
By a party who sees
A Society bulged
On a reef the existence of which its prospectus had never divulged.
But I ask,--Do I dream?
Has it gone up the spout?
Are things what they seem,
Or is Sophists about?
Is our τὸ τι ἦυ εἶναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?
James Kenneth Stephen, like so many of the English minor poets,
expresses his humorous vein best in parody.
Stephen’s light verse belongs mostly to his undergraduate days.
_A SONNET_
Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud’s thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony.
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep:
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:
At other times--good Lord! I’d rather be
Quite unacquainted with the A B C
Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.
_A THOUGHT_
If all the harm that women have done
Were put in a bundle and rolled into one,
Earth would not hold it,
The sky could not enfold it,
It could not be lighted nor warmed by the sun;
Such masses of evil
Would puzzle the devil,
And keep him in fuel while Time’s wheels run.
But if all the harm that’s been done by men
Were doubled, and doubled, and doubled again,
And melted and fused into vapour, and then
Were squared and raised to the power of ten,
There wouldn’t be nearly enough, not near,
To keep a small girl for the tenth of a year.
_THE MILLENNIUM_
TO R. K.
_As long I dwell on some stupendous
And tremendous (Heaven defend us!)
Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrendous
Demoniaco-seraphic
Penman’s latest piece of graphic._
ROBERT BROWNING.
Will there never come a season
Which shall rid us from the curse
Of a prose which knows no reason
And an unmelodious verse:
When the world shall cease to wonder
At the genius of an Ass,
And a boy’s eccentric blunder
Shall not bring success to pass:
When mankind shall be delivered
From the clash of magazines,
And the inkstand shall be shivered
Into countless smithereens:
When there stands a muzzled stripling,
Mute, beside a muzzled bore:
When the Rudyards cease from Kipling
And the Haggards Ride no more?
_SCHOOL_
If there is a vile, pernicious,
Wicked and degraded rule,
Tending to debase the vicious,
And corrupt the harmless fool;
If there is a hateful habit
Making man a senseless tool,
With the feelings of a rabbit
And the wisdom of a mule;
It’s the rule which inculcates,
It’s the habit which dictates
The wrong and sinful practice of going into school.
If there’s anything improving
To an erring sinner’s state,
Which is useful in removing
All the ills of human fate;
If there’s any glorious custom
Which our faults can dissipate,
And can casually thrust ’em
Out of sight and make us great;
It’s the plan by which we shirk
Half our matu-ti-nal work,
The glorious institution of always being late.
Barry Pain, journalist and author, following the trend of the hour,
produced this amusing set of parodies.
_THE POETS AT TEA_
1--(_Macaulay, who made it_)
Pour, varlet, pour the water,
The water steaming hot!
A spoonful for each man of us,
Another for the pot!
We shall not drink from amber,
Nor Capuan slave shall mix
For us the snows of Athos
With port at thirty-six;
Whiter than snow the crystals,
Grown sweet ’neath tropic fires,
More rich the herbs of China’s field,
The pasture-lands more fragrance yield;
For ever let Britannia wield
The tea-pot of her sires!
2--(_Tennyson, who took it hot_)
I think that I am drawing to an end:
For on a sudden came a gasp for breath.
And stretching of the hands, and blinded eyes,
And a great darkness falling on my soul.
O Hallelujah!... Kindly pass the milk.
3--(_Swinburne, who let it get cold_)
As the sin that was sweet in the sinning
Is foul in the ending thereof,
As the heat of the summer’s beginning
Is past in the winter of love:
O purity, painful and pleading!
O coldness, ineffably gray!
Oh, hear us, our handmaid unheeding,
And take it away!
4--(_Cowper, who thoroughly enjoyed it_)
The cosy fire is bright and gay,
The merry kettle boils away
And hums a cheerful song.
I sing the saucer and the cup;
Pray, Mary, fill the tea-pot up,
And do not make it strong.
5--(_Browning, who treated it allegorically_)
Tut! Bah! We take as another case--
Pass the bills on the pills on the window-sill; notice the capsule
(A sick man’s fancy, no doubt, but I place
Reliance on trade-marks, Sir)--so perhaps you’ll
Excuse the digression--this cup which I hold
Light-poised--Bah, it’s spilt in the bed!--well, let’s on go--
Hold Bohea and sugar, Sir; if you were told
The sugar was salt, would the Bohea be Congo?
6--(_Wordsworth, who gave it away_)
“Come, little cottage girl, you seem
To want my cup of tea;
And will you take a little cream?
Now tell the truth to me.”
She had a rustic, woodland grin,
Her cheek was soft as silk,
And she replied, “Sir, please put in
A little drop of milk.”
“Why, what put milk into your head?
’Tis cream my cows supply”;
And five times to the child I said,
“Why, pig-head, tell me, why?”
“You call me pig-head,” she replied;
“My proper name is Ruth.
I called that milk”--she blushed with pride--
“You bade me speak the truth.”
7--(_Poe, who got excited over it_)
Here’s a mellow cup of tea, golden tea!
What a world of rapturous thought its fragrance brings to me!
Oh, from out the silver cells
How it wells!
How it smells!
Keeping tune, tune, tune
To the tintinnabulation of the spoon.
And the kettle on the fire
Boils its spout off with desire,
With a desperate desire
And a crystalline endeavour
Now, now to sit, or never,
On the top of the pale-faced moon,
But he always came home to tea, tea, tea, tea, tea,
Tea to the n--th.
8--(_Rossetti, who took six cups of it_)
The lilies lie in my lady’s bower
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost),
They faintly droop for a little hour;
My lady’s head droops like a flower.
She took the porcelain in her hand
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost);
She poured; I drank at her command;
Drank deep, and now--you understand!
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost.)
9--(_Burns, who liked it adulterated_)
Weel, gin ye speir, I’m no inclined,
Whusky or tay--to state my mind,
Fore ane or ither;
For, gin I tak the first, I’m fou,
And gin the next, I’m dull as you,
Mix a’ thegither.
10--(_Walt Whitman, who didn’t stay more than a minute_)
One cup for myself-hood,
Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together,
O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please, when you’ve done with it.
What butter-colour’d hair you’ve got. I don’t want to be personal.
All right, then, you needn’t. You’re a stale-cadaver.
Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned.
Allons, from all bat-eyed formula.
F. Anstey (pen name of J. B. Guthrie) wrote many novels and short skits
as well as verses. Like many of his contemporaries he is especially
happy in a parody vein.
_SELECT PASSAGES FROM A COMING POET_
_Disenchantment_
My Love has sicklied unto Loath,
And foul seems all that fair I fancied--
The lily’s sheen’s a leprous growth,
The very buttercups are rancid.
_Abasement_
With matted head a-dabble in the dust,
And eyes tear-sealèd in a saline crust
I lie all loathly in my rags and rust--
Yet learn that strange delight may lurk in self-disgust.
_Stanza Written in Depression Near Dulwich_
The lark soars up in the air;
The toad sits tight in his hole;
And I would I were certain which of the pair
Were the truer type of my soul!
_To My Lady_
Twine, lanken fingers, lily-lithe,
Gleam, slanted eyes, all beryl-green,
Pout, blood-red lips that burst a-writhe,
Then--kiss me, Lady Grisoline!
_The Monster_
Uprears the monster now his slobberous head,
Its filamentous chaps her ankles brushing;
Her twice-five roseal toes are cramped in dread,
Each maidly instep mauven-pink is flushing.
_A Trumpet Blast_
Pale Patricians, sunk in self-indulgence,
Blink your blearèd eyes. Behold the Sun--
Burst proclaim in purpurate effulgence,
Demos dawning, and the Darkness done!
Hilaire Belloc, in addition to wiser matters, wrote most amusing
nonsense animal verses.
_THE PYTHON_
A python I should not advise,--
It needs a doctor for its eyes,
And has the measles yearly.
However, if you feel inclined
To get one (to improve your mind,
And not from fashion merely),
Allow no music near its cage;
And when it flies into a rage
Chastise it most severely.
I had an Aunt in Yucatan
Who bought a Python from a man
And kept it for a pet.
She died because she never knew
These simple little rules and few;--
The snake is living yet.
_THE BISON_
The Bison is vain, and (I write it with pain)
The Door-mat you see on his head
Is not, as some learned professors maintain,
The opulent growth of a genius’ brain;
But is sewn on with needle and thread.
_THE MICROBE_
The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots
On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen--
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us that they must be so....
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about!
_THE FROG_
Be kind and tender to the Frog,
And do not call him names,
As “Slimy-Skin,” or “Polly-wog,”
Or likewise, “Uncle James,”
Or “Gape-a-grin,” or “Toad-gone-wrong,”
Or “Billy-Bandy-knees”;
The Frog is justly sensitive
To epithets like these.
No animal will more repay,
A treatment kind and fair,
At least, so lonely people say
Who keep a frog (and, by the way,
They are extremely rare).
Gilbert K. Chesterton, England’s great humorist of today, is cleverly
gay in his French Forms.
_A BALLADE OF SUICIDE_
The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours--on the wall--
Are drawing a long breath to shout “Hurray!”
The strangest whim has seized me.... After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.
To-morrow is the time I get my pay--
My uncle’s sword is hanging in the hall--
I see a little cloud all pink and grey--
Perhaps the rector’s mother will _not_ call--
I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way--
I never read the works of Juvenal--
I think I will not hang myself to-day.
The world will have another washing day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H. G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;
Rationalists are growing rational--
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
So secret that the very sky seems small--
I think I will not hang myself to-day.
_Envoi_
Prince, I can hear the trump of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even today your royal head may fall--
I think I will not hang myself to-day.
_A BALLADE OF AN ANTI-PURITAN_
They spoke of Progress spiring round,
Of Light and Mrs. Humphry Ward--
It is not true to say I frowned,
Or ran about the room and roared;
I might have simply sat and snored--
I rose politely in the club
And said, “I feel a little bored;
Will someone take me to a pub?”
The new world’s wisest did surround
Me; and it pains me to record
I did not think their views profound,
Or their conclusions well assured;
The simple life I can’t afford,
Besides, I do not like the grub--
I want a mash and sausage, “scored”--
Will someone take me to a pub?
I know where Men can still be found,
Anger and clamorous accord,
And virtues growing from the ground,
And fellowship of beer and board,
And song, that is a sturdy cord,
And hope, that is a hardy shrub,
And goodness, that is God’s last word--
Will someone take me to a pub?
_Envoi_
Prince, Bayard would have smashed his sword
To see the sort of knights you dub--
Is that the last of them--O Lord!
Will someone take me to a pub?
FRENCH HUMOR
Voltaire, the assumed name of François Marie Arouet, was one of the
most famous of French writers. Plays, fiction, criticism and letters
are among his celebrated works.
We can quote but a short bit from his novel of _Candide_:
* * * * *
The tutor Pangloss was the oracle of the house, and little Candide
listened to his lessons with all the ready faith natural to his age and
disposition.
Pangloss used to teach the science of
metaphysico-theologo-cosmologo-noodleology. He demonstrated most
admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this
best of all possible worlds, the castle of my lord baron was the most
magnificent of castles, and my lady the best of all possible baronesses.
“It has been proved,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than
they are; for, everything being made for a certain end, the end for
which everything is made is necessarily the best end. Observe how noses
were made to carry spectacles, and spectacles we have accordingly. Our
legs are clearly intended for shoes and stockings, so we have them.
Stone has been formed to be hewn and dressed for building castles, so
my lord has a very fine one, for it is meet that the greatest baron in
the province should have the best accommodation. Pigs were made to be
eaten, and we eat pork all the year round. Consequently those who have
asserted that all is well have said what is silly; they should have
said of everything that is, that it is the best that could possibly be.”
Candide listened attentively, and innocently believed all that he
heard; for he thought Mlle. Cunégonde extremely beautiful, though he
never had the boldness to tell her so. He felt convinced that, next
to the happiness of being born Baron of Thundertentronckh, the second
degree of happiness was to be Mlle. Cunégonde, the third to see her
every day, and the fourth to hear Professor Pangloss, the greatest
philosopher in the province, and therefore in all the world.
One day Mlle. Cunégonde, while taking a walk near the castle, in the
little wood which was called the park, saw through the bushes Dr.
Pangloss giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother’s
chambermaid, a little brunette, very pretty and very willing to learn.
As Mlle. Cunégonde had a great taste for science, she watched with
breathless interest the repeated experiments that were carried on under
her eyes; she clearly perceived that the doctor had sufficient reason
for all he did; she saw the connection between causes and effects, and
returned home much agitated, though very thoughtful, and filled with
a yearning after scientific pursuits, for sharing in which she wished
that young Candide might find sufficient reason in her, and that she
might find the same in him.
She met Candide as she was on her way back to the castle, and blushed;
the youth blushed likewise. She bade him good morning in a voice
that struggled for utterance; and Candide answered her without well
knowing what he was saying. Next day, as the company were leaving the
table after dinner, Cunégonde and Candide found themselves behind a
screen. Cunégonde let fall her handkerchief; Candide picked it up; she
innocently took hold of his hand, and the young man, as innocently,
kissed hers with an ardor, a tenderness, and a grace quite peculiar;
their lips met and their eyes sparkled. His lordship, the Baron of
Thundertentronckh, happened to pass by the screen, and, seeing that
particular instance of cause and effect, drove Candide out of the
castle with vigorous kicks. Cunégonde swooned away, but, as soon as she
recovered, my lady the baroness boxed her ears, and all was confusion
and consternation in that most magnificent and most charming of all
possible castles.
Marc Antoine Desaugiers was a Parisian song writer and author of
vaudeville.
His wit was cynical and his versification of a facile sort.
_THE ETERNAL YAWNER_
Ah! well-a-day, in all the earth
What can one do?
Where for amusement seek, or mirth?
Ah! well-a-day, in all the earth
What can one do
To cease from yawning here below?
Of mortal man, what is the rôle?
To bustle, eat, and labor ply;
To plot, grow old, and then to die?
Not very lively this, or droll.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
No wonder in my mind begets
The sun, which poets call sublime;
Not this the first or second time
He rises, runs his race, and sets.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
To one dull course the seasons cling:
For full five thousand years we view
The summer following after spring,
And winter autumn’s close pursue.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
My watch (a friend of little use),
Whose hands their tedious circuit ply,
Tells me how slow the hours fly,
Not how I may my hours amuse.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
I half the world have traveled o’er,
To see if men diversion found;
But everywhere, on every ground,
I saw what I had seen before.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
In weariness which I abhorred,
Wishing to know how sped the great,
I dined with men of high estate,
And murmured as I left their board,
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
Wishing to see if, when in love,
Life some unworn amusement has,
Love I attempted, but alas!
Love in all climes the same doth prove.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
Thus being, at this early age,
Of all things sick, both night and day,
In hopes to be more blithe and gay
I did in settled life engage.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
The street where now my life I led,
By neighborhood my steps brought on
To th’ Institute and Odéon,
Which every day I visited.
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
By writing this (hope quickly gone),
To cheer my spirits I essayed;
But yawned the while this song was made,
And now I sing it, still I yawn:
Ah! well-a-day, etc.
Pierre Jean de Béranger was one of France’s greatest lyric poets.
His versatility compassed songs of every sort from political to
bacchanalian, from amatory to philosophical.
_THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG LADIES_
What! this Monsieur de Fénélon
The girls pretend to school!
Of Mass and needlework he prates;
Mama, he’s but a fool.
Balls, concerts, and the piece just out,
Can teach us better far, no doubt:
Tra la la la, tra la la la,
Thus are young ladies taught, Mama!
Let others mind their work; I’ll play,
Mama, the sweet duet,
That for my master’s voice and mine
Is from Armida set.
If Rénaud felt love’s burning flame,
I feel some shootings of the same:
Tra la la la, tra la la la,
Thus are young ladies taught, Mama!
Let others keep accounts; I’ll dance,
Mama, an hour or two;
And from my master learn a step
Voluptuous and new.
At this long skirt my feet rebel;
To loop it up a bit were well.
Tra la la la, tra la la la,
Thus are young ladies taught, Mama!
Let others o’er my sister watch;
Mama, I’d rather trace--
I’ve wondrous talent--at the Louvre
The Apollo’s matchless grace:
Throughout his figure what a charm!
’Tis naked, true--but that’s no harm
Tra la la la, tra la la la,
Thus are young ladies taught, Mama!
Mama, I must be married soon,
Even fashion says no less;
Besides, there is an urgent cause,
I must, Mama, confess.
The world my situation sees--
But there they laugh at scrapes like these.
Tra la la la, tra la la la,
Thus are young ladies taught, Mama!
_THE DEAD ALIVE_
When a bore gets hold of me,
Dull and overbearing,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as herring.
When the thrusts of pleasure glib
In my sides are sticking,
Poking fun at every rib,
I’m alive and kicking.
When a snob his £ s. d.
Jingles in his breeches,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as ditches.
When a birthday’s champagne-corks
Round my ears are clicking,
Marking time with well-oil’d works,
I’m alive and kicking.
Kings and their supremacy
Occupy the table,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as Abel.
Talk about the age of wine
(Bought by cash or ticking),
So you bring a sample fine,
I’m alive and kicking.
When a trip to Muscovy
Tempts a conquest glutton,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as mutton.
Match me with a tippling foe,
See who first wants picking
From the dead man’s field below,
I’m alive and kicking.
When great scribes to poetry
March, by notions big led,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as pig-lead.
When you start a careless song,
Not at grammar sticking,
Good to push the wine along.
I’m alive and kicking.
When a bigot, half-hours three,
Spouts in canting gloom’s tones,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as tombstones.
When in cloisters underground,
Built of stone or bricking,
Orders of the screw you found,
I’m alive and kicking.
Bourbons back in France we see
(Sure we don’t much need ’em),
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as freedom.
Bess returns, and still our throats
Find us here a-slicking,
Sitting free without our coats--
I’m alive and kicking.
Forced to leave this company,
Bottle-wine and horn-ale,
Be so kind as pray for me,
I’m as dead as door-nail.
Pledging, though, a quick return,
Soon my anchor sticking
On the shore for which I yearn--
I’m alive and kicking.
A great name that ushers in the Nineteenth century is that of Honoré de
Balzac, chief of the realistic school of French novelists. His humor is
keen and is never lacking in his somewhat diversified writings.
From his well known _Contes Drolatiques_ we give two stories.
_A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING_
Louis XI had given the Abbey of Turpenay to a gentleman who, enjoying
the revenue, had called himself M. de Turpenay. It happened that the
king being at Plessis-les-Tours, the real abbot, who was a monk, came
and presented himself before the king, and presented a petition,
remonstrating with him that, canonically and monastically, he was
entitled to the abbey, and the usurping gentleman wronged him of his
right, and therefore he called upon his Majesty to have justice done
to him. Nodding his peruke, the king promised to render him contented.
This monk, importunate as are all hooded animals, came often at the end
of the king’s meals, who, bored with the holy water of the convent,
called friend Tristan and said to him, “Old fellow, there is here a
Turpenay who annoys me; rid the world of him for me.”
Tristan, taking a frock for a monk, or a monk for a frock, came to
this gentleman, whom all the court called M. de Turpenay, and, having
accosted him, managed to lead him on one side, then, taking him by the
button-hole, gave him to understand that the king desired he should
die. He tried to resist, supplicating and supplicating to escape,
but in no way could he obtain a hearing. He was delicately strangled
between the head and shoulders, so that he expired; and, three hours
afterwards, Tristan told the king that he was despatched. It happened
five days later, which is the space in which souls come back again,
that the monk came into the room where the king was, and when he saw
him he was much astonished. Tristan was present; the king called him,
and whispered into his ear:
“You have not done what I told you to.”
“Saving your Majesty, I have done it. Turpenay is dead.”
“Eh? I meant this monk.”
“I understood the gentleman!”
“What, it is done, then?”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Very well, then”--turning toward the monk--“come here, monk.” The monk
approached. The king said to him, “Kneel down.” The poor monk began to
shiver in his shoes. But the king said to him, “Thank God that He has
not willed that you should be executed as I had ordered. He who took
your estates has been instead. God has done you justice. Go and pray to
God for me, and don’t stir out of your convent.”
This proves the good-heartedness of Louis XI. He might very well
have hanged the monk, the cause of the error. As for the aforesaid
gentleman, it was given out that he had died in the king’s service.
_INNOCENCE_
When Queen Catherine was princess royal, to make herself welcome to
the king, her father-in-law, who at that time was very ill indeed, she
presented him from time to time with Italian pictures, knowing that he
liked them much, being a friend of Sire Raphael d’Urbino and of the
Sires Primaticcio and Leonardo da Vinci, to whom he sent large sums
of money. She obtained from her family a precious picture, painted by
a Venetian named Titian (painter to the Emperor Charles, and in very
high favor), in which there were portraits of Adam and Eve at the
moment when God left them to wander about the terrestrial paradise.
They were painted full height, in the costume of the period, in which
it is difficult to make a mistake, because they were attired in their
ignorance, and caparisoned with the divine grace which enveloped
them--a difficult thing to execute on account of the color, but one
in which the said Sire Titian excelled. The picture was put into the
room of the poor king, who was then ill with the disease of which he
eventually died. It had a great success at the Court of France, where
every one wished to see it; but no one was able to until after the
king’s death, since at his desire it was allowed to remain in his room
as long as he lived.
One day Catherine took with her to the king’s room her son Francis and
little Margy, who began to talk at random, as children will. Now here,
now there, these children had heard this picture of Adam and Eve spoken
about, and had tormented their mother to take them to see it. Since
the two little ones sometimes amused the old king, the princess royal
complied with their request.
“You wished to see Adam and Eve, who were our first parents; there they
are,” said she.
Then she left them in great astonishment before Titian’s picture, and
seated herself by the bedside of the king, who delighted to watch the
children.
“Which of the two is Adam?” said Francis, nudging his sister Margaret’s
elbow.
“You silly,” replied she, “they would have to be dressed for one to
know that!”
* * * * *
Louis Charles Alfred de Musset was a celebrated French poet and man of
letters. Though he died in early middle age, he left many volumes of
wise and witty writings.
_THE SUPPER-PARTY OF THE THREE CAVALIERS_
“Be silent, all of you!” cried Mimi. “I want to talk a little now.
Since the magnificent M. Marcel does not care for fables, I am going to
relate a true story, _et quorum pars magna fui_.”
“Do you speak Latin?” asked Eugène.
“As you perceive,” Mlle. Pinson answered. “I have inherited that
sentence from my uncle, who served under the great Napoleon, and who
always repeated it before he gave us an account of a battle. If you
don’t know the meaning of the words, I’ll teach you free of charge.
They mean, ‘I give you my word of honor.’ Well, then, you are to know
that one night last week I went with two of my friends, Blanchette and
Rougette, to the Odéon theater----”
“Watch me cut the cake,” interrupted Marcel.
“Cut ahead, but listen,” Mlle. Pinson continued. “As I was saying,
I went with Blanchette and Rougette to the Odéon to see a tragedy.
Rougette, as you know, has just lost her grandmother, and has inherited
four hundred francs. We had taken a box, opposite to which, in the
pit, sat three students. These young men liked our looks, and, on the
pretext that we were alone and unprotected, invited us to supper.”
“Immediately?” asked Marcel. “That was gallant indeed. And you refused,
I suppose?”
“By no means,” said Mimi. “We accepted the invitation, and in the
intermission, without waiting for the end of the play, we all went off
to Viot’s restaurant.”
“With your cavaliers?”
“With our cavaliers. The leader, of course, began by telling us that
he had nothing, but such little obstacles did not disconcert us.
We ordered everything we wanted. Rougette took pen and paper, and
ordered a veritable marriage-feast: shrimps, an omelet with sugar,
fritters, mussels, eggs with whipped cream--in fact, all the delicacies
imaginable. To tell the truth, our young gentlemen pulled wry
faces----”
“I have no doubt of it!” said Marcel.
“We didn’t care. When everything was brought in we began to act the
part of great ladies. We approved of nothing, but found everything
disgusting. Hardly was any dish brought in but we sent it out again.
‘Waiter, take this away; it’s intolerable; where did you get the
horrible stuff?’ Our unknown gentlemen wanted to eat, but found it
impossible. In a word, we supped as Sancho dined, and in our vigor
nearly broke several dishes.”
“Nice conduct! And who was to pay for it all?”
“That is precisely the question that our three unknown gentlemen
asked one another. To judge by what we overheard of their whispered
conversation, one of them owned six francs, the second a good deal
less, and the third had only his watch, which he generously pulled
out of his pocket. So the three unfortunates went up to the cashier,
intending to gain a delay of some sort. What answer do you suppose they
received?”
“I imagine that you would be kept there, and your gentlemen sent to
jail.”
“You are wrong,” said Mlle. Pinson. “Before going in Rougette had
taken her precautions, and had paid for everything in advance. You can
imagine the scene when Viot answered, ‘Gentlemen, everything is paid.’
Our three unknown gentlemen looked at us as never three dogs looked at
three bishops, with pitiful stupefaction mixed with pure tenderness.
But we, without seeming to notice anything unusual, went down-stairs
and ordered a cab. ‘Dear Marquise,’ said Rougette to me, ‘we ought to
take these gentlemen home.’ ‘Certainly, dear Countess,’ answered I. Our
poor young gallants did not know what to say, they looked so sheepish.
They wanted to get rid of our politeness, and asked not to be taken
home, even refusing to give their address. No wonder, either, because
they felt sure that they were having to do with great ladies, and they
lived in Fish-Cat Street!”
The two students, the friends of Marcel, who, up to this time, had done
nothing but smoke their pipes and drink in silence, appeared little
pleased with this story. Their faces grew red, and they seemed to know
as much about this unfortunate supper as Mimi herself, at whom they
glanced restlessly. Marcel, laughing, said:
“Tell us who they were, Mlle. Mimi. Since it happened last week it does
not matter.”
“Never!” cried the girl. “Play a trick on a man--yes. But ruin his
career--never!”
“You are right,” said Eugène, “and are acting even more wisely than you
yourself are aware of. There is not a single young fellow at college
who has not some such mistake or folly behind him, and yet it is from
among these very people that France draws her most distinguished men.”
“Yes,” said Marcel, “that’s true. There are peers of France who now
dine at Flicoteau’s, but who once could not pay their bills. But,” he
added, and winked, “haven’t you seen your unknown gentlemen again?”
“What do you take us for?” answered Mlle. Pinson in a severe and almost
offended tone. “You know Blanchette and Rougette, and do you suppose
that I----?”
“Very well,” said Marcel, “don’t be angry. But isn’t this a nice state
of affairs? Here are three giddy girls, who may not be able to pay
their next day’s dinner, and who throw away their money for the sake of
mystifying three poor unoffending devils!”
“But why did they invite us to supper?” asked Mlle. Pinson.--“_Mimi
Pinson._”
* * * * *
Charles Paul de Kock was a novelist and dramatist. A short quotation
from _A Much Worried Gentleman_ shows the ubiquitous mother-in-law
jest.
_THÉOPHILE’S MOTHER-IN-LAW_
“Son-in-law, you will offer me your arm; your wife will take her
cousin’s.”
“Yes, mother-in-law.”
“Furthermore, when we get to the caterer’s for dinner, you must not
whisper to your wife. People might suspect something unrefined.”
“Yes, mother-in-law.”
“Neither must you kiss her.”
“Why, you object to me kissing my wife?”
“Before people, yes. It’s very bad form. Haven’t you time enough for it
at home?”
“True.”
“At table you will not sit next to your wife, but next to me.”
“That’s agreed.”
“During the meal you will take care that no comic songs on your
marriage are sung. Those who write them usually permit themselves
indelicate jokes, so that the ladies are put out. That is the worst
taste possible.”
“I’ll see that none are sung.”
“You will dance only once with your wife during the evening. Understand
me--only once.”
“But, why, why?”
“Because it is proper to let the bride accept the invitations of
relatives, friends, and strangers.”
“But I didn’t marry in order that my wife should dance with everybody
except myself!”
“Do you wish to insinuate, son-in-law, that you can instruct me
concerning the usages of polite society? You are beginning well.”
“I assure you, mother-in-law, that I had no intention----”
“That will do. I accept your excuses. We now come to a more delicate
matter, to--but, of course, you must understand me.”
“I confess that I do not at all.”
“Listen, son-in-law. Some newly married young men, on their
wedding-night, when the ball is at its gayest, take the liberty of
carrying off their wives, and disappearing with them about twelve
o’clock.”
“And you object to that?”
“Fie, sir, fie! If you were to be guilty of such a thing, I would make
your wife sue for a divorce the day after your marriage.”
“Be easy, then; I will not disappear. But when may I go away with my
wife?”
“I shall take my daughter with me, and arrange an opportune time when
the decencies of the situation may be observed.”
“And who will take me?”
“You will go alone, but you will not go, understand me well, until
there isn’t a cat left at the ball.”
“I shall be getting to bed very late, then. Some of the people will
want square dances and country dances, and----”
“You will get to bed soon enough, son-in-law.”
“But why all this, mother-in-law?”
“That will do, M. Tamponnet! It is not becoming that this conversation
be prolonged.”
* * * * *
Alexandre Dumas, the Elder, was a noted novelist and dramatist. His
output was enormous, and the wit, though always discernible, was
subordinate to matters of heroism, adventure and the like.
_CHAPTER TOUCHING THE OLFACTORY ORGAN_
Has it ever occurred to you, dear reader, how admirable an organ the
nose is?
The nose; yes, the nose.
And how useful an article this very nose is to every creature which, as
Ovid says, lifts its face to heaven?
Well, strange as it may seem, monstrous ingratitude that it is, no poet
has yet thought of addressing an ode to the nose!
So it has been left to me, who am not a poet, or who, at least, claim
to rank only after our greatest poets, to conceive such an idea.
Truly, the nose is unfortunate.
So many things have been invented for the eyes:
Songs and compliments and kaleidoscopes, pictures and scenery and
spectacles.
And for the ears:
Ear-rings, of course, and _Robert the Devil_, _William Tell_,
and _Fra Diavolo_, Stradivarius violins and Érard pianos and Sax
trumpets.
And for the mouth:
Lent, plain cooking, _The Gastronomists’ Calendar_, _The
Gormand’s Dictionary_. Soups of every kind have they made for it,
from Russian broth to French cabbage-soup; dishes for it are connected
with the reputations of the greatest men, from Soubise cutlets to
Richelieu puddings; its lips have been compared to coral, its teeth to
pearls, its breath to perfume. Before it have been set plumed peacocks
and undrawn snipes; and, for the future, it has been promised whole
roast larks.
But what has been invented for the nose?
Attar of roses and snuff.
You have not done well, oh, my masters the philanthropists; oh, my
brothers the poets!
And yet how faithfully this limb----
“It is not a limb!” cry the scientists.
I beg your pardon, gentlemen, and retract. This appendage--Ah yes, I
was saying with what touching fidelity this appendage has done service
for you.
The eyes sleep, the mouth closes, the ears are deaf.
The nose is always on duty.
It watches over your repose and contributes to your health. Feet,
hands, all other parts of the body are stupid. The hands are often
caught in foolish acts; the feet stumble, and in their clumsiness allow
the body to fall. And when they do, they get off free, and the poor
nose is punished for their misdeeds.
How often do you not hear it said: “Mr. So-and-So has broken his nose.”
There have been a great many broken noses since the creation of the
world.
Can any one give a single instance of a nose broken through any fault
of its own?
No; but, nevertheless, the poor nose is always being scolded.
Well, it endures it all with angelic patience. True, it sometimes has
the impertinence to snore. But where and when did you ever hear it
complain?...
But let us forget for a moment the utility of the nose, and regard it
only from the esthetic point of view.
A cedar of Lebanon, it tramples underfoot the hyssop of the mustache;
a central column, it provides a support for the double arch of the
eyebrows. On its capital perches the eagle of thought. It is enwreathed
with smiles. With what boldness did the nose of Ajax confront the storm
when he said, “I will escape in spite of the gods.” With what courage
did the nose of the great Condé--whose greatness really derived from
his nose--with what courage did the nose of the great Condé enter
before all others, before the great Condé himself, the entrenchments
of the Spanish at Lens and Rocroy, where their conqueror boldly
flourished the staff of command? With what assurance was Dugazon’s
nose thrust before the public, that nose which knew how to wriggle in
forty-two different ways, and each way funnier than the last?
No, I do not believe that the nose should be permitted to remain in the
obscurity into which man’s ingratitude has hitherto forced it.
I suggest as one reason why the nose has submitted to this injustice
the fact that Occidental noses are so small.
But the deuce is to pay if the noses of the West are the only noses.
There are the Oriental noses, which are very handsome noses.
Do you question the superiority of these noses to your own, gentlemen
of Paris, of Vienna, of St. Petersburg?
In that case, my Viennese friends, go by the Danube; you Parisians,
take the steamer; Petersburgers, the sledge; and say these simple words:
“To Georgia.”
But I forewarn you of deep humiliation. Should you bring to Georgia one
of the largest noses in Europe, at the gate of Tiflis they would gaze
at you in astonishment and exclaim:
“What a pity that this gentleman has lost his nose on the way.” ...
Ah, sweet Heaven! those beautiful Georgian noses! Robust noses,
magnificent noses!
They are all shapes:
Round, fat, long, large.
There is every color:
White, pink, crimson, violet.
Some are set with rubies, others with pearls. I saw one set with
turquoises.
In Georgia, Vakhtang IV abolished the fathom, the meter, and the yard,
keeping only the nose.
Goods are measured off by the nose.
They say, “I bought seventeen noses of flannel for a dressing-gown,
seven noses of cloth for a pair of breeches, a nose and a half of satin
for a cravat.”
Let us add, finally, that the Georgian ladies find this more convenient
than European measures.
* * * * *
Théophile Gautier, poet, artist and novelist was identified with the
romantic movement in French literature.
A charming art of description was his, as may be seen in the story of
the _Lap Dog_.
_FANFRELUCHE_
To write in praise of this marvelous lap-dog, one should pluck a quill
from the wing of Love himself; the hands of the Graces alone would be
light enough to trace his picture; nor would the touch of Latour be too
soft.
His name was Fanfreluche, a pretty name for a dog, and one that he bore
with honor.
Fanfreluche was no larger than his mistress’s hand, and it is well
known that the marquise has the smallest hand in the world; and yet he
seemed larger to the eye, assuming almost the proportions of a small
sheep, for he had silky hair a foot in length, and so fine and soft and
lustrous that the tresses of Minette were a mere mop by contrast. When
he presented his paw, and one pressed it a little, one was astonished
to feel nothing at all. Fanfreluche was rather a ball of silk, from
which two beautiful brown eyes and a little red nose glittered, than an
actual dog. Such a dog could only have belonged to the mother of Love,
who lost him in Cytherea, where the marquise, on one of her occasional
visits, found him. Look for a moment at this fascinatingly exquisite
face. Would not Roxalana herself have been jealous of that delicately
tipped-up nose, divided in the middle by a little furrow just like Anne
of Austria’s?
What vivacity in that quick eye! And that double row of white teeth,
no larger than grains of rice, which, at the least emotion, sparkled
in all their brilliance--what duchess would not envy them? And this
charming Fanfreluche, apart from his physical attractions, possessed
a thousand social graces: he danced the minuet with exquisite grace,
knew how to give his paw and tell the hour, capered before the queen
and great ladies of France, and distinguished his right paw from his
left. And Fanfreluche was learned, and knew more than the members of
the Academy. If he was not a member of that body it was because he did
not desire it, thinking, no doubt, to shine rather by his absence. The
abbé declared that he was as strong as a Turk in the dead languages,
and that, if he did not talk, it was from pure malice and to vex his
mistress.
Then, too, Fanfreluche had not the vivacity of common dogs. He was
very dainty, and very hard to please. He absolutely refused to eat
anything but little pies of calves’ brains made especially for him;
he would drink nothing but cream from a little Japanese saucer. Only
when his mistress dined in town would he consent to nibble at the wing
of a chicken, and to take sweets for dessert; but he did not grant
this favor to every one, and one had to have an excellent cook to gain
it. Fanfreluche had only one little fault. But who is perfect in this
world? He loved cherries in brandy and Spanish snuff, of which he took
a little pinch from time to time. But the latter is a weakness he
shared with the Prince of Condé.
When he heard the cover of the general’s golden snuff-box click, it
was a treat to see him sit up on his little hind legs and brush the
carpet with his silken tail; and, if the marquise was engrossed in the
pleasures of whist, and did not watch him closely, he would jump on the
abbé’s lap, who fed him with brandied cherries. And Fanfreluche, whose
head was not strong, would become as tipsy as a Swiss guard and two
choristers, would perform the queerest little tricks on the carpet, and
become extraordinarily ferocious on the subject of the calves of the
chevalier, who, to preserve what little was left of them, would draw
up his legs on his chair. Then Fanfreluche was no longer a little dog,
but a little lion, and the marquise alone could manage him. His picture
would not be complete without mentioning the droll little naughtinesses
that he was guilty of before being stowed away into his muff, and put
to bed in his niche of rosewood, padded with white satin and edged with
blue silk cord.
Henri Murger, a noted litterateur, wrote on themes both gloomy and
merry. More than most, he ran the gamut from grave to gay, from lively
to severe.
Among his best known works are his Bohemian Life Sketches. From the
subjoined bit, it may be seen that boresome parties obtain in all times
and nations.
_AN EVENING RECEPTION_
Toward the end of the month of December the messengers of Bidault’s
agency received for distribution about a hundred copies of a circular
of which we certify the following to be a true and genuine copy:
* * * * *
Messieurs Rodolphe and Marcel request the honor of your company at a
reception, on Christmas Eve, Saturday next. There is going to be some
fun.
P. S. We only live once!
_Program_
I
7 P.M. The rooms will open: lively and animated conversation.
8 P.M. The ingenious authors of _The Mountain in Labor_,
a comedy rejected by the Odéon, will take a turn round the rooms.
8.30 P.M. M. Alexandre Schaunard, the distinguished artist,
will execute his Imitative Symphony for the piano, called _The
Influence of Blue in Art_.
9 P.M. First reading of a memoir on the abolition of the
penalty of tragedy.
9.30 P.M. M. Gustave Colline, hyperphysical philosopher, and
M. Schaunard will commence a debate on comparative philosophy and
metapolitics. In order to prevent any possible collision, the two
disputants will be tied together.
10 P.M. M. Tristan, a literary man, will relate the story of his first
love. M. Alexandre Schaunard will play a pianoforte accompaniment.
10.30 P.M. Second reading of the memoir on the abolition of the penalty
of tragedy.
11 P.M. _The Story of a Cassowary Hunt_, by a foreign prince.
II
At midnight M. Marcel, historical painter, will make a white chalk
drawing, with his eyes bandaged. Subject: The interview between
Napoleon and Voltaire in the Champs Élysées. At the same time M.
Rodolphe will improvise a parallel between the author of _Zaïre_
and the author of _The Battle of Austerlitz_.
12.30 A.M. M. Gustave Colline, in modest undress, will give a
revival of the athletic sports of the Fourth Olympiad.
1 A.M. Third reading of the memoir on the abolition of the
penalty of tragedy, followed by a collection in aid of authors of
tragedies likely to be thrown out of employment.
2 A.M. Sports and quadrilles, which will be kept up till
morning.
6 A.M. Rise of the sun upon the scene. Final chorus.
The ventilators will be open during the whole of the reception.
* * * * *
N. B. Any person attempting to read or recite poetry will be
immediately ejected from the rooms and taken into custody; you are also
requested not to take away candle-ends.
* * * * *
Victor Marie Hugo, celebrated poet, novelist and dramatist, was a
recognized leader of the Romantic school of Nineteenth century France.
Quotation from his works is hard to do in brief, but an amusing story
is given from _Tales of a Grandfather_.
_THE GOOD FLEA AND THE WICKED KING_
Once upon a time there was a wicked king, who made his people very
unhappy. Everybody detested him, and those whom he had put in prison
and beheaded would have liked to whip him. But how? He was the
strongest, he was the master, he did not have to give account to any
one, and when he was told his subjects were not content, he replied:
“Well, what of it? I don’t care a rap!” Which was an ugly answer.
As he continued to act like a king, and as every day he became a little
more wicked than the day before, this set a certain little flea to
thinking over the matter. It was a little bit of a flea, who was of no
consequence at all, but full of good sentiments. This is not the nature
of fleas in general; but this one had been very well brought up; it bit
people with moderation, and only when it was very hungry.
“What if I were to bring the king to reason?” it said to itself. “It is
not without danger. But no matter--I will try.”
That night the wicked king, after having done all sorts of naughty
things during the day, was calmly going to sleep when he felt what
seemed to be the prick of a pin.
“Bite!”
He growled, and turned over on the other side.
“Bite! Bite! Bite!”
“Who is it that bites me so?” cried the king in a terrible voice.
“It is I,” replied a very little voice.
“You? Who are you?”
“A little flea who wishes to correct you.”
“A flea? Just you wait! Just you wait, and you shall see!”
And the king sprang from his bed, twisted his coverings, and shook the
sheets, all of which was quite useless, for the good flea had hidden
itself in the royal beard.
“Ah,” said the king, “it has gone now, and I shall be able to get a
sound sleep.”
But scarcely had he laid his head on the pillow, when--
“Bite!”
“How? What? Again?”
“Bite! Bite!”
“You dare to return, you abominable little flea? Think for a moment
what you are doing! You are no bigger than a grain of sand, and you
dare to bite one of the greatest kings on earth!”
“Well, what of it? I don’t care a rap!” answered the flea in the very
words of the king.
“Ah, if I only had you!”
“Yes, but you haven’t got me!”
The wicked king did not sleep all that night, and he arose the next
morning in a killing ill humor. He resolved to destroy his enemy.
By his orders, they cleaned the palace from top to bottom, and
particularly his bedroom; his bed was made by ten old women very
skilful in the art of catching fleas. But they caught nothing, for the
good flea had hidden itself under the collar of the king’s coat.
That night, this frightful tyrant, who was dying for want of sleep, lay
back on both his ears, though this is said to be very difficult. But he
wished to sleep double, and he knew no better way. I wish you may find
a better. Scarcely had he put out his light, when he felt the flea on
his neck.
“Bite! Bite!”
“Ah, zounds! What is this?”
“It is I--the flea of yesterday.”
“But what do you want, you rascal--you tiny pest?”
“I wish you to obey me, and to make your people happy.”
“Ho, there, my soldiers, my captain of the guard, my ministers, my
generals! Everybody! The whole lot of you!”
The whole lot of them came in. The king was in a rage, which made
everybody tremble. He found fault with all the servants of the palace.
Everybody was in consternation. During this time the flea, quite calm,
kept itself hid in the king’s nightcap.
The guards were doubled; laws and decrees were made; ordinances were
published against all fleas; there were processions and public prayers
to ask of Heaven the extermination of the flea, and sound sleep for the
king. It was all of no avail. The wretched king could not lie down,
even on the grass, without being attacked by his obstinate enemy, the
good flea, who did not let him sleep a single minute.
“Bite! Bite!”
It would take too long to tell the many hard knocks the king gave
himself in trying to crush the flea; he was covered with bruises and
contusions. As he could not sleep, he wandered about like an uneasy
spirit. He grew thinner. He would certainly have died if, at last, he
had not made up his mind to obey the good flea.
“I surrender,” he said at last, when it began to bite him again. “I ask
for quarter. I will do what you wish.”
“So much the better. On that condition only shall you sleep,” replied
the flea.
“Thank you. What must I do?”
“Make your people happy!”
“I have never learned how. I do not know how----”
“Nothing more easy: you have only to go away.”
“Taking my treasures with me?”
“Without taking anything.”
“But I shall die if I have no money,” said the king.
“Well, what of it? I don’t care!” replied the flea.
But the flea was not hard-hearted, and it let the king fill his pockets
with money before he went away. And the people were able to be very
happy by setting up a republic.
* * * * *
Alphonse Daudet, humorist and story writer, created the character of
Tartarin, a gasconading humbug, and a satire on the typical character
attributed to Southern France.
A bit from _Tartarin in the Alps_ will show the type of humor.
_WILLIAM TELL_
The party of travelers now came to the Lake of Lucerne, with its dark
waters overshadowed by high and menacing mountains. To their right they
saw that Ruetli meadow where Melchthal, Fuerst, and Stauffacher had
sworn the oath to deliver their country.
Tartarin, deeply moved, took off his cap, and even threw it into the
air three times to render homage to the shades of the departed heroes.
Some of the tourists mistook this for a salutation, and bowed in
return. At last they reached Tell’s Chapel. This chapel is situated at
the edge of the lake, on the very rock upon which, during the storm,
William Tell jumped from Gessler’s boat. And it was a delicious emotion
to Tartarin, while he followed the travelers along the lake, to tread
this historic ground, to recall and revive the various scenes of this
great drama, which he knew as well as his own biography.
For William Tell had always been his ideal man. When at Bézuquet’s
pharmacy the game of Preferences was being played, and each one wrote
on his slip of paper the name of the poet, the tree, the odor, the
hero, and the woman that he preferred to all others of their kind, one
slip invariably bore this inscription:
“Favorite tree?--The baobab.
“Favorite odor?--Gunpowder.
“Favorite author?--Fenimore Cooper.
“Who would you like to have been?--William Tell.”
And then everybody would exclaim, “That’s Tartarin!”
Imagine, then, how happy he was, and how his heart beat when he stood
before the chapel commemorative of the gratitude of a whole nation. It
seemed to him as if William Tell must come in person to open the door,
still dripping from the waters of the lake, and holding in his hand his
bolts and crossbow.
“Don’t come in here. I’m working. This is not the day on which tourists
are allowed,” sounded a strong voice from the interior, reechoing
against the walls.
“M. Astier-Réhu, of the French Academy!”
“Herr Professor Doctor Schwanthaler!”
“Tartarin of Tarascon!”
The painter, who was standing on a scaffolding within, stretched out
half of his body clad in his working-blouse, and holding his palette in
his hand.
“My pupil will come down and open the door for you, gentlemen,” he said
in a respectful tone.
“I was sure of it; of course,” said Tartarin to himself, “I have only
to mention my name.”
For all that, he had the good taste to fall into line and modestly
enter the chapel behind the others.
The painter, a splendid fellow, with a magnificent golden head of
an artist of the Renaissance, received his visitors on the wooden
staircase which led to the temporary scaffolding from which the mural
paintings were being done. All the frescos, representing scenes from
Tell’s life, were complete, except the one in which the scene of
the apple at Altorf was to be shown. Upon that the painter was now
working....
“I find it all very characteristically done,” said the great
Astier-Réhu.
And Schwanthaler, folding his arms, recited two of Schiller’s verses,
half of which was lost in his beard. Then the ladies delivered their
opinions, and for some minutes one would have thought oneself in a
confectioner’s shop. “Beautiful!” they cried. “Lovely! Exquisite!
Delicious!”
Suddenly came a voice, tearing the silence like a trumpet’s blare:
“Badly shouldered, that blunderbuss, I tell you! He never held it in
that way!”
Imagine the stupefaction of the painter when this tourist, stick in
hand and bundle on his back, undertook to demonstrate to him as clearly
as that two and two are four, that the position of Tell in the picture
was incorrect.
“And I understand these matters, I would have you know!”
“And who are you?”
“Who am I?” said our Tarasconian hero, deeply astonished. And so it
was not at his name that the door had opened. Drawing himself up, he
answered, “Ask the panthers of Zaccar, or the lions of Atlas, and
perhaps they will answer you.”
Every one drew away from Tartarin in fright and consternation.
“But then,” asked the painter, “in what respect is Tell’s position
incorrect?”
“Look at me!”
Falling back with a double step that made the planks creak, Tartarin,
using his cane to represent the “blunderbuss,” threw himself into
position.
“Superb! He is right! Don’t move!” cried the painter. Then to his pupil:
“Quick, bring me paper and charcoal!”
GERMAN HUMOR
Christian F. Gellert, a German poet of the early Eighteenth century,
was also a lecturer and professor of philosophy.
His literary fame rests upon his sacred songs and his fables. One of
the latter we quote.
_THE PATIENT CURED_
A man long plagued with aches in joint and limb
Did all his neighbors recommended him,
But, despite that, could nowise gain
Deliverance from his pain.
An ancient dame, to whom he told his case,
Cut an oracular grimace,
And thus announced a magic remedy:
“You must,” said she,
Mysteriously hissing in his ear,
And calling him “My dear,”
“Sit on a good man’s grave at early light,
And with the dew fresh-fallen over night
Thrice bathe your hands, your knee-joints thrice:
’Twill cure you in a trice.
Remember her who gave you this advice.”
The patient did just as the grandam said.
(What will not mortals do to be
Relieved of misery?)
He went right early to the burying-ground,
And on a tombstone--’twas the first he found--
These words, delighted, read:
“Stranger, what man he was who sleeps below,
This monument and epitaph may show.
The wonder of his time was he,
The pattern of most genuine piety;
And that thou all in a few words may’st learn,
Him church and school and town and country mourn.”
Here the poor cripple takes his seat,
And bathes his hands, his joints, his feet;
But all his labor’s worse than vain:
It rather aggravates his pain.
With troubled mind he grasps his staff,
Turns from the good man’s grave, and creeps
On to the next, where lowly sleeps
One honored by no epitaph.
Scarce had he touched the nameless stone,
When lo! each racking pain had flown;
His useless staff forgotten on the ground,
He leaves this holy grave, erect and sound.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “is there no line to tell
Who was this holy man that makes me well?”
Just then the sexton did appear,
Of him he asked, “Pray, who lies buried here?”
The sexton waited long, and seemed quite shy
Of making any sort of a reply.
“Well,” he began at last with mournful sigh,
“The Lord forgive him, ’twas a man
Placed by all honest circles under ban;
Whom scarcely they allowed a decent grave;
Whose soul naught but a miracle might save;
A heretic, and, what is worse,
Wrote plays and verse!
In short, to speak my full conviction,
And without fear of contradiction,
He was an innovator and a scound--”
“No!” cried the man. “No, I’ll be bound!
Not so, though all the world the lie repeat!
But that chap there, who sleeps hard by us,
Whom you and all the world call pious,
He was, for sure, a scoundrel and a cheat!”
* * * * *
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a celebrated German dramatist and critic.
His collected works fill many volumes.
We quote a few of his Fables and Epigrams.
_THE RAVEN_
The raven remarked that the eagle sat thirty days upon her eggs. “That,
undoubtedly,” said she, “is the reason why the young of the eagle are
so all-seeing and strong. Good! I will do the same.”
And, since then, the raven actually sits thirty days upon
her eggs; but, as yet, she has hatched nothing but miserable
ravens.--_Fables._
_THE DECORATED BOW_
A man had an excellent bow of ebony, with which he shot very far and
very sure, and which he valued at a great price. But once, after
considering it attentively, he said:
“A little too rude still! Your only ornament is your polish. It is a
pity! However, that can be remedied,” thought he. “I will go and let a
first-rate artist carve something on the bow.”
He went, and the artist carved an entire hunting-scene upon the bow.
And what more fitting for a bow than a hunting-scene?
The man was delighted. “You deserve this embellishment, my beloved
bow.” So saying, he wished to try it.
He drew the string. The bow broke!--_Fables._
_EPIGRAMS_
From the grave where dead Gripeall, the miser, reposes,
What a villainous odor invades all our noses!
It can’t be his _body_ alone--in the hole
They have certainly buried the usurer’s _soul_.
* * * * *
While Fell was reposing himself on the hay,
A reptile conceal’d bit his leg as he lay;
But all venom himself, of the wound he made light,
And got well, while the scorpion died of the bite.
* * * * *
So vile your grimace, and so croaking your speech,
One scarcely can tell if you’re laughing or crying;
Were you fix’d on one’s funeral sermon to preach,
The bare apprehension would keep one from dying.
* * * * *
Quoth gallant Fritz, “I ran away
To fight again another day.”
The meaning of his speech is plain,
He only fled to fly again.
* * * * *
“How strange, a deaf wife to prefer!”
“True, but she’s also dumb, good sir.”
* * * * *
Rudolph Erich Raspe was a German author who was also an Archæologist of
note.
His best known work is the celebrated _History of Baron Münchausen_.
_A HORSE TIED TO A STEEPLE_
I set off from Rome on a journey to Russia, in the midst of winter,
from a just notion that frost and snow must of course improve the
roads, which every traveler had described as uncommonly bad through
the northern parts of Germany, Poland, Courland, and Livonia. I went
on horseback, as the most convenient manner of traveling. I was but
lightly clothed, and of this I felt the inconvenience the more I
advanced northeast. What must not a poor old man have suffered in that
severe weather and climate, whom I saw on a bleak common in Poland,
lying on the road, helpless, shivering, and hardly having wherewithal
to cover his nakedness? I pitied the poor soul. Though I felt the
severity of the atmosphere myself, I threw my mantle over him, and
immediately I heard a voice from the heavens, blessing me for that
piece of charity, saying:
“You will be rewarded, my son, for this in time.”
I went on. Night and darkness overtook me. No village was to be seen.
The country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the road.
Tired out, I alighted, and fastened my horse to something like the
pointed stump of a tree which appeared above the snow. For the sake
of safety I placed my pistols under my arm, and laid down on the
snow, where I slept so soundly that I did not open my eyes till full
daylight. It is not easy to conceive my astonishment at finding myself
in the midst of a village, lying in a churchyard. Nor was my horse
to be seen; but I heard him soon after neigh somewhere above me. On
looking upward, I beheld him hanging by his bridle to the weathercock
of the steeple. Matters were now quite plain to me. The village had
been covered with snow overnight; a sudden change in the weather had
taken place; I had sunk down to the churchyard while asleep at the same
rate as the snow had melted away; and what in the dark I had taken to
be a stump of a little tree appearing above the snow, to which I had
tied my horse, proved to have been the cross or weathercock of the
steeple!
Without long consideration, I took one of my pistols, shot the
bridle in two, brought down the horse, and proceeded on my
journey.--_Adventures of Baron Münchausen._
_A RATHER LARGE WHALE_
I embarked at Portsmouth, in a first-rate English man-of-war of one
hundred guns and fourteen hundred men, for North America. Nothing worth
relating happened till we arrived within three hundred leagues of the
river St. Lawrence, when the ship struck with amazing force against (as
we supposed) a rock. However, upon heaving the lead, we could find no
bottom, even with three hundred fathoms. What made this circumstance
the more wonderful, and indeed beyond all comprehension, was, that
the violence of the shock was such that we lost our rudder, broke our
bowsprit in the middle, and split all our masts from top to bottom,
two of which went by the board. A poor fellow, who was aloft furling
the main-sheet, was flung at least three leagues from the ship; but
he fortunately saved his life by laying hold of the tail of a large
sea-gull, which brought him back and lodged him on the very spot whence
he was thrown. Another proof of the violence of the shock was the force
with which the people between decks were driven against the floors
above them. My head particularly was pressed into my stomach, where it
continued some months before it returned to its natural situation.
While we were all in a state of astonishment at the general and
unaccountable confusion in which we were involved, the whole was
suddenly explained by the appearance of a large whale, which had been
basking, asleep, within sixteen feet of the surface of the water. This
animal was so much displeased with the disturbance which our ship had
given him--for in our passage we had with our rudder scratched his
nose--that he beat in all the gallery and part of the quarter-deck with
his tail, and almost at the same instant took the main-sheet anchor,
which was suspended, as it usually is, from the head, between his
teeth, and ran away with the ship at least sixty leagues, at the rate
of twelve leagues an hour, when, fortunately, the cable broke, and we
lost both the whale and the anchor. However, upon our return to Europe,
some months after, we found the same whale within a few leagues of the
same spot, floating dead upon the water. It measured above half a mile
in length. As we could take only a small quantity of such a monstrous
animal on board, we got our boats out, and with much difficulty cut off
his head, where, to our great joy, we found the anchor, and above forty
fathoms of the cable, concealed on the left side of his mouth, just
under his tongue. Perhaps this was the cause of his death, as that side
of his tongue was much swelled with severe inflammation.
This was the only extraordinary circumstance that happened on this
voyage. One part of our distress, however, I had like to have forgot.
While the whale was running away with the ship she sprang a leak, and
the water poured in so fast that all our pumps could not keep us from
sinking. It was, however, my good fortune to discover it first. I found
a large hole about a foot in diameter, and you will naturally suppose
this circumstance gives me infinite pleasure, when I inform you that
this noble vessel was preserved, with all its crew, by a most happy
thought of mine. In short I sat down over it, and could have covered
it had it been even larger. Nor will you be surprised at this when I
inform you that I am descended from Dutch parents.
My situation, while I sat there, was rather cool, but the carpenter’s
art soon relieved me.
--_Adventures of Baron Münchausen._
* * * * *
Matthias Claudius was another maker of Poetical Fables and Folk Songs.
_THE HEN AND THE EGG_
A famous hen’s my story’s theme,
Who ne’er was known to tire
Of laying eggs, but then she’d scream
So loud o’er every egg, ’twould seem
The house must be on fire.
A turkey-cock, who ruled the walk,
A wiser bird, and older,
Could bear’t no more, so off did stalk
Right to the hen, and told her:
“Madam, that scream, I apprehend,
Does not affect the matter;
It surely helps the eggs no whit;
So, lay your egg--and done with it!
I pray you, madam, as a friend,
Cease that superfluous clatter.
You know not how’t goes through my head!”
“Humph! Very likely!” madam said,
Then, proudly putting forth a leg:
“Uneducated barnyard fowl,
You know no more than any owl
The noble privilege and praise
Of authorship in modern days!
I’ll tell you why I do it:
First, you perceive, I lay my egg,
And then--review it.”
Friedrich von Schiller was among the most famous of Germany’s writers.
Poet, dramatist and historian he left numerous works of varied value.