_Or, The Triumph of the Timid One._
At last! I see signs of a turn in the tide,
And O, I perceive it with infinite gratitude.
No more need I go with a crick in my side
In attempts to preserve a non-natural attitude.
_Something_ has changed in the season, _somewhere_;
I'm sure I can feel a cool whiff of fresh air!
Mental malaria worse than the _grippe_
Has asphyxiated my mind, or choke-damped it.
The plain honest truth has been strange to my lip;
I've shammed it, and fudged it, humbugged it and vamped it
Till I wasn't I, self-respect was all gone,
And I hadn't a taste that I dared call my own.
I do _not_ love horror. I do _not_ like muck;
And mystical muddle to me is abhorrent.
In Stygian shallows long time I have stuck,
Or, like a dead dog on a sewage-fouled torrent,
Have gone with the stream; but beyond the least doubt
I'm grateful--_so_ much--for a chance to creep out.
Egomania it seems then is _not_ the last word
Of latter-day wisdom! By Jove I _am_ glad!
I always _did_ feel it was highly absurd
To worship the maudlin, and aim at the mad;
And now, there's a chance for the decent again,
One may relish one's DICKENS, yet not seem insane!
The ghoulish-grotesque, and the grimy-obscure,
I _have_ tried to gloat on in poem and prose,
But oh! all the while there seemed something impure
In the _sniff_ of the thing that tormented my nose;
And as to High Art--well, to me it seemed _high_,
Like an over-hung hare--only food for the fly.
Yet _I_ didn't dare say that I felt it to be
Pseudo-sphinxian fudge, and sheer Belial bosh;
Or that after Art-babble at five o'clock tea,
I felt that the thing I most craved was--a wash;
Because in the view of the Mystical School,
That would just write you down a mere Philistine fool.
I am not _quite_ sure that I _quite_ understand
How they've suddenly found all our fads are degenerate;
Why MAETERLINCK, IBSEN, VERLAINE, SARAH GRAND,
TOLSTOI, GRANT ALLEN, ZOLA, are "lumped"--but, at any rate,
I know I'm relieved from one horrible bore,--
_I need not admire what I hate any more_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE BIRMINGHAM BENEDICK.
MR. J-S-PH CH-MB-RL-N (_as "Benedick"_). "DOTH NOT THE APPETITE
CHANGE? A MAN LOVES THE MEAT IN HIS YOUTH THAT HE CANNOT ENDURE IN
HIS AGE.... WHEN I SAID I WOULD DIE AN INDEPENDENT RADICAL, I DID NOT
THINK I SHOULD LIVE TO BE ALLIED WITH A TORY PARTY."
_Much Ado About Nothing_, Act II., Sc. 3 (_slightly
"modified"_).
]
* * * * *
[Illustration: DRURIOLANUS THE CHEF, OPENS THE OPERATIC PIE.
"WHEN THE PIE WAS OPEN
THE BIRDS BEGAN TO SING."
]
* * * * *