I had a Dream, which was not all a Dream.
(By Somnus and old Nox I fear 'twas _not_!)
Common-sense was extinguished, and Good Taste
Did wonder darkling on the verge of doom.
I saw a Monster, a malign, marine,
Mysterious, many-whorled, mug-lumbering Bogey,
Stretched (like Miltonian angels on the marl)
In league-long loops upon the billowy brine.
Beshrew thee, old familiar ocean Bogey,
Thou spectral spook of many Silly Seasons,
Beshrew thee, and avaunt! Which being put
In post-Shakspearian vernacular, means
Confound, you, and Get out!!! The monstrous worm
Wriggling its corkscrew periwinkly twists
Of trunk and tail alternate, winked huge goggles
Derisively and gurgled. "_Me_ get out,
The Science-vouched, and Literature-upheld,
And Reason-rehabilitated butt
Of many years of misdirected mockery?
You ask omniscient HUXLEY, cocksure oracle
On all from protoplasm to Home Rule,
From Scripture to Sea Serpents; go consult
Belligerent, brave, beloved BILLY RUSSELL!
Verisimilitude incarnate, I
Scorn your vain sceptic mirth!
Besides, behold
The portent riding me, as Thetis rode
The lolloping, wolloping sea-horse of old!
Is it less likely that _I_ should remain
Than _she_ return?"
Then, horror-thrilled, I gazed
At her, the Abominable, the Ogreish Thing;
The soul-revolting, sense-degrading She,
Who swayed and sickened, scourged and scarified
The unwilling slaves of fashion and discomfort
A quarter of a century since!
She sat,
A spectral, scraggy, beet-nosed, ankle-less,
Obtrusive-panted, splay-foot, slattern-shape,
Of grim Medusa-faced Immodesty,
Caged cumbrously in a stiff, swaying, swollen,
Shin-scarifying, hose-revealing frame
Of wide-meshed metal, like a monster mousetrap--
Hideous, indecent, awkward!
Oh, I knew her--
This loathly _revenant_, revisiting
The glimpses of the moon. She shamed my sight,
And blocked my way, and marred my young men's art,
Twenty years syne and more. 'Twas CRINOLINA,
The long-abiding, happily banished horror
We hoped to see no more. _Shall_ she return
To vex our souls, unsex our wives and daughters,
And spoil our pictures as she did of old?
Forbid it, womanhood and modesty!
And if _they_ won't, let manhood and sound sense
Arise in wrath and warn the horror off,
Ere she effect a lodgment on the limbs
Of pretty girls, or clothe our matron's shapes
With shame as with a garment.
"Get thee gone!"
Cries _Punch_, and shakes his gingham in her face.
"The Silly Season's Nemesis we may stand,
But thou, the loathlier Bogey? _Garn away!_
(As 'LIZA said to amorous 'ARRY 'AWKINS)
Avaunt, skedaddle, slope, absquatulate,
Go, gruesome ghoul--go quickly--and for ever!!!"
* * * * *
MRS. R.'S nephew read out an announcement to the effect that Messrs.
MACMILLAN were about to publish Lord CARNARVON'S "Prometheus Bound."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. R.'s excellent aunt. "That's very vague. Doesn't it
say how it's to be bound?--whether in calf or vellum?"
* * * * *
[Illustration: "AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE."
_Hostess._ "ER--ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE--ER--MR. CORNELIUS P. VAN DUNK, FROM
CHICAGO--MR. KEMBLE MACREADY KEAN, THE GREAT TRAGEDIAN, AND MANAGER OF THE
PARTHENON."
_Mr. Van Dunk._ "MR. KEMBLE MACREADY KEAN! SIR, YOUR NAME'S VERY FAMILIAR
TO ME, AND I'M PROUD TO KNOW YOU!--AND I SHALL TAKE AN EARLY OPPORTUNITY OF
ASKING YOU FOR SOME ORDERS FOR YOUR THEATRE!"]
* * * * *