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قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 108, March 30th 1895
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CATCH.
Young Splinter (driving Nervous Old Party to Covert). "Yes, I love a Bargain in Horseflesh! Now, if you believe me, I picked this little Beggar up the other day for a mere Song. Bolted with a Trap—kicked everything to smash. Bid the Fellow a Tenner for her, and there she is!" [Old Party begins to feel that "'E don' know where 'e are," or will be presently.
"MUSIC HATH CHARMS."
A Song for a Summer Day, 1895.
(A Very Long Way after Dryden.)
["Mr. Herbert Gladstone, in reply to Mr. Aird, said he was glad to tell the hon. gentleman that he had been informed by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge that arrangements were being made for a military band to play in Hyde Park on certain days in summer."—Parliamentary Report.]
I.
In harmony, in public harmony,
This bit of pleasant news began.
St. Stephen's underneath a heap
Of burning questions lay.
When Herbert raised his head
His tuneful voice was heard on high,
And this is what it said:
That Great George Ranger could descry
A chance of making a big leap
To pop-u-lar-i-ty.
That Music's power should have full summer sway,
And the bands begin to play!
With harmony, with general harmony,
Around the information ran
That harmony, sweet harmony,
Should stay mere rumpus with its rataplan,
And make Hyde Park a pleasant place to Man!
II.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Herbert thumps the side-drum well
The listening nursemaids well may stand around,
A-wondering at that curly swell,
A-worshipping the rattling sound.
Less than a dook they think can hardly dwell
In that drum major's toffy togs.
He startles even the stray dogs!
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
III.
The brass band's loud clangour
The populace charms,
The kettledrum-banger
The baby alarms.
At the double, double, double beat
Of young Gladstone's drum
The Socialist spouters from back street and slum
Cry, "Hark! our foes come!
Way oh! We'ad better retreat!"
IV.
The shrill and sprightly flute
Startles the seculurist spouts and shovers.
The crowds of music-lovers
Flock to its sound and leave tub-thumpers mute.
V.
Dark Anarchists proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depths of spite and heights of passion.
Music mars their little game.
VI.
Yes, Music's art can teach
Better than savage ungrammatic speech.
Young Herbert let us praise,
"The dear Dook" let us love.
The weary wayfarer, the wan-faced slummer,
Beneath the spell of Music and the Drummer,
Feel rataplans and rubadubs to raise
Their souls sour spleen above.
VII.
"Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre."—
Precisely, Glorious John! Yet 'twere no lark
To see the trees cavorting round the Park.
No! Our Cecilia's aim is even higher.
To soothe the savage (Socialistic) breast,
Set Atheist and Anarchist at rest,
And to abate the spouting-Stiggins pest
Young Herbert and grey George may well aspire.
The "Milingtary Dook"'s permission's given
That the Park-Public's breast, be-jawed and beered,
May by the power of harmony be cheered,
And lifted nearer heaven!
Grand Chorus.
(By a Grateful Crowd.)
"This 'ere's the larkiest of lays!
Things do begin to move!
'Erbert and Georgy let us praise,
And all the powers above.
We've spent a reglar pleasant 'our
Music like this the Mob devour.
Yah! Anerchy is all my heye.
That cornet tootles scrumptiously.
Go it, young Gladsting! Don't say die
Dear Dook, but 'ave another try.
'Armony makes disorder fly
And Music tunes hus to the sky!
"THE 'KEY-NOTE'-ORIOUS MRS. EBBSMITH."
The Dowdy Mrs. Ebbsmith makes it hot for her young man.
Mr. Pinero's new play at the Garrick Theatre is a series of scenes in dialogue with only one "situation," which comes at the end of the third act, and was evidently intended to be utterly unconventional, dreadfully daring, and thrillingly effective. "Unconventional?" Yes. "Daring?" Certainly; for to burn a bible might have raised a storm of sibilation. But why dare so much to effect so little? For at the reading, or during rehearsal, there must have been very considerable hesitation felt by everybody, author included, as to the fate of this risky situation—this "momentum unde pendet"—and for which nothing, either in the character or in the previous history of the heroine, has prepared us. Her earliest years have been passed in squalor; she has made a miserable marriage; then she has become a Socialist ranter, and hopes to achieve a triumph as a Socialist demagogue. Like Maypole Hugh in Barnaby Rudge she would go about the world shrieking "No property! No property!" and when, in a weak moment, she consents to temporarily drop her "mission," she goes to another extreme and comes out in an evening dress—I might say almost comes out of an evening dress, so egregiously décolleté is it—to please the peculiar and, apparently, low taste of her lover, who is a married man,—"which well she knows it," as Mrs. Gamp observes,—but with whom she is living, and with whom, like Grant Allen's The Woman who did (a lady whom in many respects Mr. Pinero's heroine closely resembles), and who came to grief in doing it, she intends to continue living. This man, her paramour, she trusts will be her partner in the socialistic regeneration of the human race. At the close of the third act Mrs. Ebbsmith, being such as the author of her being has made her, is presented with a bible,