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قراءة كتاب Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 148, February 17th 1915
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 148, February 17th 1915
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LESSONS FROM THE NATURAL WORLD.
The Shirker. "Nice bird! Say 'Polly scratch a poll!'"
The Bird. "Johnny, get your gun!"
"The battle that has been raging for several months has now ended in a distinct triumph for the high-necked corsage."
Good. Now we can devote our attention to the other war on the Continent.
Village Wit (to victim of ill-timed revelry). "Wotcher, William? How was Joffer when you left?"
OXFORD IN WAR TIME.
Who that beheld her robed in May
Could guess the change that six months later
Has brought such wondrous disarray
Upon his alma mater?
Distracted by a world-wide strife,
The calm routine of study ceases;
And Oxford's academic life
Is broken all to pieces.
No more the intellectual youth
Feeds on perpetual paradoxes;
No longer in the quest of truth
The mental compass boxes.
Gone are the old luxurious days
When, always craving something subtler,
To Bergson's metaphysic maze
He turned from Samuel Butler.
Linked by the brotherhood of arms
All jarring coteries are blended;
Mere cleverness no longer charms;
The cult of Blues is ended.
The boats are of their crews bereft;
The parks are given up to training;
The scanty hundreds who are left
All at the leash are straining.
And grave professors, making light
Of all the load of anno domini,
Devote the day to drill, the night
To Clausewitz and Jomini.
While those who feel too old to fight
Full nobly with the pen are serving
To weld conflicting views of right
In one resolve unswerving.
No more can essayists inveigh
Against the youth of Oxford, slighting
Her "young barbarians all at play,"
When nine in ten are fighting,
And some, the goodliest and the best,
Beloved of comrades and commanders,
Have passed untimely to their rest
Upon the plains of Flanders.
No; when two thousand of her sons
Are mustered under Freedom's banner,
None can declaim—except the Huns—
Against the Oxford manner.
For lo! amid her spires and streams,
The lure of cloistered ease forsaking,
The dreamer, noble in her dreams,
Is nobler in her waking.
"Lest we forget."
In these days, when we have to be thankful that our country has not, like Belgium and France, been overrun by savages, the greater mercies we receive are apt to obscure the less. But Swansea does not forget the smaller mercies. According to a recent issue of The South Wales Daily Post, "The Swansea Town F.C. are coming for the second time to St. Nicholas' Church, Gloucester Place, Swansea, on Sunday evening next, at 6.30, when the directors, committee and the two full teams have promised to attend the service, that, in the words of the Rev. Percy Weston, will be in the nature of a "thanksgiving service for their good fortune against Newcastle United"."
Our compliments to the Rev. Percy Weston, pastor of this pious and patriot flock.
WHAT I DEDUCED.
By a German Governess.
[Extracts from a book which is, no doubt, having as large a sale in Germany as What I Found Out, by an English Governess, is having in this country.]
I shall never forget my arrival at the house of my new employers. Into the circumstances which forced me to earn my living as a governess in a strange country I need not now go. Sufficient that I had obtained a situation in the house of a Mr. Brigsworth, an Englishman of high position living in one of the most fashionable suburbs of London. "Chez Nous," The Grove, Cricklewood, was the address of my new home, and thither on that memorable afternoon I wended my way.
"The master and mistress are out," said the maid. "Perhaps you would like to go straight to the nursery and see the children?"
"Thank you," I said, and followed her upstairs. Little did I imagine the amazing scene which was to follow!
In the nursery my two little charges were playing with soldiers; a tall and apparently young man was lying on the floor beside them. At my entrance he scrambled to his feet.
"Stop the battle a moment," he said, "while we interrogate the invader."
"I am Fräulein Schmidt," I introduced myself, "the new governess."
"And I," he said with a bow, "am Lord Kitchener. You have arrived just in time. Another five minutes and I should have wiped out the German army."
"Oh shut up, Uncle Horace, you wouldn't," shouted one of the boys.
It was Lord Kitchener! He had shaved off his heavy moustache, and by so doing had given himself a deceptive appearance of youth, but there could be no doubt about his identity. Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the great English War Lord! In the light of after-events, how instructive was this first meeting!
"What is the game?" I asked, hiding my feelings under a smile. "England against Germany?"
"England and Scotland and Ireland and Australia and a few others. We have ransacked the nursery and raked them all in."
So even at this time England had conceived the perfidious idea of forcing her colonies to fight for her!
"And some Indian soldiers?" I asked, nodding at half-a-dozen splendid Bengal Lancers. It struck me even then as very significant; and it is now seen to be proof that for years previously England had been plotting an invasion of the Fatherland with a swarm of black mercenaries.
Lord Kitchener evidently saw what was in my mind, and immediately exerted all his well-known charm to efface the impression he had created.
"You mustn't think," he said with a smile, "that the policy of the Cabinet is in any way affected by what goes on at 'Chez Nous.' Although Sir Edward Grey and I——"
He broke off suddenly, and, in the light of what has happened since, very suspiciously.
"Have you had any tea?" he asked. His relations with the notorious Grey were evidently not to be disclosed.
I met Lord Kitchener on one other