Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. by Various
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Various >> Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920.
_Friday_.--Johnson called at the office during my busiest hour. Wanted
to enrol me as a member of a new party, to be known as the Efficiency
Party. No time to go into it properly, so agreed, to get rid of him.
Anyhow, the object's a good one. It was something about progressive
reforms and combating the forces of Revolution and Anarchy.
_Saturday_.--Heard at the Club that if the Coalition is not better
supported in their attempts to carry out progressive reforms and
combat the forces of Revolution and Anarchy, they will form themselves
into a new party and go to the country. Locally we are to have, in
addition to the retiring Coalitionist, a Free Liberal candidate, a
Labour Party candidate, a couple of Independent candidates, a People's
Party candidate, a National Party candidate, a Modern Party candidate,
a Britannic Party candidate, and an Efficiency Party candidate. Afraid
this would make my position extremely complicated. Decide to give
undivided support to the Coalition in the hope of averting a General
Election.
* * * * *
AT THE PLAY.
"THE TRUTH ABOUT THE RUSSIAN DANCERS."
With that uncanny tuition of his Sir JAMES BARRIE has, of course, hit
on the precise truth. Russian dancers are not born but made--by the
_Maestro_, which I take it is (broadly speaking) Italian for Producer
and Presenter.
When _Karissima_ goes on a visit to the stately home of the _Veres_
the peace of that ancient haunt of the conventionally correct is
queerly broken. Young _Lord Vere_ loses his heart. However, that might
just as easily or more easily have happened if the Gaiety had been
invited. But a dreadful change comes to _Uncle Bill_--he buys his
clothes ready-made (at _La boutique fantasque_, for a guess, or
possibly Mr. MALLABY-DEELEY'S), grows dundrearies and goes hopelessly
off his game at golf.
_Karissima_, poor dear, can't walk or talk or putt, for that matter,
except with her toes. _Bill_ calls this last cheating, but young
_Vere_ thinks it simply adorable--as do we all. _Lady Vere_, his
mother, can't get used to being kissed by _Karissima_, who _will_
stand upon her lightly with one foot, oddly waving the other
meanwhile in the air. Besides it takes too long and _is_ rather too
demonstrative. And couldn't _Karissima_ dear just try to walk with
her soles really flat on the ground in the solid English county way?
Certainly. _Karissima_ will try, to please Madame, and with painful
effort achieves a half-dozen clumsy steps till unconquerable habit and
Mr. ARNOLD BAX'S allusively witty music lift her on tiptoe again. And
really she is such a darling that the once reluctant dowager finally
consents to the marriage; wedding bells forthwith (within); a
white-haired clergyman, surprised at nothing, as becomes the very
best type of padre, appears; follow _corps de ballet_ bridesmaids; and
_Bill_ gives her away.
_Karissima_, says _Vere_ to _Maestro_ later in the evening, is
depressed. Because she hasn't a child. They both tremendously want a
child. _Maestro_, silently showing his watch-dial, would seem to wish
to suggest that they were unreasonably impatient. _Karissima_ also
pleads. Well, he will see what he can do. But there's an awful
penalty. For a new Russian dancer cannot be made unless another
surrenders life. Anyway he fetches his black bag. And _Karissima_
dances down the main staircase with her babe, who grows apace and is
shortly seen prancing in the garden (on his toes--"Thank Heaven!" says
the _Maestro_).
And _Karissima_ dies and is brought in on her bier, and dances (she
_would_!) her own funeral service. _Maestro's_ heart is touched; he
lies down in her stead, and she, dancing on a carpet of thistle-down
shot with stars (I think), and her lord (I am sure), perpetually
exclaiming, "How perfectly topping!"--both achieve an enviable
immortality.
Madame KARSAVINA is exquisite; she is well supported by Mr. C.M.
LOWNE (_Hon. Bill_), Mr. HERMAN DE LANGE (_Maestro_), Miss G.
STERROLL(_Dowager_), and Mr. BASIL FOSTER (_Lord Vere_). And I
thought I detected Mr. DU MAURIER'S appreciation of the bizarre in his
production. But the triumph is the triumph of the whimsical author. I
don't think he has ever done anything better; more ambitious things,
yes, but nothing so free from flaw.
Isn't it more than possible that just three-score years ago, on a May
day (see _Who's Who_), some Maestro of Fantasy slipped into a little
house in Kirriemuir, N.B., with a black bag? Wouldn't that explain the
otherwise inexplicable, the unwearying resourcefulness, the unabashed
playfulness of this impenitent youth?
T.
* * * * *
DRAM.BAC.
A suggestion has been put forward, with the support of the British
Drama League and others, for the establishment at our universities of
a "Faculty of the Theatre and Dramatic Degree." Heartily applauding
the proposal, we append a typical examination paper for the final
school:--
(1) Sketch briefly the progress of amateur acting in this country,
from the impersonation of a Danish minstrel by ALFRED THE GREAT, to
the Victory Varieties Matinee arranged by Lady Eve Tatlery.
(2) Arrange, in order of probability, the first fifty authors of
SHAKSPEARE.
(3) "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton."
Estimate the rival claims of the Windsor Strollers.
(4) Indicate your make-up for ROMULUS, HENRY THE EIGHTH, ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
(5) What is a point, and how made? A "straight" line lies evenly
between any good points; give instances.
(6) Under what dramatic conditions can a part be greater than the
whole? Cite the authority of any two actor-managers for this theory.
(7) Explain, with diagrams, (a) The Eternal Triangle; (b) Squaring the
Upper Circle.
(8) Illustrate the axiom that the length of a run varies with the
breadth of the dialogue.
(9) What proportion of the music-hall comedians of Great Britain is
supplied by (a) Lancashire; (b) Scotland?
(10) Which European drama requires most doors for its honeymoon
farces?
(11) "What Manchester thinks to-day England will think next
Sunday evening." Analyse this statement in its bearing upon the
play-producing societies.
(12) "Let who will make a nation's laws so that I make its songs."
Discuss the ethical and sociological significance of this with regard
to (a) "Where do flies go in the winter-time?" (b) "I _do_ like-an egg
with my tea."
In the _viva-voce_ portion of the examination, candidates for Honours
will be required to satisfy the examiners (to the point of actual
tears) by their recital of selected passages from prepared books.
They may offer any two of the following: "Buckingham's Farewell;" "The
Signalman's Daughter;" "The Death of Little Nell" (_with voices_).
For candidates not seeking Honours a passable imitation of Mr. GEORGE
ROBEY will entitle to one group.
A.E.
* * * * *
TWO VIEWS.
There was a high priest of illusion
Who rose by his leader's extrusion;
By way of amends
He invites his old friends
To extinguish their prospects by Fusion.
There was a great foe of delusion,
Who came to the honest conclusion
That Socialist Labour
Plays beggar-my-neighbour
And sought to defeat it by Fusion.
* * * * *
A LEAP-YEAR RECORD.
"CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY SPORTS.--H.M. Abrahams winning the
long jump with a distance of 22yds. to his credit."--_Picture
Paper_.
* * * * *
"THE PREMIER AND HIS FUTURE.
WHITHER GOETH THOU?"--_Headings in Daily Paper_.
Answer adjudged correct: "I knowest not."
* * * * *
'Wanted, a Horse for its keep. Excellent cuisine."--_The Times
of Ceylon_.
_A la_ cart, we presume.
* * * * *
"A roof garden for cats is included in the scheme for
the extension of the premises of Our Dumb Friends'
League."--_Evening Paper_.
We have heard the nocturnal cat on the tiles called many names, but
never a "dumb friend."
* * * * *
"The Police announce that dogs without dollars found wandering
after 10 p.m. are liable to be destroyed."--_Hong Kong Paper_.
We understand, however, that in China dogs are almost invariably
provided with taels.
* * * * *
[Illustration: TRIALS OF THE FISH-TRADE.
"CLOTHES, MY DEAR! DON'T MENTION CLOTHES. YOU OUGHT TO BE IN THE FISH
LINE, WHY, I RUNS THROUGH A SET O' FURS IN ABOUT A MONTH!"
* * * * *
A NOTE TO NATURE,
_accounting for my previous silence in an unusually temperate March
and also presenting an ultimatum._
Ye great brown hares, grown madder through the Spring!
Ye birds that utilise your tiny throttles
To make the archways of the forest ring
Or go about your easy house-hunting!
Ye toads! ye axolotls!
Ye happy blighters all, that squeal and squat
And fly and browse where'er the mood entices,
Noting in every hedge or woodland grot
The swelling surge of sap, but noting not
The rise in current prices!
But chiefly you, ye birds, whose jocund note
(Linnets and larks and jays and red-billed ousels)
Oft in those happier springtides now remote
Caused me to catch the lyre and clear my throat
After some coy refusals!
Ay, and would cause me now--I have such bliss
Seeing the star-set vale, the pearls, the agates
Sown on the wintry boughs by Flora's kiss--
Only the trouble in my case is this,
I do not feed on maggots.
Could I but share your diet cheap and rude,
Your simple ways in trees and copses lurking;
But no, I need a pipe and lots of food,
A comfortable chair on which to brood--
Silence! the bard is working.
Could I but know that freedom from all care
That comes, I say, from gratis sets of suitings
And homes that need not premium nor repair
Except with sticks and mud and moss and hair,
My! there would be some flutings.
So and so only would the ivory rod
Stir the wild strings once more to exaltation;
So and so only the impetuous god
Pound in my bosom and produce that odd
Tum-tiddly-um sensation.
And often as I heard the throstles vamp,
Pouring their liquid notes like golden syrup,
Out would I go and round the garden tramp,
Wearing goloshes if the day were damp,
And imitate their chirrup.
Or, bowling peacefully upon my bike,
Well breakfasted, by no distractions flustered,
Pause near a leafy copse or brambled dyke,
And answer song for song the black-backed shrike,
The curlew and the bustard.
But now--ah, why prolong the dreadful strain?--
Limply my hand the unstrung harp relaxes;
The dear old days will not come back again
Whatever Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Does with the nation's taxes.
Lambs, buds, leap up; the lark to heaven climbs;
Bread does the same; the price of baccy's brutal;
And save (I do not note it in _The Times_)
They make exemptions for evolving rhymes,
Dashed if I mean to tootle!
EVOE.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Sportsman_ (_just emerged from the brook_). "FOUR IN,
DID YOU SAY? DASH IT ALL--JUST MY LUCK. GOT MY GLASSES ALL MUD AND
CAN'T SEE THER FUN."]
* * * * *
THE METHODS OF GENIUS.
(_BY OUR SPECIAL LITERARY PARASITE_.)
The public already know something of the painful difficulties under
which novelists labour at the present moment owing to the paper
shortage and the enhanced cost of book production. But "the economic
consequences of the Peace" by no means exhaust the handicaps of the
conscientious and sensitive novelist. We are glad therefore to note
the efforts of _The Daily Graphic_ to enlist the sympathy of the
public on behalf of this sorely tried and meritorious class. Our
contemporary tells us, for example, of one momentous writer who was
reduced to dictating blindfold "because the facial peculiarities of
first one and then another amanuensis" upset her equanimity. Then
there is the tragic story of Mr. R.L. HITCHENS, who, being engaged
to write an article against time, sent out for a stenographer, who on
arrival proved to be a man with a large black beard of so sinister
an aspect that Mr. HICHINS was forced to dismiss him and write the
article in his own hand. Yet Mr. HICHENSis not easily put off, for we
learn that he finds he works best in big hotels and not, as we might
have guessed, in the sequestered tranquillity of a minaret.
To some writers solitude is the true school of genius. Yet Sir
LEWIS MORRIS found some of his happiest thoughts come to him while
travelling in the underground, while Mr. W.B. YEATS records a similar
experience as the result of a journey on the top of a tram-car. Your
advanced modernists, with MARINETTI at their head, find their best
stimulus to creative effort in the clang and clatter of machinery.
_per contra_, to return to _The Daily Graphic_, Mrs. C.N. WILLIAMSON
must have pretty things to look at "in business hours." But the
happiest of all our authors is Madame ALBANESI, who "finds her
brain-spur in a blank sheet of paper, and not the ghost of an idea
what she is going to write about." Less fortunate writers labour
assiduously only to leave the minds of their readers a blank, without
the ghost of an idea of what the author has been writing about.
It is a pity that Mr. W.L. GEORGE, in his interesting survey of modern
writers of fiction in the _English Review_, has told us nothing
about the methods of the "Neo-Victorians" and "Semi-Victorians,"
the "Edwardians" and "belated Edwardians," and the "Georgians" and
"Neo-Georgians." With all these classes he deals faithfully. But his
criticism is purely literary. He fails to tell us the things that
every reader wants to know. It is all very well to say that the
neo-Georgians "paint in ink," but he ought to have mentioned whether
it is green or red. Does Miss DOROTHY RICHARDSON dictate to the sound
of trumpets, garbed in crimson trouserloons? Does Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT
cantillate his "copy" into the horn of a graphophone or use a
motor-stylus? Does Mr. SIEGRIED SASSOON beat his breast with one hand
while he plays the loud bassoon with the other? Does Mr. ALEC WAUGH
use sermon-paper or foolscap? Does Mr. ALDOUS HUXLEY keep a tame
gorilla? These are the really illuminating details that we hunger for.
Without them it is impossible to appreciate the artistry of our young
Masters. Mr. W.L. GEORGE has given us a glimpse of the working of
their brains; let him now reveal to us the secrets of their workshops.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THERE'S THAT DASHED BULL OF YOURS IN MY FIELD AGAIN!
ONE OF THSES DAYS I'LL--I'LL--WRING ITS CONFOUNDED NECK!"
* * * * *
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
_After the Day: Germany Unconquered and Unrepentant_ (JENKINS) is
the kind of thesis-book which it is wise to read in a deliberately
incredulous mood. Mr. HAYDEN TALBOT is an American newspaper man of
immense resourcefulness but, I should judge, of a not conspicuously
judicial habit of mind. That, perhaps, is hardly a newspaper man's
business. He is after copy, and certainly there's good enough copy in
his interviews with Count BERNSTORFF and Dr. RATHENAU, and one
must admire his feat of getting out of these and seven other German
publicists, including MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, the draft of a manifesto to
the people of America, composed in the hope, vain as it happened,
that the KAISER would break his long silence and sign it. It is the
author's theory that it is the inner camarilla, working for a speedy
restoration of the monarchy, that is responsible for the certainly
uncharacteristic reticence of Amerongen. Mr. TALBOT also interviewed
HINDENBERG, whom he found a "broken-down, inconsequential, garrulous
example of senility" LUDENDORFF, who was very stiff and proud and
rude; and the _fiancee_ of the man who sank the _Lusitania_. His
general idea of Germany is summed up in the remark of Mr. MANDELBAUM,
of New York: "All this talk about Fritz being down and out is all
bunk!" Germany is full of energy and hate; she will soon be a monarchy
again; will undersell the world; is assiduously preparing for air
supremacy as the way to _revanche_. I take it that this is not so
much a book as a _rechauffe_ of newspaper articles, which alone
will account for its formlessness and frequent changes of plane. Mr.
TALBOT, confessing to a total ignorance of the German tongue, seems
quite unconscious that this imposes certain limitations on his
capacity to make an adequate survey of a difficult problem.
* * * * *
I may confess at once that I finished the first chapter of _The Woman
of the Picture_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) in a mood of slight derision,
induced by Mr. G.F. TURNER'S allowing one hero to say of the other
that he had "the interminable limbs" of an aristocrat. To the end of
the book indeed I was uncertain whether such occasional lapses were
meant to illumine the character of the supposed speaker or were
unintentional. But again to quote, this time a phrase in which Mr.
TURNER clearly shares my own delight, "before we were through with
the affair" such details had ceased to be of moment. The plain fact is
that _The Woman of the Picture_ is the most breathless, irresistible
piece of convincing impossibility you have read for ages. I decline to
struggle with any transcription of the plot. On the wrapper you
will observe the woman stepping bodily out of the picture, like the
ancestors in the whisky advertisement; this, however, is a symbolic
rather than an actual presentment. But there is plenty without it:
a rightful heir, mountain castles amid the eternal snows, a villain
(with sorceries), half-a-dozen attempted murders and the most
hair-lifting duel imaginable. Soberly considered the whole business is
a riot of delirium, belonging flagrantly to that realm where all the
world's a screen, and all the men and women merely movies. But the
unexpected charm of the book is that with the possible exceptions
noticed above) it is told with a touch of distinction, even of
subtlety, that invests its wildest audacities with an atmosphere of
fantastic truth. In short, if Mr. G.F. TURNER has done nothing else he
has at least enabled the fastidious to enjoy the thrills of a shocker
while retaining their self-respect.
* * * * *
In the first of the three stories, each about a hundred pages in
length, which make up _Gold and Iron_ (HEINEMANN), it is hard to
escape the conviction that Mr. JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER between the lines,
"So you thought that CONRAD was the only JOSEPH who could throw a
man and woman together on a mysterious coast in the most strangely
romantic circumstances, and provide a thoroughly groolly scrap into
the bargain. Well, here's another little _Victory_ for you." He
seems definitely to challenge that air of the extraordinary and the
inevitable combined which Mr. CONRAD so subtly conveys. It is a big
effort, and I don't feel that the author quite brings it off, yet I
cannot think of anyone but Mr. CONRAD who would have come nearer to
doing so, and the fight in the dark in this story is one that even
after the War will make a reader catch his breath for half-a-dozen
pages at least. In the second and third stories, which actually deal
with gold and iron (the first of the three is called "Wild Oranges,"
though perhaps "Blood Oranges" would have been a better title),
the writer returns to a happier _metier_, and deals with an America
remarkably interesting and wholly novel to me, an America where
foundries and railways are in their infancy and crinolines are worn.
Saloons, bowie knives and bags of gold-dust are all too familiar to
us, but who, on this side of the Atlantic at any rate, ever remembers
the quiet towns with Victorian manners to which the diggers belonged
and returned? Both "Tubal Cain" and "The Dark Fleece" are excellent
yarns and wonderful pieces of pictorial reconstruction as well.
* * * * *
After reading _The Searchers_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), I seriously
think of myself joining His Britannic Majesty's Secret Service.
All the fun and firearms, and ever, at the conclusion, a startling
surprise for your friends and admirers, among whom you stand cool,
calm and collected. _Anthony Keene-Leslie_ did not deceive me
when, upon his first introduction as a secret servant, he modestly
disclaimed the thrills and excitements commonly attributed to his
trade. I knew that many pages would not be turned before he would
land us in the middle of some crimson intrigue; mysterious strangers,
disguises, cryptic and invaluable manuscripts, urgent telegrams,
codes, Italian hidden hands, Scotland Yard, pseudo-taxicabs, clues
and things. But let others beware of Mr. JOHN FOSTER, a most ingenious
manipulator of the old stock-in-trade and possessing a rare sense of
humour. For the reader to pit his wits against the author's is,
in this instance, to be completely "had" and to become under the
necessity (about page 265) of taking off his hat, not only to the
secret servant but to a mere minion of the "Yard" also. Two minor
points emerge from a close study of the book. The first is that the
author is undoubtedly a barrister himself; if I am wrong on this point
I finally withdraw my threat to join the Service. The second point is
that he knows his Scotland even as well as he loves it. In the result
you have two merits, which together amply discount the element of
cheap sensationalism: one merit is the logical development of the
story, and the other is its beautiful setting. I don't know whether
it is due to the Scottish climate or to the legal atmosphere that
the author omits all reference to the feminine sex or affairs of the
heart; but anyhow it seemed right and meet that women should be
left at home when men were engaged upon such violent and dastardly
business.
* * * * *
From certain internal evidences, mainly orthographical, I am led to
suppose _The Branding Iron_ (CONSTABLE) to be of Transatlantic origin.
This, no doubt, explains my unfamiliarity with the name of Miss
KATHARINE NEWLIN BURT, also certain minor points, notably the fact
that the story, though by no means badly told, suffers from what I can
only call a plethora of plot. As I followed the developments of its
intrigue and tracked the heroine from untutored savage, wife of the
wild Westerner whose excusable suspicions caused him to brand her as
private property, to the moment of her triumph as the bejewelled idol
of theatrical New York, the conviction grew upon me that here was a
tale surely predestined to be the screen that covers a multitude of
melodramatics. Presently indeed the suggestion became so insistent
that I went further and began to wonder whether I was not in fact
reading a "story-form" of some already triumphant film. Certainly
the resemblance is almost too pronounced to be fortuitous; from the
sensational branding scene, through cowboy stunts, to the up-town
playhouse, where a repentant and wife-seeking hero recognises his mark
upon the shoulder of the leading lady--and so to reconciliation, slow
fade-out, and the announcement of Next Week's Pictures. But though it
is impossible not to suspect Miss BURT of having an eye to what poetic
journalism calls the Shadow Stage, this is by no means to belittle
her mastery of the colder medium of print; and I hasten to acknowledge
that, upon me at least, _The Branding Iron_ has left a distinct though
possibly fleeting impression of good entertainment.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE RELUCTANT PEGASUS.
A YOUNG SPRING POET HAS TROUBLE WITH HIS MOUNT.]
* * * * *
CANE OR BIRCH?
"House Porter wanted, to live in or out, able to manage
beating apparatus.--Apply, Stating wages required, to
Headmaster, ----- school."--_Local Paper_.
* * * * *
"The total cost of the British delegation to the Peace
Conference at Paris from December, 1918, to 31st September was
L503,368."--_Liverpool Paper_.
But it is only fair to say that in the last month they seem to have
put in a bit of overtime.