Book: Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920
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Various >> Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920
[Illustration: _Our Reverend Spoonerist (calling at the Deanery)._ "IS
THE BEAN DIZZY?"]
* * * * *
"WALLASEY'S LOW FIGURE.
POPULATION JUMP--FROM 21,192 TO 99,493 IN 28 DAYS."
_Liverpool Paper._
We do not know why this should be described as a "low figure." To us
it seems remarkably good going.
* * * * *
"The weather forecast for Sheffield and district for the next
twenty-four years is as follows:--
Wind southerly, light, freshening later; cloudy or overcast;
probably some rain later; visibility indifferent to fair;
mild."
_Yorkshire Paper._
It is hoped however that some improvement may be shown in 1945.
* * * * *
Puck's Record Eclipsed.
"For five minutes I was in the Mercantile Marine and the Navy.
During these five minutes I made a complete circuit of the
globe."--_Letter in Welsh Paper._
* * * * *
"The pruning-fork is being applied in order to bring the
staff within the capacity of the accommodation."--_Provincial
Paper._
After which harmony will be restored by means of the tuning-knife.
* * * * *
"It did one good, on entering the Queen's Hall last night, to
find every seat in the building, even to those at the back
of the rostrum, occupied by the London Symphony
Orchestra."--_Evening Paper._
An audience is often so distracting.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Fortune-Teller (to client)._ "A DARK MAN HAS BEEN
HOVERING ABOUT YOUR PATH FOR THE LAST MONTH."
_Client._ "OH, THAT MUST BE THE AGENT WHO'S BEEN WORRYING ME TO INSURE
MY LIFE."]
* * * * *
=THE MOTHER-IN-LAW MYSTERY.=
In a provincial paper I find the following passage:--
"Counsel stated that the prisoner's mother was in court. Later
he informed the Judge that he had made a mistake; it was the
prisoner's mother-in-law. A general laugh throughout the court
followed this 'correction.'"
We have here in a nutshell the case for traditional communal humour,
and once again we are set to wondering why--except possibly to allay
some whimsical twinges of self-respect--dramatists ever try to
invent new jokes at all. Even more are we set to wondering why this
particular joke never fails.
In the present case the injustice done to an honourable class of
women--that is to say, those who provide lovers with their loves (for
that is how these relationships begin)--was the greater because no
doubt, when the laughter had subsided a little, every eye sought
for the lady in question. Normally we have not the opportunity
of visualising the butt at all. It is enough that she should
be mentioned. Nor would any grotesque details in her costume or
physiognomy make the joke appreciably better. It requires no such
assistance; it is rich enough without them; to possess a married
daughter is all that is necessary to cause gusts of joyful mirth.
That it is not the lady herself who is funny could--no matter how
Gothic her figure--be proved in a moment by placing her in the
witness-box and asking her to state her relationship to the prisoner's
wife. She would say, "I am her mother," and nothing would happen. But
if the question were, "What is your relationship to the prisoner?" and
she replied, "I am his mother-in-law," sides would split. Similarly
one can imagine that if the husband's reply to the counsel's question,
"Who was with you?" had been, "My wife was with me," there would have
been no risible reaction whatever; but if the reply had been, "My
wife's mother was with me," the place would have been convulsed. Of
course the true artist in effect would never say, "My wife's mother,"
but "My mother-in-law." It is the "in-law" that is so exquisitely
amusing and irresistible.
But both would be the same person: the gravest thing on earth,
it might be, in every other respect--even sad and dignified--but
ludicrous because her daughter happened to have found a husband.
To inquire why the bare mention of the mother of a man's wife should
excite merriment is to find oneself instantly deep in sociology--and
in some of its seamiest strata too. While exploring them one would
make the odd discovery that, whereas the humour that surrounds
and saturates the idea of a wife possessing a maternal relative
is inexhaustible, there is nothing laughable about the mother of a
husband. A wife can talk of her husband's mother all day and never
have the reputation of a wit, whereas her husband has but to mention
her mother and he is the rival of the Robeys.
As for fathers-in-law, low comedians would starve if they had to
depend on the help that fathers-in-law give them. Fathers-in-law do
not exist. Nor do brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law, except as facts;
but the joke is that they can be far more interfering (interference
being at the root of the matter, I take it) than anyone in the world.
It is the brother-in-law who knows of absolutely safe gilt-edged
investments (which rarely succeed), and has to be helped while waiting
for something to turn up; it is the sister-in-law who is so firmly
convinced that dear Clara (her brother's wife) is spoiling the
children. But both escape; while many really charming old ladies,
to whom their sons-in-law are devoted, continue to be riddled by the
world's satirical bullets.
What is to be done about it? Nothing. Only the destruction of the
institution of marriage could affect it.
E. V. L.
* * * * *
=MY APOLOGIA.=
(_Lines accidentally omitted from a notorious volume of Memoirs._)
If life is dull and day by day
I see that wittier, wiser
England where I was wont to play
(Being as bold as I was gay)
Keep passing rapidly away
All through the German KAISER;
If "Souls" are not the things they were,
If caste declines and Vandals
Go practically everywhere
From Cavendish to Berkeley Square,
And dowdy frumps without the "air"
Monopolise the scandals;
There is but one thing left to do--
And what's a sporting flutter worth
Unless one takes a risk or two?--
"I'll shock the world," I thought, "anew,"
And (ultimately) did so through
The firm of THORNTON BUTTERWORTH.
Two worlds indeed. The mighty West
Poured out her untold money
To gaze upon my palimpsest;
I think that Codex A was best,
But parts of this have been suppressed;
Publishers are so funny.
And now my fame through London rings
In well-bred speech and _argot_;
At mild suburban tea-makings
The postman knocks, and poor dear things
Tear wildly at the parcel-strings
When MUDIE gives them MARGOT.
Pressmen have tried to make a lot
Out of a certain instance
Of mild misstatement as to what
Happened in 1914. Rot!
All I can say is that my plot
Has much more _verve_ than WINSTON'S.
Well, never mind. The work is done;
People who do not need it--
The wit, the fire, the force, the fun,
The pathos--let them simply shun
This frightful book, shout "Shame!" and run;
Nobody's _forced_ to read it.
EVOE.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Dentist (after preliminary inspection)._
"EXTRAORDINARY THING--THERE'S ONE OF YOUR TEETH ONLY HALF STOPPED."
_Patient._ "AH, THAT WERE T'OOTHER DENTIST. T' LAAD 'URT ME, SO AH
GAVE 'IM A GOOD LICK IN T' JAW."]
* * * * *
=NOMEN, OMEN.=
(_By our Medical Correspondent._)
No one who is interested in the possibilities of psycho-therapy
can view without serious misgiving recent tendencies in artistic
nomenclature. Some of us are old enough to remember when the trend
was in the direction of Italianisation; when FOLEY became SIGNOR FOLI;
CAMPBELL, CAMPOBELLO, and an American from Brooklyn was transformed
into BROCCOLINI. The vogue of alien aliases has passed, but it may
return, and it is to guard against the formidable and deleterious
results of its recrudescence that the following suggestions, are
propounded, not merely in the interests of Gongorism or of an
intensive cultivation of syncretic euphuism, but in accordance with
the most approved conclusions of psycho-analytic research.
It may be urged--and the objection is natural--that there can be
little danger of a relapse in view of the heroic and patriotic
adhesion of some of our most distinguished artists to their homely
patronymics. No doubt the noble example of CLARA BUTT and CARRIE TUBB
is fortifying and reassuring, and there are also clamant proofs that
denationalisation is no passport to eminence. But it would be foolish
to overlook the existence of powerful influences operating in an
antipodal direction. I confess to a feeling approaching to dismay when
I study the advertisement columns of the daily papers and note the
recurrence, in the announcements of impending concerts, of names of
a strangely outlandish and exotic form. In a single issue I have
encountered KRISH, ARRAU, KOUNS and DINH GILLY. The Christian names of
some of these eminent performers are equally momentous and perturbing,
_e.g._, JASCHA, KOFZA and UTT.
My grounds for perturbation are not imaginary or based on the
hallucinations of a hypersensitive mind. They are prompted and
justified by the notorious facts, established by the leading
psycho-analysts, that, just as mellifluous and melodious names
exercise a mollifying influence on the activities of the sub-conscious
self, so the possession or choice of strange or ferocious appellations
incites the bearer, if I may be permitted to use so commonplace a
term, to live up to his label.
It is therefore with all the force at my command that I entreat and
implore singers, players and dancers to think, not once but twice or
thrice, before they yield to the fascination of the unfamiliar and
adopt artistic pseudonyms calculated to intensify the "urges" of
their primitive instincts. It is not too much to say that a singer
who deliberately assumes the name of Pongo, Og or Botuloffsky runs a
serious risk, in virtue of the inherent magic of names, of developing
qualities wholly unfitted for the atmosphere of a well-conducted
concert-hall.
I believe that the question of establishing a censorship of artists'
names has been seriously considered by Dr. ADDISON, in view of its
bearing on public hygiene, and that he estimates the cost of staffing
the new department as not likely to exceed seven hundred and fifty
thousand pounds a year. Still, in these days when State economy is so
needful, it would be better if the desired effect were attained by the
pressure of enlightened public opinion rather than by the operations
of even so inexpensive a department as that contemplated by the
MINISTER OF HEALTH.
* * * * *
=IN FLANDERS FIELDS.=
These famous verses, which originally appeared in _Punch_, December
8th, 1915, being the work of a Canadian officer, Lieut.-Colonel
MCCRAE, who fell in the War, have been subjected to so many
perversions--the latest in a letter to _The Times_ from a Minister of
the Crown, where the closing lines are misquoted as follows:
"If ye break faith with those of us who died,
We shall not sleep, though poppies bloom in fields of France"--
that Mr. Punch thinks it would be well to reproduce them in their
correct form:--
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
* * * * *
=AT THE PLAY.=
"FEDORA."
It may or may not be well that the War has modified our estimate of
the value of life; but it is a bad thing for the legitimate drama. And
in the case of _Fedora_ the bloody _regime_ of LENIN has so paled
our memory of the terrors of Nihilism that SARDOU'S play seems almost
further away from us than the tragedy of _Agamemnon_. In our callous
incapacity to be thrilled by the ancient horrors of forty years ago we
fall back on the satisfaction to be got out of the author's dexterity
in the mechanics of his craft.
And here the critic's judgment is also apt to be more cold-blooded.
He recognises the crude improbability of certain details which are
essential to the tragic development of the play. The death of _Count
Vladimir_ (accented on the first or second syllable according to the
temporary emotion of the speaker) was due to the discovery of a letter
in an unlocked drawer where it could never possibly have been thrown,
being an extremely private letter of assignation. The death of
_Fedora_, again, was the direct result of a letter which she
despatched to Petersburg denouncing a man who proved, in the light of
fresh facts learned a few minutes later, to be the last (or last but
one) that she would wish to injure. It is incredible that she should
not have hastened to send a second letter withdrawing her charge;
"instead of which" she goes casually off on a honeymoon with his
brother, and apparently never gives another thought to the matter till
it is fatally too late.
However, I am not really concerned at this time of day with the
improbabilities of so well-established a tragedy, but only with the
most recent interpretation of it. And let me say at once that, for the
best of reasons, I do not propose to compete with the erudition of my
fellow-critics in the matter of previous interpreters, for I bring a
virgin mind to my consideration of the merits of the present cast.
_Fedora_ is the most exhausting test to which Miss MARIE LOeHR has
yet put her talent. The heroine's emotions are worked at top-pressure
almost throughout the play. At the very start she is torn with
passionate grief for the death of her lover and a still more
passionate desire to take vengeance on the man who killed him. When
she learns the unworthiness of the one and the justification of the
other those emotions are instantly exchanged for a passionate worship
of the late object of her vengeance, to be followed by bitter remorse
for the harm she has done him and terror of the consequences when he
comes to know the truth. And so to suicide.
I will confess that I was astonished at the power with which Miss LOeHR
met these exigent demands upon her emotional forces. It was indeed a
remarkable performance. My only reservation is that in one passage
she was too anxious to convey to the audience the intensity of her
remorse, when it was a first necessity that she should conceal it
from the other actor on the stage. It was nice and loyal of Mr. BASIL
RATHBONE to behave as if he didn't notice anything unusual, but it
must have been as patent to him as to us.
Of his _Loris_ I cannot say too much in admiration. At first Mr.
RATHBONE seemed a little stiff in his admirably-fitting dress-clothes,
but in the last scene he moved through those swift changes of
emotion--from joy to grief, from rage to pity and the final anguish
and horror--with extraordinary imagination and resource.
Of the others, Mr. ALLAN AYNESWORTH, as _Jean de Siriex_, played in
a quiet and assured undertone that served to correct the rather
expansive methods of Miss ELLIS JEFFREYS, whose humour, always
delightful, afforded a little more relief than was perhaps consistent
with the author's designs and her own dignity as a great lady in the
person of the _Countess Olga_.
O. S.
* * * * *
A Matinee in aid of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children
will be given at the Garrick Theatre on Wednesday, November 17th,
at 2.30, when a comedy by Mr. LOUIS N. PARKER will be presented,
entitled, _Pomander Walk_ (period 1805).
It is hoped that at the Alhambra Matinee on November 16th one thousand
pounds will be raised to complete the special pension fund for actors,
which is to be a tribute of affection to the memory of Mr. SYDNEY
VALENTINE, who, in the words of Mr. MCKINNEL, "did more for the rank
and file of the theatrical profession than any actor, living or dead."
* * * * *
="The Dog it was who Died."=
"At Dovey Board of Conservators at Barmouth it was decided
to ask Major Dd. Davies to hunt the district with his otter
hounds, and failing this the water bailiffs themselves should
attempt to stamp them out."--_Welsh Paper._
Major DD. DAVIES' answer is not known to us, but we assume that he
said, "Well, I'm Dd."
* * * * *
"Royal Surrey Theatre. Grand Opera. To-night, 8, Cav. and
Pag."--_Daily Paper._
More evidence of the paper-shortage.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Affluent Sportsman (after a long blank draw)._ "NOW I
BET YOU WE'LL FIND AS SOON AS I LIGHT ONE OF MY HALF-DOLLAR CIGARS."
_Friend._ "DON'T YOU THINK WE MIGHT MAKE A CERTAINTY OF IT IF I LIT
ONE TOO?"]
* * * * *
=OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.=
(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
I do not think that even the most phlegmatic of Englishmen could
read _Francis and Riversdale Grenfell: a Memoir_ (NELSON) without a
quickening of the pulses. This is not to suggest that Mr. JOHN BUCHAN
has sought to make an emotional appeal--indeed he has told the tale
of these devoted brothers with a simplicity beyond praise--but it is
a tale so fine that it must fill the heart, even of those who were
strangers to them, with joy and pride. I beg you to read the memoir
for yourselves, and see how and why it was that these twin brothers,
from Eton onwards, radiated cheerfulness and a happy keenness wherever
they went. "Neither," Mr. BUCHAN writes, "could be angry for long, and
neither was capable of harshness or rancour. Their endearing grace of
manner made a pleasant warmth in any society which they entered; and
since this gentleness was joined to a perpetual glow of enthusiasm
the effect was triumphant. One's recollection was of something lithe,
alert, eager, like a finely-bred greyhound." Those of us who were not
personally acquainted with FRANCIS and RIVERSDALE GRENFELL will, after
reading this Memoir and the Preface by their uncle, Field-Marshal Lord
GRENFELL, seem to know them intimately. FRANCIS won the first V.C.
gained in the War, but when he read the announcement of it in _The
Gazette_ his brother was already killed and his joy of life was
quenched. "I feel," he wrote to his uncle, "that I know so many who
have done and are doing so much more than I have been able to do
for England. I also feel very strongly that any honour belongs to my
regiment and not to me." In that spirit he met his death a few months
later. In work and sport, in war or peace, the twins were ardent,
generous and brave, and their deaths were as glorious as their lives
were gracious and radiant. The profits of Mr. BUCHAN'S book are to
be devoted to the funds of the Invalid Children's Aid Association, in
which the brothers were deeply interested.
* * * * *
There are certain tasks which, like virtue, carry their reward with
them. No doubt Miss ELEANOUR SINCLAIR ROHDE would be gratified if
her book, _A Garden of Herbs_ (LEE WARNER), were to pass into several
editions--as I trust it will--and receive commendation on every
hand--as it surely must--but such results would be irrelevancies. She
has already, I am convinced, tasted so much delight in the making
of this, the most fragrant book that I ever read, in her delving and
selecting, that nothing else matters. Not only is the book fragrant
from cover to cover, but it is practical too. It tells us how
our ancestors of not so many generations ago--in Stuart times
chiefly--went to the herb garden as we go to the chemist's and the
perfumer's and the spice-box, and gave that part of the demesne much
of the honour which we reserve for the rock-garden, the herbaceous
borders and the pergola. And no wonder, when from the herbs that grow
there you can make so many of the lenitives of life--from elecampane
a sovran tonic, and from purslane an assured appetiser, and from
marjoram a pungent tea, and from wood-sorrel a wholesome water-gruel,
and from gillyflowers "a comfortable cordial to cheer the heart," and
from thyme an eye-lotion that will "enable one to see the fairies."
Miss ROHDE tells us all, intermingling her information with mottoes
from old writers and new. Sometimes she even tells too much, for,
though she says nothing as to how lovage got its pretty name, we are
told that "lovage should be sown in March in any good garden soil."
Did we need to be told that? Is it not a rule of life? "In the Spring
a young man's fancy...."
* * * * *
To my mind, amongst the least forgettable books of the present year
will be that to which Mr. SETON GORDON, F.Z.S., has given the title
of _The Land of the Hills and the Glens_ (CASSELL). Mr. GORDON has
already a considerable reputation as a chronicler of the birds
and beasts (especially the less approachable birds) of his native
Highlands. The present volume is chiefly the result of spare-moment
activities during his service as coast-watcher among the Hebrides.
Despite its unpropitious title, I must describe it without hyperbole
as a production of wonder and delight. Of its forty-eight photographic
illustrations not one is short of amazing. We are become used to fine
achievement in this kind, but I am inclined to think Mr. GORDON goes
one better, both in the "atmosphere" of his mountain pictures and in
his studies of birds at home upon their nests. To judge, indeed,
by the unruffled domesticity of these latter, one would suppose Mr.
GORDON to have been regarded less as the prying ornithologist than as
the trusted family photographer. I except the golden eagle, last of
European autocrats, whose greeting appears always as a super-imperial
scowl. Chiefly these happy results seem to have been due to a triumph
of patient camouflage, concerning which the author suggests the
interesting theory that birds do not count beyond unity, _i.e._,
if two stalkers enter an ambush and one subsequently emerges, the
vigilance of the feathered watchers is immediately relaxed. Should
this be true, I can only hope that Mr. GORDON will get in another book
before the spread of higher education increases his difficulties.
* * * * *
I should be inclined to call Mr. NORMAN DOUGLAS our only example of
the romantic satirist, though, unless you have some previous knowledge
of his work, I almost despair of condensing the significance of this
into a paragraph. For one thing the mere exuberance of his imagination
is a rare refreshment in this restricted age. His latest book,
with the stimulating title of _They Went_ (CHAPMAN AND HALL), is an
admirable example of this. Certainly no one else could have created
this exotic city with its painted palaces and copper-encrusted towers,
a vision of sea-mists and rainbows; or peopled it with so iridescent a
company--the strange princess; the queen, her mother; the senile king
who should have been (but wasn't) her father; _Theophilus_, the Greek
artist; the philosophic old Druidess, and the dwarfs who "chanted
squeaky hymns amid sacrifices of mushrooms and gold-dust." Perhaps
this random quotation may hint at the fantastic nature of the tale;
it can give no idea of the intelligence that directs it, mocking,
iconoclastic, almost violently individual. Plot, I fancy, seldom
troubles Mr. DOUGLAS greatly; it happens, or it does not. Meanwhile
he is far more concerned in fitting a double meaning (at least) to the
most simple-sounding phrase. To sum up, _They Went_ is perhaps not
for idle, certainly not for unintelligent, reading; for those who
can appreciate quality in a strange guise it will provide a feast of
unfamiliar flavours that may well create an appetite for more.
* * * * *
That clever writer, Mr. A. P. HERBERT, would lightly describe his
story, _The House by the River_ (METHUEN), as a "shocker." But
there are ways and ways of shocking. He might wish to show us the
embarrassments of a fairly respectable member of the intellectual
classes, living in a highly respectable environment, when he finds
that he has committed homicide; and he might make the details as
gruesome as he liked. But there was no need to shock the sensitive
when he made his choice of the circumstances in which the poet,
_Stephen Byrne_, inadvertently throttles his housemaid. It is a
fault, too, that his scheme only interests him so far as it concerns
_Stephen_ and his society, and that the horror of the tragedy from
what one may loosely call the victim's point of view does not seem to
affect him at all. Otherwise, even for the sake of brevity, he could
not so flippantly refer to the body, sewn in a sack and thrown into
the river, as just "Eliza." He may argue that he never thought of the
corpse as a real one and that the whole thing was merely an experiment
in imaginative art; but his details are too well realised for that,
and so is his admirable picture of the society of Hammerton Chase,
W., a thin disguise for a riverside neighbourhood easy to recognise.
I could never get myself quite to believe that _Stephen's_ friend,
_Egerton_, accessory after the fact, would so long and so tamely have
borne the suspicion of it; but for the rest Mr. HERBERT'S study of his
milieu shows a very intimate observation. If his _Stephen_, in
whom the highest poetic talents are found tainted with a touch
of coarseness, may not always be credible, the passion for
self-expression which leads him on to versify his own experience in
the form of a mediaeval idyll, and so give himself away, is true to
life. But my final impression of Mr. HERBERT'S book--he will perhaps
think I am taking him too seriously--is that his many gifts and
notably his humour, whose gaiety I prefer to its grimness, are here
exercised on a rather unworthy theme.