Punch 1897-12-18: Vol 113 Iss 2945
The text was read from the page scans by machine (OCR), so it has mistakes and its columns may run together. See the pages · About this title · At the Internet Archive
Page 1
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 2
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 3
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 4
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 5
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 6
PUNCH, OR THE) LONDON CHARIVARL [Decemper 18, 1897. RESEARCHES IN ANCIENT SPORTS. A Littiez Game in Pompitivs’s Birtuiarp Room, LETTERS TO THE CELEBRATED. No. VI.—To Mr. Anprew Lane. My pear Sirn,—To the foot of the heights whence you dis- tribute the wreaths of praise and the bolts of blame I venture to bring this humble letter. I beg you will not thunder upon me if I rouse you for a moment from some dream of airy ghosts to be embodied in yet another volume that shall grapple with the elusive manifestations of the world beyond our vision. What y has stung you that you should thus devote your pleasant earning to the pursuit of these silly stories, these second-sight absurdities retailed at third hand, these vaporous shapes that speak of fate and death to minds overwrought by a morbid brooding, that point to the accomplished inevitable, nor hint oo should they ?) in what fashion it may be undone or avoided ? ou, Sir, whose literary style has so tly captured our ad- miration as to have extorted the award of a first prize amongst moderns from that not too placable censor, Mr. Quitter Coven, are fitted to hunt for a nobler quarry. Leave Julia and her brood (the word a Ae apology, since Julia was in life a spinster lady and icted to journalism), say, to her creator and protégé, Mr. W. T. Sruan. souse, into your ink-pot, or sprawls and scrawls across your writing-paper, how shall she hold the pen of Sreap or indite unctuous blessings to mankind when Borderland shall once more have lapsed from a happy suspense into woful publication? No, let her still be Stean’s own. For you, if you will, there are other pursuits. If you will, I say. But will you? Of what avail is it to cry to you, desine pervicaz, if, with your e open, you still persist in straying amongst these tangled weeds ? | If I should tell you (far from me be the presumption) that you not only fool away your time, but that you incur the censure pronounced by the French king on those who fooled without making him laugh—the quotation is, no doubt, familiar to you in the original—you might justly answer that a man’s time is his own to fool away if he likes, and that, as at present advised, you prefer psychic re to poetry and even to criticism or leading articles on American writers in the columns of the Daily News. Well, every man to his taste, say I. And I must admit that your taste has been catholic. You have rhymed most musically. Though the sum of your verse is small, there is in it a perfect little note of true poetic feeling never torced beyond the bounds that style and an academic culture point out. Others, greatly daring, may venture on a wild wrong word, and find that is absolutely t and tamed to the measure of poetry. You have picked and chosen with a precise care, and your lines sometimes lose in strength as much as - in in qetish, But they haves haunting and delightful melody, and often straight to the heart. And how versatile you have been. y, criticism, short story, leading article, folk , lite- rary gessi , verse—in all these you have shone and still ehine. You have along the little rivers that flow into the great stream of ere f have lingered with Pretenders, false and true, and have exhibi af posterity be ——_ —s a spies. ron must it orgotten t you have written a poem—it a whole volume—on Helen of Troy, and have t the same lady into a novel, written in collaboration with Mr. Riper Haccarp. You, at least, as you review your career and your work have no reason to despond. It is not for you to pose as the homme incompris of your generation. You have, I suppose, done what you wanted, and have done it as you wished to do it. What more can a man require of his life? If you have not gained the brightest chaplets, the reason is that you have not striven for them, and have not cared to strive. But, if the humour should take you, there is yet time for immortality, provided you can bring yourself to abandon for a space your curious ing into the speech and manners of per- sons. With your dispute inst Professor Max Moutzsr, I need not concern myself. matters are too steep for the average man who refuses to puzzle his head with the why and
Page 7
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 8
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 9
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 10
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 11
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 12
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 13
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 14
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 15
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.
Page 16
This page's text is still being fetched. See the page, or reload in a moment.