(A Fable for those who Resent Criticism.)
In continuation (with apologies) of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's clever "Story of Ung," in the December Number of "The Idler."
Now Ung grew exceeding bumptious along of his scribings on bone;
And he sware that no one could judge them save only the scriber alone;
And he cocked his nose at the critics (save such as effusively praised),
And he prated of "Art for Art's sake," till the tribesmen imagined him crazed.
And Ung grew exceeding abusive, and proudly "uplifted his horn,"
With an Oscar Wildeish swagger, with a more than Whistlerian scorn.
He kicked with the wrath of a Kipling at "the dull-brained bourgeois lot,"
(Though he put it in different lingo, for this Billingsgate then was not.)
But the prehistoric for "Philistine!" fell from his scorn-curled lips,
And he lashed the non-artistic with words which would cut like whips.
And the non-artistic tribesmen they cried "he is right, this Ung,
Though we doubt if the sabre-tooth tiger has got such a rasping tongue:
"But there's truth in his 'Art for Art's Sake,' and Art for him shall suffice."
So they shut him up, with his bones and his tools, in a cave of ice.
No new-cut tongues if the bison, no pelts of the reindeer there,
But only cold snow for cover, and only bare bones for fare.
For they said, "We are nowise worthy, we hunting and trapping fools,
To judge of his fine bone-scribings, and the way he uses his tools,
Only an artist can judge of an artist's work, and he
Is our only maker of pictures, our only man who can see.
"So he must be artist and critic and purchaser all in one!"
And Ung admitted their logic, but he did not see the fun.
He cried "I am cold and hungry!" Then they said, "O picture-man,
Art for Art's sake is your motto; then live on your Art—if you can!"
And Ung essayed to do so—by gnawing his graven bones,
But he did not find them nourish, and he begged in humbled tones
For a lump of stranded whale-meat, succulent, fat and hot;
In return for which, if they cared for his bones, they might take the lot!
So they let Ung out of the ice-cave upon these liberal terms,
And cured the fool of regarding his fellow-mortals as worms.
And whenever ye hear Art crackpots a-wagging an insolent tongue,
Why then—in the words of Rudyard—heed ye the "Story of Ung!"