OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
There was a bronze group by POLLET among the specimens of sculpture in the French Salon, some twenty years ago,—"It may be more or less an hour or so," as the poet sings,—representing a female form being carried upwards in the embrace of a rather evil-looking Angel. It illustrated a poem by the Vicomte ALFRED DE VIGNY, which I remember reading, in consequence of this very statue having come into my possession (it was afterwards sold at Messrs. CHRISTIE, MANSON & WOODS, under the style and title of "Lot 121, Elsa"), and it occurs to me that it was on precisely the same theme as the other ALFRED's—not the Vicomte but Mister ALFRED AUSTIN's—"The Tower of Babel," which I have just read with much pleasure, and, with some profit; the moral, as I take it, being favourable to the Temperance cause, as a warning against all spirits, good, bad, or indifferent. Afrael, the inhabitant of a distant star, falls in love with Noema, the wife of the atheistical Babelite Aran, to whom she has borne a son, aged in the poem, as far as I can make out, about eight years, and a fine boy for that. Anyhow, it makes Noema at least twenty-five, supposing she married at sweet seventeen, and, indeed, she alludes to herself in the poem as no longer in her first youth.
Well, Aran, who is very far from being a domestic character, is struck down by avenging lightning at the destruction of the Tower of Babel, and Noema is left a widow, with her child, who has been protected in the mêlée by the Spirit Afrael's taking him out of it, and restoring him to his mother's arms. When, after this, the infatuated spirit-lover Afrael requests Noema to say the word which shall make a man of him, and a husband of him too at the same time, she modestly refuses, until she has had a decent time to order her widow's weeds at her milliner's and wear them for about a month or so, at the expiration of which interval Afrael may, if he be still of the same mind, call in again, and pop the question.
Afrael bids good-bye to the Upper House, and, his heart being ever true to Poll—meaning Noema—he returns, makes an evening call upon her, and asks her, in effect, "Is it to be 'Yes-ema,' or 'No-ema'?" The bashful widow chooses the former, and the Spirit-lover Afrael, renouncing his immortality, i.e., giving up spirits, becomes plain Mr. Afrael, and an ordinary, as far as anybody can judge, a very ordinary mortal, showing what a change a drop of spirits can effect in a constitution. Now I should like the poem "continued in our next." I should like to hear how they got on together: and, as longevity was considerable in those patriarchal days, I should like to know how they got on together when Afrael Esquire was 195, and his wife, Noema, was 200. Did Afrael never again take to his spirits? Or, did he become miserable and hipped having entirely lost his spirits? Did his wife never make sarcastic reference to the "stars" with whom he had formerly been acquainted? And how about her boy, his step-son? Did they have any family? Whence came the money?
Perhaps Mr. ALFRED AUSTIN (whose works are being printed by MACMILLAN in a collected form, and among them The Satire now historic) will give us an entirely new volume on the same subject, telling an expectant public all about Mr. and Mrs. Afrael chez eux, and, in fact, something spicy about this strangely assorted couple; for Poet ALFRED will do well to remember and act upon his own dictum when, in the preface to The Satire, he observed, and with truth, that had he originally "written with the grave decorum of a secluded moralist, he would" by this time "have gone down into the limbo of forgotten bores."
Into that limbo A.A. will never descend. It is delightful to find him dedicating his book to Lord LYTTON, to whom—when L.L. was OWEN MEREDITH, ALFREDO mio had pointed out that, "in one serious particular, he had overlooked parental admonition," and observing on that occasion that, "had OWEN MEREDITH even a glimpse of the truth, we" (A.A. himself, in 1861, much "we"-er then than now—"et alors, il grandira, il grandira!") "should have been spared the final tableau of repentance and forgiveness which concludes Lucile." But, thank goodness, we (the Baron, and his literary friends) have not been spared the touching picture of repentance and forgiveness in ALFRED AUSTIN's dedicating his latest poem to Lord LYTTON. Sic transit ira poetarum!
In The Season ALFREDO sang—
"I claim the precious privilege of youth,
Never to speak except to speak the truth."
But those lines were not written the day before yesterday, and as he can no longer "claim" the aforesaid "precious privilege," he can in his more mature years "go as he pleases." And there is so much "go" in him that he always pleases; so the Baron anticipates the sequel to The Tower of Babel on the lines already suggested, presumptuous as it may seem to suggest lines to a poet.
Phra the Phoenician, a very clever idea, with which BULWER would have performed mysteriously thrilling wonders, but which Mr. ARNOLD has written at once too heavily and treated too lightly, in too much of a "so-called nineteenth century style;" which is a pity, as it is full of dramatic incident, and the interest well kept up through some two thousand years or so, more or less. He is a wonder is Mister Phra, and might well be called Phra Diavolo instead of Phra the Phoenician. Sir EDWIN ARNOLD has written a preface to the volume, and seems to express a wish that the wonders here recorded could be possibilities of everyday life. But, if so, as Mr. Weller, Senior, observed, à propos of "there being a Providence in it," "O' course there is, SAMMY; or what 'ud become o' the undertakers?" And as to cremation—well, such an utter corporeal extinction would be the only way of putting an end to the terrestrial existence of Phra the Phoenician, who, however, "might rise," as Mrs. Malaprop would say, "like a Phoenician from the ashes."
The appearance of A New Lady Audley is rather late in the half-century as a "skit" on Miss BRADDON's celebrated novel. Now and then I found an amusing bit in it, but, on the whole, poor stuff, says THE BARON DE BOOK-WORMS.
My faithful "Co." has been reading poetry and prose, and thus communicates the result of his studies:—There is genuine but unassuming poetry, which is, after all, only another way of saying fine feeling finely expressed, in Corn and Poppies, by COSMO MONKHOUSE (ELKIN MATHEWS). Much of the verse is musical, and there is throughout a vein of thoughtfulness which never degenerates into a morbid brooding. I commend particularly "Any Soul to any Body," "A Dead March," and "Mysteries," as good examples of Mr. MONKHOUSE's style. So much for verse. Let me now to prose. Like my baronial Chief, I say, "Bring me my boots!" and let them be thick, so that I may trudge safely through Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING's latest, "The Light that Failed" (Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, January). This is described as Mr. KIPLING's first long story. His publishers, moreover, are good enough to take all the trouble of criticism upon their own shoulders. They declare that "there is more stern strength in this novel than in anything which Mr. KIPLING has written;" but that is, after all, only a comparative statement, which profits me little, as I never yet estimated the amount of "stern strength" in Mr. KIPLING's previous writings. I am, however, told, in addition, that the tale "is as intensely moving as it is intensely masculine" (there's lovely language!) "and it will not be surprising if it should prove to be the literary sensation of the year." To such an expression of opinion by competent judges it would be futile to attempt to add very much. I will only say, therefore, that the "sensation" produced in me by this novel is one of the most disagreeable I ever experienced. The characters are, for the most part, inordinately dull, preposterously conceited, and insufferably brutal. As for Dick Heldar, the hero, no more disagreeable and hateful bully-puppy ever thought and talked in disconnected gasps through ninety-seven pages. The catastrophe moves no pity. Mr. KIPLING seems to despise the public, "who think with their boots, and read with their elbows;" but so clever a man might surely show his contempt less crudely. KIPLING, I love thee, but never more write such another tale!
