"HYMEN HYMENÆE!"
A TALE OF THE ALHAMBRA.
Scene from New Ballet.
Conductor Jacobi Demonio charming the public to the Alhambra.
Mons. Jacobi is a wonderful man. The undefeated hero of a hundred ballets—there or thereabouts—still beats time and the record with his bâton at the Alhambra; and his music, specially composed for Fidelia, is to be reckoned among his ordinary triumphs. Fidelia is "a new Grand Romantic Ballet," in four tableaux, and its performance justifies its promise. It is "new," it is decidedly "grand," it is absorbingly "romantic," and there's no denying that it is a Ballet d'action. But, as in the oft-quoted reply when little Peterkin asked "what it was all about," so will the ballet-case-hardened spectator say, "'Why that I cannot tell,' quoth he, 'But 'twas a splendid victory!'" Somebody, possibly one Tartini, played by Signorina Cormani, is in love with Fidelia, Signorina Pollini, as naturally anyone would be; when a comic servant, Mr. George Lupino, is frightened by a Demon Fiddler with his fiddle (both being played by Paganini Redivivus) who either assists the lovers or does his best to prevent their coming together, I am not quite clear which. Up to the last it seemed doubtful whether the Demon Doctor was a good or bad spirit, or a little mixed. His appearance is decidedly against him, as he looks the very deuce. But I am inclined to think that he was a "bon diable," and was doing everything, as everybody else on the stage and in the orchestra does, for the best. After all, and before all, the show is the thing, and this will rank, as it does now, among the best of the greatest attractions hitherto provided by the Alhambra Company for an appreciative public and for
Your Representative.
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
Madam Darmesteter's Retrospect and other Poems is turned out by Fisher Unwin in that dainty dress with which he has made attractive his Cameo Series. We used to know Madam Darmesteter as Miss Mary F. Robinson, a writer of charming verse. That in her new estate she has not lost the old touch is witnessed by several pieces in this volume, notably the first, which supplies the title. The penultimate verse of this little lyric is most musical. There are several others nearly as good. But occasionally Madam writes sad stuff. Of such is The Death of the Count of Armaniac, of which this verse is a fair sample:
"Armaniac, O Armaniac,
Why rode ye forth at noon?
Was there no hour at even,
No morning cool and boon?"
My Baronite, though not yet entered for the Poet Laureateship, thinks that kind of thing might be reeled off by the mile. Why not
My Maniac, O my Maniac,
Why rode ye forth at eve?
Was there no hour at morning tide,
No water in the sieve?
A Clerk in Our Booking-Office.
Three years ago an American firm issued a princely edition of The Memoir of Horace Walpole, written by Austin Dobson. It was too expensive for mere Britishers, and only a small number of copies found their way to this country. But the literary work was so excellent, that it was pronounced a pity it should be entombed in this costly sarcophagus. Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine, & Co. have now brought out an edition, in a single handsome volume, at a reasonable price. Horace Walpole has often been written about since he laid down the pen, but never by a more sympathetic hand than Mr. Dobson's, nor by one bringing to the task fuller knowledge of Walpole's time and contemporaries. The charm of style extends even to the notes, usually in books of this class a tantalising adjunct. Mr. Dobson's are so full of information, and so crisply told, that they might with advantage have been incorporated in the text. The volume contains facsimiles of Horace Walpole's handwriting, an etching of Lawrence's portrait, and a reproduction of the sketch of Strawberry Hill which illustrated the catalogue of 1774. Altogether a delightful book that will, my Baronite says, take its place on a favourite shelf of the library that has grown up round the memory of one of the most interesting figures of the Eighteenth Century.
The Baron de Book-Worms.
WEAR AND TEAR IN AFRICA.
[In the report on the proposed Mombasa Railway, it is suggested that the station-buildings should be enclosed with a strong live-thorn palisade, impenetrable to arrows.]
Scene—A Station on the Mombasa Railway.
New Station-Master (to Telegraph Clerk). Did you send my message this morning, asking for a consignment of revolvers and arrow-proof shields?
Telegraph Clerk. Yes, Sir. I can't make out why we haven't had an answer. Something may have gone wrong with the wires. I sent one of the porters to examine them. Ah, here he comes.
A Porter arrives.
Porter. Just as I thought, Sir. Them blessed niggers have run short of cash, and they've bin and took a mile of our best wire.
Station-Master. Taken a mile of wire? What the deuce do you mean?
Porter. Ah, Sir, you're new to this 'ere job. Fact is, they can all buy theirselves a wife a-piece for two yards of our wire; and as there was a raid last week, and all their wives was made off with, they've just bin and took our telegraph wire to buy theirselves a new lot.
Station-Master. Dear me, how very provoking. I must make a report of this occurrence immediately! But what does this crowd in the distance mean?
Porter. Why bless my heart, it's a Wednesday, and I'd quite forgotten all about it. They always attacks us of a Wednesday, but they're a good half hour earlier than last week.
Station-Master. This is very strange, very strange indeed. I doubt if the directors will approve of this. (An arrow pierces him in the calf of the leg.) Oh, I say, you know, this will never do. Close the points—I mean shut the doors and barricade the windows. Let us at least die as railway men should.
Porter. Lor' bless you, Sir, we shan't die. We've only got to pick off two or three dozen of 'em, and the rest will skip in no time.
[They retire within the palisade, and during the next half hour fight for their lives.
Telegraph Clerk (plucking three arrows out of his left leg). Things are getting a bit hot. Hurrah! here's the 5.30 down express with revolvers and ammunition. Now we shall settle 'em.
[Arrival of the express. Retreat of the natives.
Station-Master. I don't think I quite like this life. I'm going to off it.
[Offs it accordingly.
AN OLD MAN'S MUSINGS.
(After an Afternoon Pipe, at Nazareth House, Hammersmith.)
["Here again, clustered close round the fire
Are a number of grizzle-lock'd men, every one is a true 'hoary sire.'
Bowed, time-beaten, grey, yet alert and responsive to kindness of speech;
And see how old eyes can light up if you promise a pipe-charge to each.
For the comforting weed Kingsley eulogised is not taboo in this place,
Where the whiff aromatic brings not cold reproval to Charity's face."
"An Autumn Afternoon at Nazareth House." Punch, Nov. 5, 1892.]
I don't just know who Kingsley was, but he was a good sort, I reckon!
When nerves are slack and spirits low, the glowing pipe-bowl seems to beckon
Like a good ghost or spirit kind to the fireside where age reposes.
Yes! bacca makes an old man's chair as easeful as a bed of roses.
Bad habit! So the strict ones say; expensive, wasteful, and un-Christian!
I cannot argue of it out; I'm only a poor old Philistian.
But oh the comfort of a pipe, the company it lends the lonely!
It seems the poor soul's faithful friend, and oftentimes the last and only.
Thanks be, they're not the hard sort here, in Nazareth House. The gentle sisters
Take on a many helpful task; some of 'em, I misdoubt, are twisters.
I don't suppose our "shag"-fumes seem as sweet to them as to us others;
But—well, they do not treat us here as badged machines, but human brothers.
Stranded, alone, at seventy-five, after a life of luckless labour,
One feels what 'tis to be esteemed not as a nuisance, but a neighbour;
A neighbour in the Good Book's sense; a poor one, and a helpless, truly,
But—not a plague, who'll live too long, if he is cossetted unduly.
Lawks me, the difference! Don't you know the chilly scorn, the silent snubbing
Which makes a man, as is a man, feel he'd far rather take a drubbing?
Old age and workhouse-duds may hide a deal of nature—from outsiders;
But do you think old "crocks" can't feel, when they're shrunk from, like snails
or spiders?
After my dinner, with my "clay," stringed round the stem, that gums, now toothless,
May grip it firmer, here I sit and muse; and memory's sometimes ruthless
In bringing up a blundering past. We own up frank, me and my fellows,
Where we've gone wrong, and, in regrets employ our wheezy, worn old bellows.
What might have been, if—if—ah, if! That little word, of just two letters,
Stops me worse than a five-barred gate. I wonder if it does my betters?
We never tire round Winter's fire, or settle-ranged in Summer weather,
Of telling of the wandering ways by which we gathered here together.
If some who prate of paupers' ways, their tantrums, or their love of snuffing,
Their fretting at cold, hard-fast rules, their fancy for sly bacca-puffing,
Could only scan the paupers' past a little closer than their mode is,
They'd learn that still some sparks of soul burn in those broken-down old bodies.
And soul does kick at iron rules, and icy ways. Old blood runs chilly,
And craves the heat, of love, fire, pipe, to warm it up like. Very silly,
No doubt, from Bumble's point of view! Here we're held human, though so humble;
And, Heaven be blessed!—at Nazareth House we've never known the rule of Bumble.
The very old and very young are much alike in many a matter;
Comfort and cheeriness we want, play or a pipe, romps or a chatter.
The Nazareth Sisterhood know this, and what is more, they work according.
'Tis love and comfort make a Home, without 'em 'tis bare roof and boarding!
Bitter-sweet memories come sometimes; but a gay burst of baby-laughter,—
For we all laugh at Nazareth House!—will banish gathering blues. And after?
Well, there's the free-permitted whiff, the "old-boy" gossip, low but cheery;
Rest and a Sister's sunny smile soon drive off whim and whig-maleery.
And so laid up, like some old hulk that can no more hope for commission,
I sit, and muse, and puff; and wait that last great change in man's condition
That shifts us to that Great High House to which the Sisters point us daily;
Awaiting which in homely ease, Old Age dwells calmly if not gaily.
INTELLIGENCE À L'AMERICAINE.
Telegram No. 1.—Nothing could have been more terrible than the scene following upon the earthquake. The houses sank through the ground, and immediately a number of lions, tigers, and poisonous serpents, attracted by the unusual occurrence, sprang upon the poor inhabitants, and by their fierce attacks increased their misfortune. But this was not all. Men and women, using swords, battle-axes, and revolvers, fought amongst themselves, until the commotion created by the landslip assumed the appearance of a pandemonium. At this moment, to make confusion worse confounded, a heavy storm broke over the fast-disappearing village, and thunderbolts fell like peas expelled through a peashooter. As if this were not enough, several prairie fires crept up, and the flames augmented the general discomfort. Take it all and all, the sight was enough to make the cheek grow pale with terror and apprehension.
Telegram No. 2.—Please omit lions, tigers, poisonous serpents, swords, battle-axes, revolvers, thunderbolts, prairie fires and cheek. They were forwarded in Telegram No. 1 owing to a clerical error.
Mrs. R. Startled.—"Most extraordinary things are reported in the papers!" observed Mrs. R. "Only the other day I either heard or read that there was a dangerous glazier somewhere about in the Caucasus, that he was using horrible language, and threatening to d—— you'll excuse my using such a word—the Terek (whoever he may be), and that then he was going to amuse—no, the word was 'divert'—somebody. Clearly a lunatic. But who can be diverted by such antics? And why don't they lock up the glazier?" [On referring to the report, her nephew read that "A glacier was causing great alarm." &c., &c., that it was expected temporarily to "dam the Terek, and divert a vast body of water," &c.]
PISCATORIAL POLITENESS.
(From a Yorkshire stream.)
Privileged Old Keeper (to Member of Fishing Club, of profuse and ruddy locks, who is just about to try for the Big Trout, a very wary fish). "Keep yer Head doon, Sir, keep yer Head doon!" (Becoming exasperated.) "'Ord bou it, Man, Keep yer head doon! Yer m't as weel come wi' a Torch-leet Procession to tak' a Fish!"