The Terrors of Reminiscence
The fashionable craze for "slumming," which set in early in the 'eighties, was less objectionable; it was at worst an excrescence on the genuine interest taken in the housing question by serious reformers. But as practised by Mayfair it was ridiculed by Punch as a mere excuse for excitement; Du Maurier reduced it to an absurdity by his picture of society ladies going slumming in mackintoshes to avoid infection; and by another of Todeson, who had taken part in one of these excursions, being disillusioned by contact with real workers, and self-sacrificing East End clergymen. I have not been able to ascertain whether the same artist's picture of professional pugilists being fêted by society in 1887 was a mere piece of burlesque or not; but it was, at any rate, a good example of intelligent anticipation. His satire of "Society's new pet—the artist's model," in a picture of a handsome Junonian girl surrounded by infatuated Duchesses, drinking in her artless and h-less confidences, is probably only a fantastic caricature of aristocratic commercialism, as one of the great ladies is represented as thinking of letting her daughter become a model as a means of social advancement. Mention has been made of the invasion of journalism by society people. But students of foretastes and parallels will find a really remarkable anticipation of the terrors of modern Diaritis—not to use a more vulgar word—in the burlesque review of A Modern Memoir—the Autobiography and Letters of Miss Skimley Harpole, published by Messrs. Rakings & Co.:—
Seldom have we perused a book with so much interest as has thrilled us during our reading of these two handsome volumes. Situate as Miss Harpole was, the daughter of a famous bishop, claiming for mother a lady whose good deeds are remembered to this day, sister of one of the most brilliant female leaders of society, and herself popular, fêted and caressed, there is small room for wonder that even the bare details of Miss Harpole's everyday life would prove interesting, but when told in a charmingly frank style her book becomes a model of what a Memoir should be. In a few short simple sentences she, with delicious naïveté, relates her home life, and so clearly is the picture put before us that we cannot resist quoting the fragment:
"Take us at home of a night! The Bishop in an easy chair, with his gaitered legs crossed, and elevated on the back of another, with a short clay pipe in his mouth, is vaguely mixing his eleventh tumbler of hot gin-and-water, causing us girls great pain to conceal our titters, when, as happens very often at this period of the evening, he deposits the greater part of the hot water on the tablecloth or himself. My mother, regardless of him, sits, carefully studying a sporting paper, and the Racing Calendar, and making her selections for the next day's horse-race. For a heavy gambler is my mother, as is my brother, who, when at home—which is seldom—is either delighted at having won, or in the sulks because he has lost money to his fellow legal students at billiards. As a rule he is delighted, and always carries a lump of chalk in his pocket. My sister is writing notes to Men about Town, Peers and Guardsmen, her lovely features only losing their serenity when lit up by an arch look of wonderment whether she has made appointments with two different men at the same hour and place, while I am sitting, in my school-girlish way, by myself, making notes, so as to tell the world some day the true story of my life."
Space forbids us to say any more of the merits of this charming work, but we cannot resist one extract which shows how true was the estimate of the Bishop's noble character:—
"We were one night at the Italian opera, of which my father was passionately fond, and during the ballet our attention was drawn to a singularly lovely girl on the stage. 'Alas!' said the Colonel, 'she is as bad as she is beautiful.' The Bishop immediately avowed his readiness to investigate the case at the earliest opportunity. He was always thinking of others, despite Mamma's occasionally stubborn opposition."
This concludes our notice. In brief, the book is a most excellent specimen of the modern style of Memoir, conceived with kindliness of heart and charity of remembrance and executed with literary taste, skill and polish.
This was fiction, based on what purported to be truth, and in turn was destined to be easily eclipsed by the actual reminiscences of a later generation. It may be noted in this context that the "blazing indiscretions" in the "Life of Bishop Wilberforce," published in 1883, and the letters of protest which they evoked, had already prompted the satire and sympathy of Punch.
OVERDOING IT
"What? Going already? And in Mackintoshes? Surely you are not going to Walk?"
"Oh, dear no! Lord Archibald is going to take us to a dear little Slum he's found out near the Minories—such a fearful place! Fourteen poor Things in One Bed, and no Window—and the Mackintoshes are to keep out Infection, you know, and hide one's Diamonds, and all that!"
Thought-Reading and Theosophy
The fashionable quest of the unseen world took no new forms in the 'seventies and 'eighties. We hear much less of Spiritualism under that name. This was no doubt in part due to the success of Maskelyne and Cook in outdoing the "manifestations" of mediums, a success so remarkable that they were actually claimed as spiritualists by some of the fraternity. In 1874 Punch waxes facetious at the statement that additional help had been obtained in the working of certain mines by ghostly assistants. Later on there are references to the activities of palmists and Society Sibyls, but the study of the Unseen and the Occult in the 'eighties entered on a new and formidable phase with the advent of thought-readers, theosophists and psychical researchers. Punch devotes a good deal of space to an exhibition of his powers by Irving Bishop, a well-known thought-reader of the time, at which politicians were impressed and sceptics—represented by Ray Lankester—were unconvinced. The pin-finding business was certainly much less impressive than the exploits of the Zancigs some thirty years later. The invasion of the drawing-room by pseudo-science met with little sympathy from Punch, who summed up his view in the phrase, "modish science is a sciolist"; and in 1891 he expressed his resentment against the new mysticism and the jargon of Theosophy in a comprehensive denunciation of "useless knowledge." The verses are worth quoting, not for their poetic quality but for the list of names quoted:—