M. H. Spielmann

“ Who ever heard of a middle-aged fairy? Such folk, be their age what it may, generally prefer fun; especially do they love what Charles Dickens once for all defined and established as the Spirit of Christmas. Well, here they may find Father Christmas at home, and on his rounds. Here they will find revealed and laid bare the whole secret and mystery of Santa Claus—where the presents come from, and where they are stored—how they are packed and how delivered while we are all asleep in our beds, delivered from the waits. ”

“ From more, the quieter flow of genial humour. And among the rest, the listeners; men—some of them—who prefer to attend than to talk, even to the point of reserve and almost of taciturnity. Such men were John Leech, Richard Doyle, and Charles Keene—whose silence, however, masked subtle minds that were teeming with droll ideas, and as appreciative of humour as the sprightliest. What jokes have been made, what stories told that never have found their way into print! What chaff, what squibs, what caricatures—which it surpasses the wit of a Halsbury or a MacNeill to imagine or condone! ”

“ Inhabited—not by ugly spiders, but by the wee-est little baby-fairies with the wee-est gossamer wings, swaying in their cobweb hammocks in all attitudes, fast asleep, soothed by the lullaby hummed by the wind.
"This must be where they are bred!" cried Rosella, in an ecstasy of admiration and delight.
"This is Fairy Spring's nursery," explained a beautiful Sprite, appearing suddenly at her elbow like a little bright sunbeam. "King Frost is the ground landlord, you know, and allows all her young things to sleep here and keep warm." ”

“ With verse and article, epigram and parody, Punch continues to be a record and a mirror of his times—a comic distorting mirror perhaps, but still a glass of fashion and of history, with fun for its mercury, which, through its literature, pleasantly and agreeably reflects the deeds and the thoughts of the people. What of it, if his verse now and again is only passable? Sometimes it is fine—always acceptable, and rarely below an elevated established standard; anyhow, some years ago, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's single offering was rejected on its demerits by the "monument of British humour." ”

“ Dulcie, kneeling by his side and shading her eyes with her hand, saw that old clump of rocks again, and upon them stood his Majesty the Fish-King waving his crown at them. The tide rose higher and higher. He made three low bows in their direction—Dulcie fluttered her handkerchief and curtsied, Cyril bowed his best—the Fish-King made a final gesture of farewell, the Twins kissed their hands; his Majesty put his crown firmly on his head with a smack, and disappeared with the rocks beneath the surging spray. And they felt they would never see him more. ”

“ Yet moustache, beard, and whiskers have been a mine of fun to Leech—from the little Eton boy who tells the hairdresser, when he has cut his curls, just to give him a close shave, and who ties the major's whisker to his sister's ringlet; to the snobs who, "giving to hairy nothings a local habitation and a name," flatter themselves that their stubbly chins will get them mistaken for "captings" at the very least; and to the military Adonises who may boast that their silken beards and fierce moustaches lead a beauty by each single hair. ”

“ The London square was more than usually hushed and mournful, except for a warning call or whistle as a van cautiously lumbered along, or blundered on to the pavement. The nursery fire did its best to look cheerful: the lights were all on too, showing up the bright pictures on the walls and the bright faces of the three children who were chattering gaily at the breakfast-table. And they all looked so smart! Alec and Frank in their best suits, and tiny Molly wore her prettiest white frock and her coral necklace, just as if she were going to a party. ”

“ As Thackeray so truly remarked himself—"What is the use of quarrelling with a man if you have to meet him every Wednesday at dinner?" Nevertheless, in course of time he changed his seat from between Jerrold and Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, and, crossing over, faced his friend the enemy, while Mark Lemon, watchful and alert beneath the cloak of geniality, was quick to cast a damping word on inflammable conversation and—so far as he could persuade them to listen to a man so greatly their inferior in genius and intellect—to stem the threatened outburst. ”

“ In the antechamber to the ball-room stood the giant Christmas-tree, hung with so many gifts of exquisite needlework from the ladies of the Court for the King, and so many, too, for Princess Veronica, that there was hardly room for any other presents for any one else, so they had to be stacked up in separate heaps on the floor.
There was one present on the tree, which was handsomer and costlier than all the rest—it was a pair of woollen boots so cunningly and dexterously wrought with precious jewels that they were the most beautiful ever seen or heard of. ”

“ There are few vices so deeply resented as the telling of an old joke; in an editor it is recognised as amounting to crime. But those who judge so severely have clearly never made a scientific study of the Joke. It is not sufficient to analyse a witticism and dissect it, in the cold spirit of that terrible book called "A Theory of Wit and Humour," till its humour flies, like the delicate bouquet from uncorked wine. The genealogy of jokes and twists of humour and of thought, of form and application, must be traced ”

“ The first visit was to Iris at the Grange, whither Santa Claus was already on his way. They entered the pretty bedroom, where the spoilt little lady was smiling in anticipation in her sleep; and the "dolly, pamberlator, watch, and titten with real scratches" (immovably asleep) were all produced as though by some conjuring trick from Santa Claus's basket or deep pockets, and duly placed to meet the child's eager glance on her waking.
"Mr. Santa Claus," whispered Nancy, who had been wondering all the time, "how did we get here?" ”

“ Punch sits, say those of a later day, there is the flow of wit and of laughter—there the fountain of that fun which has stamped his journal as representative of what is most characteristic and best in English humour—there the source of the art which has been the greatest school of wood-drawing and cutting, and of true caricature, that this country has ever seen. Good-nature is the quality rarest and most remarkable in a political and social journal. ”

“ You sought to entrap the boy as a Crab—it was I who restored the gem and saved him, as you may have guessed. And with that success the Bird-Fairy's hour now has come! You have failed to snare them as Bird, Beast, or Fish—your science can change mortals to nothing else. And now you shall fail to turn them to slaves."
Again the Wizard's discordant laughter was heard, and he said—
"You certainly got hold of that gem, my dear—and you evidently consider yourself in consequence an apt pupil of that old Fairy who befriended you—worse luck to her! ”

“ As for political opinions, I have none; at least, if I have my own little politics, I keep them to myself, and profess only those of my paper. If I have infused any dignity into cartoon-designing, that comes from no particular effort on my part, but solely from the high feeling I have for art. In any case, if I am a 'cartoonist'—the accepted term—I am not a caricaturist in any sense of the word. My drawings are sometimes grotesque, but that is from a sense of fun and humour. Some people declare that I am no humorist, that I have no sense of fun at all ”

“ But what is pretty and practical too, is that all of us should sometimes let our fancy roam, and that we should laugh as well, even over a Fairy-story. Yet there are some serious-minded persons, very grave and very clever, who get angry if a smile so much as creeps into a Fairy-tale, and if our wonder should be disturbed by anything so worldly as a laugh. A Fairy-tale, they say, should be like an old Folk-tale, marked by sincerity and simplicity—as if humour cannot be sincere and simple too. "The true Fairy-story is not comic." ”

“ Passing from these things to a more pleasing one, we are struck with Leech's exceptional love of beauty. Never did Nature seem more delightful than in his cuts—in those dainty backgrounds in which the loveliest scenery is so skilfully reproduced. "What plump young beauties," cries Thackeray, "those are with which Mr. Punch's chief contributor supplies the old gentleman's pictorial harem!" It is true, they are nearly always the same girl, this ideal of Punch's—short in stature, simple and pouting and laughing, with big eyes and rounded chin, with bewitching dimples and pretty ringlets ”

“ Passing through the nursery again she stopped and said—
"What would my Poppets say to a little sister, I wonder! A tiny new baby!"
"Oh, Grandnurse!" And before the old woman could hurry out of the door Monica sprang forward, her face all aglow with excitement, and holding her tight by the arm cried all in a breath—
"Is it true? Where is it? When's it coming? Who's going to bring it?"
"Patience; I can't wait now. Let me go, Dearie," said Grandnurse, disengaging herself from the little girl. ”

“ Clubs there were not a few about Fleet Street and the Strand, where the men who founded Punch, and their friends and enemies alike in similar walks of life, would hob-nob together, and where the sharp concussions of their diamond-cut-diamond wit would emit the sparks and flashes that were remembered and straightway converted into "copy." In those early days the flow of soul was closely regulated by the flow of liquor, and the most modest of Dinners was food at once to body and to mind. ”

“ I know your little game."
"Oh, Christobel! How can you say such unkind, unjust things?" protested poor Veronica with a sob.
"If you want to cry," said Christobel crossly, "you shouldn't do so until you go to sleep. You cry so easily; and then your bright eyes look heavy, and your aquiline nose gets red, and the whole Castle gets upset about them. Who cares if my eyes are red?"
"Every one, of course. Besides, one's looks aren't everything."
"I know differently. Looks are everything. But I don't care if people trouble about me or not, or anything they do, or think, or say!" ”

“ In describing the Punch Dinner I show how the merry meeting lapses, by a natural transition, from pleasure to work, and ends with the evolution of the cartoon; how the mist of talk, vague perhaps and undecided at first, slowly develops a bright nebulous point, round which the discussion revolves and revolves, until at last it takes form, slowly and carefully, though changed a dozen times, and finally, after being threshed and threshed again, stands in the ultimate form in which next week it meets the public eye. ”

“ It was not a cave at all. It was an arbour, the beams of which were moonbeams, so that Monica stepped straight through into it and sat down upon a bench.
"Evidently the moon is not made of green cheese, as Grandnurse always thought," pondered Monica with the pride of the discoverer. "I must remember to tell her that." And she was just tying a knot in her handkerchief to remind herself when she was startled to hear a musical voice say—
"Are you aware that you are on the wrong side of the moon?" ”

“ Above the head of every editor the law of libel hangs like the sword of Damocles. It is at all times difficult for a newspaper of any sort to avoid the infringement of its provisions, vigilant though the editor may be. But in the case of a confessedly "satirical" journal the danger is enormously increased, for the margin between "fair comment" and flat libel shrinks strangely when the raison d'étre of the criticism is pungency, and the object laughter.
That Punch has steered clear of giving serious offence, save on occasions extremely few, must be counted to him for righteousness. ”

“ It's all very well—but you, and I, and most of us who are healthy in mind and blithe of spirit, love to give rein to our fun and fancy, and to mingle fun with our fancy and fancy with our fun.
The little Fairy-people are the favourite children of Fancy, and were born into this serious world ages and ages ago to help brighten it, and make it more graceful and dainty and prettily romantic than it was. ”

“ From that day onwards the great occasions of a people's loss—either of our own mourning or of our sympathy with that of others—have been touched with a dignity and grace in accord with their lofty and solemn purpose, in drawings which have rarely failed to touch a responsive chord in the people's heart, and which, judged as compositions, have often marked the highest point to which Sir John Tenniel's art has reached. ”

“ And taking their plaice, a game of cricket began. "They think they can play," he whispered, "and that is the way I humour them, or they might begin to cry, and I hate anything that reminds me of blubber. But how can any one in their senses imagine plaice fielding at slip? Why, they don't know cricket from a bat—nor never will at this rate, I should think."
"Once in London, we saw such a lot of fish in the big shops there," volunteered Dulcie in a burst of confidence. The next moment she wished she hadn't spoken, for Cyril was frowning at her and shaking his head. ”

“ We now come to the last great lesson of our motley teacher—the gallows; that accursed tree which has its root in injuries. How clearly Punch exposes the fallacy of that dreadful law which authorises the destruction of life! Punch sometimes destroys the hangman, and why not? Where is the divine injunction against the shedder of man's blood to rest? None can answer! To us there is but One disposer of life. At other times Punch hangs the devil: this is as it should be. ”

“ You're a tender morsel, I'll be bound—small, but a tit-bit!" So thought the kitten, with an increasing feeling of longing in the chest. It had sounded to Tabiatha like an echo of the call she had heard so recently in the lane near the old farm at home.
"I don't want to pop out any more!" said the Cuckoo after re-entering the Clock-House. "I'm bored to tears!" And it settled down in a corner and looked very melancholy. "What with that horrid boy, Robert, lurking about—and now a kitten of all things! Why, life's not worth the living! ”

“ The "movements" and the "isms" and the creations of fashion, of nearly all of which we have a whole series spread over a long, but none too long a time, reflect in themselves alone the social history of our day—development of intellect and its antithesis, fashion in dress and language, art and literature, craze and affectation; in short, the whole national evolution during a quarter of a century. It is amusing to glance at some of them—a few out of the very many—and sample the journalistic wit with which Leech eyed and illustrated the passing hour. ”

“ CHAPTER VI THE MYSTERY OF THE CRAB
At the base of that Cliff where the wild flowers grew, the golden sands were still bathed in hot sunshine, and roughly caressed by the incoming waves. Upon the crest of one of these a Periwinkle was borne, and tossed, and flung, until it was landed high and wet on a soft bed of seaweed. But not for long—for very soon a little girl arose from that bed of seaweed, smoothed back her clinging hair, and cried out with joy as she recognised her surroundings. ”

“ There is no doubt that the "little wine" that so stimulated him to witty and brilliant conversation full of flash and repartee, sometimes turned sour upon his lips, and changed the kindness that was in his heart into a semblance of gall. Mr. Sidney Cooper has gravely set it on record how on leaving the Punch Dinner Jerrold would tie a label with his name and address upon it round his neck, so that, should he in his homeward course be tempted to stray into the path of undue conviviality, he might sooner or later be safely delivered at his destination. ”