T. Hodgkinson

“ These careless-looking creatures filling the air with delight, robbing tired brains of tiredness, are a delicate texture of coloured effort that has prevailed out of a thousand chances, aided in all that effort by man. Without man they would be but weeds—a profusion of Nature's quantity. ”

“ An interesting alien, he charmed our hours of ease,
Being either Blue Hungarian or Purple Viennese,
And he cut a gorgeous figure in his blue (or purple) suit
As he coaxed enticing noises from (I think it was) the flute. ”

“ And the "comic" in vain chants the usual strain
Concerning his mother-in-law.
Unbought are the beach's bananas;
Our souls are all far above food;
Not a man of us dreams of consuming ice-creams
When the sea 's in a turbulent mood. ”

“ DIPLOMACY.
(Yawning, though rude, is, according to the doctors, an extremely healthy exercise.)
I have a friend who wrote a book
And begged me to peruse it,
And bluntly state the view I took—
Encourage or abuse it.
I want, he said, the truth alone,
But said it in a hopeful tone.
Perceiving there was no escape,
With Chapter I. I led off ”

“ THE FORLORN HOPE.
(Sympathetically addressed to the Hamburg Colonial Institute, which "has undertaken the task of showing that Germany has conducted her operations in the spirit of the most enlightened humanity.")
In this war of the civilised nations
That extends from the East to the West,
Have arisen full many occasions
For a man to put forth of his best ”