Harry Furniss

“ QUARANTINE ISLAND.
Yet lunatics arrive and make lunacy rampant, and a whole city is left after such a visitation an asylum of melancholia—Mad Melbourne. Lunacy frequently takes the form of egotism. Peasants imagine themselves princes; Calibans believe themselves to be Adonises; beggars imagine themselves millionaires. It is a harmless vanity and hurts no one, but a mad city may ruin thousands by suddenly imagining itself a gold mine. Melbourne a few years ago imagined it suddenly became the hub of the universe. The world and his wife had but one burning desire—that was to live in Melbourne. ”

“ I am always ducking breakers, descending companion ladders, and I roll across the street as if it were the deck of a liner. Every building I enter seems to be rocking up and down, up and down, and as on the occasion I refer to I sat before the knights of the quill to be cross-examined, I felt as if I were in the cabin of a ship rather than in my own room at the hotel, and that the books on the table were in reality fiddles to keep the glasses and other things from falling off. ”

“ So is it in the publishing world.
It is the isolated editor, without the machinery of a big office, or the head of the man of commerce,—if he stops, from whatever cause, his one effort is the failure! The "successful publisher" stops a dozen new ventures in the same time, and he is still considered successful. A publisher is very much like a conjuror: he must start two or three tricks, so that if one is likely to go wrong he can draw the attention of the public off it by another, and the first is quickly dropped or reintroduced under another name. ”

“ You certainly admire and emulate to a certain extent the fashionable Society women of England, but the ordinary English girl you treat with indifference, and speak of with contumely. You look upon her as a badly-dressed idiot. That may strike your ears as a sweeping assertion, but my ears have tingled over and over again by hearing that very sentiment coming from your own pretty mouths. Now, as we are alone, let me say a word or two on that point. You say the English woman is a fool. ”

“ Most beautiful bouquets labelled with the names of the lady passengers are on view in the saloon. Just as the last gangway is drawn on to the shore, amid cries of "Clear away!" we hear suddenly "Hold hard!" There is a commotion. Someone has not yet arrived; we lean over the side of the ship to see who is coming. Perhaps it is an important emissary of the Government, or even the President himself. We all push forward; the stalwart New York police keep back the crowd; the crew of the good ship Majestic hold the gangway in its place as the centre of attraction trips gaily up it. ”

“ All the time the Irish purveyors are emptying their baskets and filling their pockets, and rowing back to the shore enriched and delighted; their brothers and sisters are flowing up the gangway in a continual stream, with weeping eyes and breaking hearts at the thought of leaving their country perhaps for ever; and as soon as they are all on board, together with the mails, which have come overland to Queenstown, we up anchor, steam past Fastnet Rock, and soon the Old World is out of sight behind us. ”

“ The Absent Chairman.—I must divide the Absent Chairman into two heads. Two heads are better than one, but if both are absent—the one in body and the other in mind—it is evident no head is better than two. The absent in body does not turn up at the lecture—forgets all about it, or remembers too well what he suffered before. The lecturer and his audience are kept waiting. The absent in mind does turn up, though—turns up anything but trumps. He—"ah!—feels—ah!—the honour—ah!—of presiding this evening." ”

“ It is amusing to note how the ladies crowd the seats, and how the Congressman lolls on the sofa in the outer circle of the chamber, or turns round in his chair at his desk, crossing his legs on the desk in front of him, puffs his cigar, and, heedless of the fate of the nation, turns round and fascinates the fair ones in the gallery. It is amusing also to see a Member leave his seat during his speech and walk all over the floor, snapping his fingers and pummelling any desk handy. ”

“ Scores of Columbuses arrive at Sandy Hook every week to discover America for themselves, from Charles Columbus Dickens to Rudyard Columbus Kipling, to say nothing of Tom, Dick, Harry Columbus Brown, Jones, Robinson. It is hardly fair to say that they go over with their pockets full of letters of introduction to their American cousins, who receive them with open arms and unlimited hospitality, and then that these Toms, Dicks, and Harrys bring back in exchange notes for columns of ridicule and abuse of their Transatlantic friends. If our Americans have a fault, it is a very slight one. ”

“ You say that their brain is not strong enough to second their manual advantage, but that they can "knock off" a pretty water-colour or oil study of flowers, or a graphic caricature! Caricature, indeed! Perhaps no one has seen more caricatures than I have, but I have never seen a caricature by a woman. If women have a failing, it is lack of humour. We poor caricaturists know that; but we also know that whereas women can compete side by side with painters on the line of the Royal Academy, we are not honoured by even a failure in caricature. ”

“ After our headlong race across the broad Atlantic, after every nut and screw in the vessel has been strained to save every particle of time, and every moment watched and calculated, here at the mouth of the Hudson, in sight of the colossal statue of Liberty, we are kept waiting under a broiling sun on a beautiful day for an unconscionable time whilst forsooth the health officer or his subordinate is enjoying his lunch. Fancy 1,700 foreigners being kept waiting because a paid official—paid by the shipowners of England—wishes to satisfy his selfish greediness! ”

“ Having lived close to the Zoological Gardens for over twenty years, and being a Fellow of the Society, I have spent a great deal of enjoyable time rambling about its ever-interesting collection. The "Zoo" is very like London itself—one never exhausts its interest. There is always a surprise in store for those even most intimately acquainted with it. One suddenly comes across an object of interest that has existed in the place for years, but one has not happened to pass at the moment that object appears. ”

“ It is a great mistake to imagine one has only to "write something," and, provided with a few "slides," a reading-desk, and a glass of water—and a chairman, mount a platform and read. Of course, an agent can always "boom" a novice—someone who has travelled, or written a book, or gone to smash, or become notorious in any way—for a course of "lectures," provided there are sufficient chairmen to be found willing to act as an extra draw.
Anyone nowadays thirsting for notoriety jumps on to the platform as a lecturer. ”

“ John Bull has made this hereditary hotch-potch, and he must swallow it. Jonathan selects his senators to his own taste, and has them dished up fresh from time to time.
The Senate is not sombre and sedate as is our Upper House, but simplicity itself—no gilded throne, no Lord Chancellor in wig and gown, no offensive officialism. It looks like a huge auction room, the auctioneer being the deputy President standing at a table hammer in hand knocking down the separate business of State lot by lot as put up by the clerks. ”

“ It is impossible for those whose office carries them behind the scenes, in the midst of the festive and fashionable crowd which throngs the stately rooms of the Academy, not to think of the poor lodging and the shabby studio, and the easel, the rejected picture, the subject of so much labour, the spring of so many hopes, which was expected to win bread, if not fame, for the painter. ”

“ OMEBODY has said that an Englishman will find any excuse to give a dinner, but my experience has been that this is truer of Americans. I have been the guest of many extraordinary dining clubs, but as the most unique I select the Pointed Beards of New York. To club and dine together because one has hair cut in a particular way is the raison d'être of the club; there is nothing heroic, nothing artistic or particularly intellectual. It is not even a club to discuss hirsute adornments; such a club might be made as interesting as any other, provided the members were clever. ”

“ Now that I have touched on America itself, I wish it to be understood that it is not my intention to look out for and comment upon the faults of our American cousins, but rather in describing my all too brief visits to a charming people in a [Pg 45] charming country to deal with their merits. But it is proverbial that first impressions are everything, and the first I received of official America, in the person of this particular individual, was the only instance I saw which would not compare favourably with the red-tapeism of our own country. ”

“ You say that the English man is bright, clever and brave. One has only to look round the world to realise that your opinion of the English man is right. That one little dot on the map, England, predominates the greater portion of the globe. That is the result of the plucky and accomplished English man you so much admire. Now, I will ask you one question. Did you ever hear of a clever man who had a stupid mother? The history of the world shows that all great men had mothers with brains. In considering this recollect that we are agreed that the English man is superior to the American man. ”

“ As you land you are struck on all sides with the unusual activity around you. Long sinuous trains of loaded cargo trucks are coming and going, locomotive whistles warning the pedestrian to beware, lines of rails intersecting each other, crowds of lumpers, and the busy air of a large shipping centre bewilder you, and you are carried back to some old-world port where ships of all nations call and disgorge their lading. ”

“ No pen or pencil could give any idea of the intense feeling and excitement over that election. To realise its effect one must have seen the faces of business men in cities like New York—faces pallid with care, eyes restless with inquiry and uncertainty, mouths twitching with anxiety. To them Bryan spelt ruin. You could read that in the faces of every one of responsibility.
We had huge meetings and long speeches from morning to midnight. In the churches the pulpits were turned into hustings, and for the moment ministers preached the Gospel and McKinley in equal proportions. ”

“ An Englishman is too fond of exercise to allow high pressure to get the better of him in this way, and the difference between English and American people on these liners is most marked. Directly an American family comes on board they select places for their deck chairs, which, except for meals, they never leave. From early morning until late at night, much to the astonishment of the Americans, the English passengers—men, women, and children—pace the deck as if it were a go-as-you-please contest for immense prizes. ”

“ It is just as true as the fact that the way to obtain the full flavour of strawberries is to put pepper on them, and that the sole method of fully relishing ham is to use a dash of champagne as a sauce. There are people who even in this enlightened age vegetate upon the face of the earth and know not these things, and a very great many more who do not know that they ought to select a soakingly wet day to appreciate the Falls of Niagara at their highest value. ”

“ As I stood in the post office of Burlington House anxiously penning this message, and harassed into a state of almost feverish excitement, the sounds of martial music and the tramp of armed men in the adjacent courtyard fell upon my distracted ear. With a sickly and sardonic smile upon my face I laid down the pen and peeped through the door.
"Yes! I see it all now," I muttered. "The whole thing is a plant. The printer was bribed, and, coûte que coûte, the Academy has decided to take my body! Hence the presence of the military; and see, those cooks—what are they doing here in their white caps? ”

“ Money flowed in from the Old Country in millions, champagne flowed freely all over Melbourne in gallons, everyone was intoxicated with joy and soused themselves and their friends in champagne to wash down success. Vehicles rushed speculators through the streets, trains whisked them to the land free, luncheons free awaited all at every turn, fortunes at every step. ”

“ Art, I hold, is nowadays purely a commercial affair. Burlington House is simply a huge shop, and it is all nonsense to talk for one instant about the encouragement it gives to art, or to take seriously the prosy platitudes which are poured forth year by year at that picture tradesmen's dinner—the Royal Academy Banquet. Women are not invited—women, forsooth, whose works on the walls have done their share towards bringing the shillings to the turnstiles of the Academy. ”

“ In fact, London had never seen anything so original as Harry Furniss's Royal Academy. The work of one man, and that man one of the busiest professional men in town. Indeed it might be thought that at the age of thirty, with all the foremost magazines and journals waiting on his leisure, with a handsome income and an enviable social position assured, ambition could hardly live in the bosom of an artist in black and white. ”

“ For it is at this time, when the ebb-tide of humanity sets strongest from the City, that the honoured guest of a City Company may be seen fighting his way, like a minnow against stream, in a hansom to his dinner at the hall of the Guild. ”

“ At this hotel in New York there lived for some years an [Pg 62] Italian singer, who was a great favourite in the city, and whose horror of iced water was a terror to all the waiters. They knew that it was as much as their lives were worth, and certainly as much as the glass was worth, to set a drink of this concoction before him. If any new or forgetful waiter offered the obnoxious liquid to the foreigner, it was soon thrown at his head or to the other end of the room. Americans seldom show their feelings, but anything they resent they will harbour in their minds, and never forget. ”

“ Some day I shall write a paper entitled "Photographers I Have Met," for few people have faced the fire of the camera oftener than I. I am not a fashionable beauty, nor much of a celebrity, neither am I honestly a vain man—I shrink from the rays of the too truthful lens—but I have been dragged into the line of fire and held there until the deed is done, like an unwilling convict. In nearly every town I have visited have I undergone this operation, and the result is a collection of criminal-looking, contorted countenances of a description seldom seen outside the museum of a police station. ”