Harry Graham

“ As far as primal man or beast,
To lovely woman thou should’st show
Some deference at least, [Pg 101]
And give a thought of what to wear
Upon the public thoroughfare.
And should’st thou wish to walk aright,
Let Mr. Beerbohm be thy mould;
Sedate yet courtly, and polite
As any beau of old;
Yea, plant thy footsteps in the tracks
Of our inimitable Max!
Enclose thy larynx in a stock
(As though afflicted with the fever) ;
And in the place of “billycock”
Procure a bristling “beaver”; [Pg 102]
And practise, not I hope in vain,
The “conduct of a clouded cane.” ”

“ And her fables are worse than George Ade’s.
(Or rather, I mean, if the reader prefers, [Pg 58]
That the fables of Ade are much better than hers!)
Her appearance imbues one with loathing,
From her jaundiced, malevolent eyes
To the tinsel she cares to call clothing,
Which is merely a patchwork of lies.
For her garments are such that a child could see through,
And her blouse (need I add?) is the famed Peek-a-boo!
She is wholly devoid of discretion,
She is utterly wanting in tact,
She’s a gossip by trade and profession,
And she much prefers fiction to fact. ”

“ Each time she views thy “billycock”!
Observe how like an autumn leaf
The colors of the male canary,
The garb of each New Zealand chief
Who woos his Little Maori;
The savage mind has thus designed
A dress to please its womankind. ”

“ The Cry of the Children
[On the subject of infant education it has been suggested that more advantageous results might be obtained if, instead of filling children’s minds with such nonsense as fairy-tales, stories were read to them about Julius Cæsar.]
O my Brothers, do you hear the children weeping?
Do you note the teardrops tumbling from their eyes?
To the school-house they reluctantly are creeping, [Pg 64]
Discontented with the teaching it supplies. ”

“ At the lady’s unusual “habit”; [Pg 24]
But allowed her to mount in the masculine way,
For he couldn’t say “No,” and he wouldn’t say “Neigh!”
So she rode through the town, in the heat of the sun,
For the weather was (luckily) warm as the Tropics,
And the people all drew down their blinds—except one,
On the staff of the local “Town Topics.”
(Such misconduct produced in the eyes of this vile one [Pg 25]
A cataract nearly as large as the Nile one!)
Then Godiva returned, and the Earl had to yield,
(And the paralyzed pressman dictated his cable;) ”

“ That you ride through the City, at noon, in the dress [Pg 22]
That you wear in your bath of a morning!”
“Very well!” she replied. “Be it so! Though you drive a
Hard bargain, my lord,” said the Lady Godiva.
So she slipped off her gown, and her shoulders lay bare,
Gleaming white like the moon on Aonian fountains;
When about them she loosened her curtain of hair, [Pg 23]
’Twas like Night coming over the mountains!
And she blushed, ’neath the veil of her wonderful tresses,
As blushes the Morn ’neath the Sun’s first caresses! ”

“ Of claptrap sentimental glamour,
And frequently, like her, give way
To lapses from our English grammar,
The victims of her diatribes
Are not the least as she describes. [Pg 31]
To restaurants they seldom go,
Just for the sake of over-eating;
While ladies don’t play bridge, you know,
Entirely for the sake of cheating;
And husbands can be quite nice men,
And wives are faithful, now and then. ”

“ To be sure, they are frequently invited to functions, where they are treated with insistent affability by persons belonging to the higher classes; but the sort of position to be obtained in this way is insecure, and unpleasant to any save those of adamantine cheek.—Current Magazine.]
Dear Lady,—When you bade me come
To grace your crowded “Kettledrum,”
And mingle in the best society;
When Melba sang, and Elman played, [Pg 92]
And waiters handed lemonade
(Tempering music with sobriety) ,
I never had the least suspicion
Of my precarious position. ”

“ In his golden little heart! [Pg 70]
[Pg 71]
“He is yearning for the chance of reading Gibbon”
The Cry of the Elders
[With steady but increasing pace the world is approaching a point at which the cleverness of the young will amount to a social problem. Already things are getting uncomfortable for persons of age and sobriety, whose notion of happiness is to ruminate a few solid and simple ideas in freedom from disturbance.—Macmillan’s Magazine.] ”

“ And though the anthropologist
May mention, in his tactless way,
That Adam’s weaknesses exist
Among our modern Men to-day,
In Women we may still perceive
The virtues of their Mother Eve! [Pg 19]
“Her wardrobe, though extremely small, sufficed a somewhat simple need”
Lady Godiva ”

“ You should try to avoid unconventional capers,
And be sure you don’t write for Society papers. [Pg 27]
“At the heart of her spouse she continued to storm”
Miss Marie Corelli
A very Woman among Men! ”