Chapter 10

He brought from two great lands the best of bothIn one fine nature blent.Lover of English strength and Gallic grace,Of British beauty, or of soul or face,Yet with that subtler something born of raceThat charm to cleanness lent.A Thackeray of the pencil! So men said.His reverence high for the great Titan deadPut by such praise with ease;But social satire of the subtler sortWas his, too. Not the shop, the slum, the court,But gay saloons gave quarry for his sport.'Twas in such scenes as theseHis hectoring Midas, and his high-nosed earl,His worldly matron, and his winsome girl,Were found, and pictured clear,With skill creative and with strength restrained.They live, his butts, cold-hearted, shallow-brained.In his own chosen walk Du Maurier reignedSupreme, without a peer.

He brought from two great lands the best of both

In one fine nature blent.

Lover of English strength and Gallic grace,

Of British beauty, or of soul or face,

Yet with that subtler something born of race

That charm to cleanness lent.

A Thackeray of the pencil! So men said.His reverence high for the great Titan deadPut by such praise with ease;But social satire of the subtler sortWas his, too. Not the shop, the slum, the court,But gay saloons gave quarry for his sport.'Twas in such scenes as these

A Thackeray of the pencil! So men said.

His reverence high for the great Titan dead

Put by such praise with ease;

But social satire of the subtler sort

Was his, too. Not the shop, the slum, the court,

But gay saloons gave quarry for his sport.

'Twas in such scenes as these

His hectoring Midas, and his high-nosed earl,His worldly matron, and his winsome girl,Were found, and pictured clear,With skill creative and with strength restrained.They live, his butts, cold-hearted, shallow-brained.In his own chosen walk Du Maurier reignedSupreme, without a peer.

His hectoring Midas, and his high-nosed earl,

His worldly matron, and his winsome girl,

Were found, and pictured clear,

With skill creative and with strength restrained.

They live, his butts, cold-hearted, shallow-brained.

In his own chosen walk Du Maurier reigned

Supreme, without a peer.

The Social Jungle

The tribute was fully earned; but Du Maurier was not one of those who enjoyed plying the scourge, and he was fortunate in that he did not live to see the "Gay Saloon" turned into the Social Jungle, as foreshadowed inPunch'sadaptation of Mr. Kipling's poem in 1894, which ends with the couplet:—

Because of his age and his cunning, his grip andhis power of jaw,In all that the Law leaveth open the word of KingMammon is Law.

Because of his age and his cunning, his grip and

his power of jaw,

In all that the Law leaveth open the word of King

Mammon is Law.

For "Wolf" read "Worldling" for "Jungle" read "Social World" andPunch'sparallel "Laws" work out well enough. But in the years that followed it was not so much mammon-worship as the craze for excitement at all costs that dominated the fashionable world. The vulgarity and love of the limelight which Du Maurier had satirized were multiplied tenfold. Society became a romp and a ramp. England began to go dancing-mad in the 'nineties, but the harmless rowdiness of Kitchen Lancers, of the "Barn-dance" and the "Washington Post" developed in the new century into a mania for which historians found a parallel in the "Tarantism" of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We passed through various and mostly distressing phases of the malady from the days of Loie Fuller's serpentine contortions to the introduction of the "Salome" dance by Miss Maud Allan. Skirt-dancing, with a superabundance of skirts, gradually gave place to a style marked by the desire to dispense not only with skirts but with any sort of clothing. The wonderful performances of the Russian Ballet revealed a new world of art and "washed out" a good deal of highly advertised and indecorous incompetence, but in many ways proved a doubtful boon. The cult of the male dancer revived, and the triumphs of Pavlova and Karsavina lured the aristocratic amateur into futile and unseemly competition. This was only one of the many signs of the love of publicity which marked Society when it had ceased to be select.In the 'forties, when thecrême de la crêmedisported themselves at Cremorne, the Gardens were reserved for their exclusive use. Now, "smartness" was the note of Society, and "smartness" does not like to hide its light under a bushel. In the middle 'ninetiesPunchregistered his protest against ladies who begged publicly in the streets—the "merry half-sisters of charity," as he called them. By 1903 he indicated the spread of the new fashion in the ironical remark that "the eccentric habit of dining at home is, I regret to say, steadily spreading." The further course of this anti-domestic movement is correctly shown in the cartoon of Christmasà la modein 1908, when the butler of a modern English house inhospitably repels Father Christmas with: "Not at 'ome. Her Ladyship is at Monty Carlo; the young gentlemen are in the Halps; and Sir John has taken the other members of the family to the Restorong!"Punchwas not content with attacking the organized publicity of social life, with which may be connected his satire of the orgy of Pageants; he was equally vigorous in chastising its organized frivolity and horse-play; the extravagance of the week-end pleasure-hunt; the ostentatious folly of freak entertainments; and other excesses and eccentricities summed up in the two detestable phrasesfin de siècleandde luxe.

Punchfound no traces of a Golden Age in the 'nineties, though he admitted they were Yellow enough. For these were the years of theYellow Book—alternately regarded as typical offin de siècledecadence (inPunch'sview) or as a symbol of literary renascence—of the now forgotten "emancipation novel,"The Yellow Aster; to say nothing of the Yellow Peril and the Yellow Press. TheDaily Mail, by the way, was not founded till 1896. As a social satiristPunch, throughout all this period, is much more concerned with the material or physical than the mental or spiritual vagaries of the rich and well-to-do. But a notable exception must be made in favour of that famous—or shall I say notorious?—coterie known as "the Souls," who are frequently referred to in 1893 and 1894. Readers anxious for "inside" information may be recommended to consult theAutobiographyof Mrs. Asquith, who was one of the number.

Butler talking to Santa Claus figure.KEEPING CHRISTMAS—OUTButler of Modern English Home: "Not at ome. Her Ladyship is at Monty Carlo; the young gentlemen are in the Halps; and Sir John has taken the other members of the family to the Restorong."

KEEPING CHRISTMAS—OUT

Butler of Modern English Home: "Not at ome. Her Ladyship is at Monty Carlo; the young gentlemen are in the Halps; and Sir John has taken the other members of the family to the Restorong."

Lady speaking to girlMrs. Montmorency-Smythe: "And what were you reading when I came in, my dear? Shakespeare! Ah! What a wonderful man! And to think that he wasn't exactly what one would call a gentleman."

Mrs. Montmorency-Smythe: "And what were you reading when I came in, my dear? Shakespeare! Ah! What a wonderful man! And to think that he wasn't exactly what one would call a gentleman."

Lady speaking to bookseller.CULTURE BY THE SEA"Have you Browning's works?" "No, Miss. They're too difficult. People down here don't understand them." "Have youPraed?" "Prayed, Miss? Oh, yes; we've tried that, but it's no use!"

CULTURE BY THE SEA

"Have you Browning's works?" "No, Miss. They're too difficult. People down here don't understand them." "Have youPraed?" "Prayed, Miss? Oh, yes; we've tried that, but it's no use!"

The "Souls"

They were most of them highly born and highly gifted. Some afterwards attained eminence in politics and literature; and it must be admitted that they were clever enough to get themselves a great deal talked about without deliberately courting publicity at the time. Their audacities and unconventionalities enjoyed a considerable reputation, but did not often get into the papers.Punchwas obviously "intrigued" about them, but ingeniously disguised his curiosity by passing it on to an imaginary American visitor, "high-toned" (the word "high-brow" was a later importation) and inquiring, who came over to study our "Institootions"—Mr. Gladstone also used to pronounce it that way—and wrote down his impressions for a work onSocial Dry Rot in Europe. So, hearing vague talk of a secret moral institution, the Society of Souls, he set to work to collect authentic information about them, but was everywhere baffled. The nearer he got to the shrine, the more negative and mysterious was the information vouchsafed. But the Philistine view is wellburlesqued in his conversation with a fashionable lady who described the Souls as "a horrid stuck-up set of people who did all sorts of horrid things, all read the same books at the same time, sacrificed wild asses at the altar of Ibsen, the Hyperborean Apollo, and were bound by a rule that no Soul might ever marry another Soul." A year or so laterPunchnoted the report that the Souls had ceased to exist, and would be replaced by a new club—the "No Bodies"—of which the membership would be unlimited. Still the Souls had had their day and, as representing an effort to establish an exclusive social coterie to which intellect or wit formed the chief passport, demand at least a passing word. The satire of fashionable culture diesdown and is never very seriously revived even in the days when the late Emil Reich lectured on Plato at Claridge's. "Smart" Society was more active with its heels than with its head or its heart.

Punchdistrusted the sincerity of fashionable ladies who professed a desire to "elevate the masses" by organizing entertainments which were a hotch-potch of Ibsen, skirt-dancing, exotic sentiment and frank vulgarity. He waxes sarcastic, again, over charitable bazaars, run by women who didn't enjoy them, for causes of which they knew nothing and cared less. Frivolity was the thing that mattered. In the "Letters to a Débutante" which appeared in 1894Punchassumes therôleof the cynical mentor, e.g. "It is hardly possible to exaggerate the unimportance of nearly everything that happens": "Laugh when you're thinking what to say. It saves time." In weighing the rival merits of a group of suitors, the preference is given to the rich German-Jew. The decay of ballroom manners was an old subject of complaint withPunch, but it was never so persistently harped upon as during the years which began with the Barn-dance and ended with the Bunny-hug. In 1894,à proposof the exuberant agility of a middle-aged Mænad, an old lady in one of Du Maurier's pictures observes that the "Pas de Quatre" should be "Pas du Tout" for Aunt Jane. The "Romping Lancers" are also noted, and in "Association v. Rugby" a breathless young lady beseeches her partner—a famous Rugby half-back—to dance "Soccer" for a little. In 1896, under the heading "The Death of the Dance,"Punchtakes for his text the remark of a speaker at a recent meeting of the British Association of Teachers of Dancing: "I had rather be old and teach deportment than be young and teach people to romp the Barn-dance"; and he bewails the conversion of the once "light fantastic" into heavy prancing, spasmodic antics, and the general decay of elegance and grace. The arrival in 1897 of "The Washington Post" is greeted with ironical approval: "You take hold of a girl by both hands, try a double shuffle, and then slide off to another part of the room and repeat the performance." In 1898 the lines on "The Lost Art" are based upon the statement made by a provincialmayor that the risk of injury was rather greater in the ballroom than in the football field:—

Oh! for the days when there were dancers!Oh! for the mazes of the Lancers!With what a nimble step elasticWe tripped it on the light fantastic,With a sweet charm which now is not,Through gay cotillion or gavotte,Or, with a grace more regal yet,We stepped a stately minuet,Each man of us a choice assortmentOf Turveydropian deportment.But where is now your ancient pomp?Your dance is but a vulgar romp,Your shocking "Barns" and "Posts"—oh, fie!You only think of kicking high.The men careersanstime,sansrhythm,The girls rush helter-skelter with 'em,They charge, they trample on one's toes,Their elbows hit one on the nose,They black one's eyes, still on they come,They butt one in the back and stom—I mean the waistcoat, till the hallIs more like battlefield than ball.I'd rather serve in the Soudan,I'd rather fight at Omdurman,I'd rather quarrel with a chum,I'd rather face a Rugby scrum,Nay, by the stars, I'd rather beThat hapless wretch, the referee,Most desperate of men, than chanceMy life and limbs at modern dance.

Oh! for the days when there were dancers!

Oh! for the mazes of the Lancers!

With what a nimble step elastic

We tripped it on the light fantastic,

With a sweet charm which now is not,

Through gay cotillion or gavotte,

Or, with a grace more regal yet,

We stepped a stately minuet,

Each man of us a choice assortment

Of Turveydropian deportment.

But where is now your ancient pomp?Your dance is but a vulgar romp,Your shocking "Barns" and "Posts"—oh, fie!You only think of kicking high.The men careersanstime,sansrhythm,The girls rush helter-skelter with 'em,They charge, they trample on one's toes,Their elbows hit one on the nose,They black one's eyes, still on they come,They butt one in the back and stom—I mean the waistcoat, till the hallIs more like battlefield than ball.

But where is now your ancient pomp?

Your dance is but a vulgar romp,

Your shocking "Barns" and "Posts"—oh, fie!

You only think of kicking high.

The men careersanstime,sansrhythm,

The girls rush helter-skelter with 'em,

They charge, they trample on one's toes,

Their elbows hit one on the nose,

They black one's eyes, still on they come,

They butt one in the back and stom—

I mean the waistcoat, till the hall

Is more like battlefield than ball.

I'd rather serve in the Soudan,I'd rather fight at Omdurman,I'd rather quarrel with a chum,I'd rather face a Rugby scrum,Nay, by the stars, I'd rather beThat hapless wretch, the referee,Most desperate of men, than chanceMy life and limbs at modern dance.

I'd rather serve in the Soudan,

I'd rather fight at Omdurman,

I'd rather quarrel with a chum,

I'd rather face a Rugby scrum,

Nay, by the stars, I'd rather be

That hapless wretch, the referee,

Most desperate of men, than chance

My life and limbs at modern dance.

Ball-room Manners

In 1906 the introduction of the "Boston" waltz prompts one ofPunch'sartists to depict the sad experience of a young lady whose partners had all learned the new dance from American instructors, and who all danced it in a different way. The band, by the way, is playing "The Blue Danube," for Johann Strauss was still a name to conjure with. References to rowdy dancing are frequent in 1907, whenPunchprinted designs of various costumes to resist the tremendous wear-and-tearof the ballroom, and in 1908, when he suggests, to meet a "long felt want," that a special space should be railed off for "plungers."Punch'spicture of the "Borston" as danced in 1909 belies the ironical title "The Poetry of Motion." Long tight skirts were still worn and are a feature of the series of suggestions, made in the same year, by Mr. Baumer for brightening our ballrooms—the Judy-walk, the Apache Polka, the Salome Lancers and the Vampire Valse. That same acute observer of gilded (and painted) youth includes in his burlesque Coronation Procession in 1911 a member of the aristocracy in the guise of a caracoling Bacchante; and in the same year the male dancer craze is satirized in a series of pictures showing the spread of the infection to policemen, railway porters, scavengers, ticket collectors, etc. The revival of old English dances dates from this period, but ifPunchis to be trusted, made little impression on Mayfair. Even the most distinguished and eminent politicians did not scorn the dance. Mr. Balfour gave a ball at the height of the season in 1912, andPunch(who was not there) gave the following wholly apocryphal description of the revels:—

ARTHUR'S BALL

When Parliament, sick with unreason,Was occupied, night after night,With bandying charges of treason,And challenging Ulster to fight,To ease the political tensionPrince Arthur determined to callA truce to this deadly dissensionBy giving a Ball.The guests were by no means confined toThe ranks of the old Upper Ten,For Arthur has always inclined toConsort with all manner of men;So the brainy, though lacking in breeding,Were bidden as well as the fops;The foes of carnivorous feeding,And lovers of chops.There were golfers from Troon and KilspindieDiscussing their favourite greens;Bronzed soldiers from Quetta and Pindi;Pale pilots of flying-machines;There were débutantes visibly flustered,Calm beauties from over the "Pond";Sleek magnates of soap and of mustard,And Brunner and Mond.

When Parliament, sick with unreason,

Was occupied, night after night,

With bandying charges of treason,

And challenging Ulster to fight,

To ease the political tension

Prince Arthur determined to call

A truce to this deadly dissension

By giving a Ball.

The guests were by no means confined toThe ranks of the old Upper Ten,For Arthur has always inclined toConsort with all manner of men;So the brainy, though lacking in breeding,Were bidden as well as the fops;The foes of carnivorous feeding,And lovers of chops.

The guests were by no means confined to

The ranks of the old Upper Ten,

For Arthur has always inclined to

Consort with all manner of men;

So the brainy, though lacking in breeding,

Were bidden as well as the fops;

The foes of carnivorous feeding,

And lovers of chops.

There were golfers from Troon and KilspindieDiscussing their favourite greens;Bronzed soldiers from Quetta and Pindi;Pale pilots of flying-machines;There were débutantes visibly flustered,Calm beauties from over the "Pond";Sleek magnates of soap and of mustard,And Brunner and Mond.

There were golfers from Troon and Kilspindie

Discussing their favourite greens;

Bronzed soldiers from Quetta and Pindi;

Pale pilots of flying-machines;

There were débutantes visibly flustered,

Calm beauties from over the "Pond";

Sleek magnates of soap and of mustard,

And Brunner and Mond.

I saw a delectable DuchessSit out with a Syndicalist,And a battle-scarred soldier on crutchesHob-nob with a Pacificist;And a famous professor of Psychics—A Scot who was reared at Dunkeld—Indulge in the highest of high kicksI ever beheld.Lord Haldane, whose massive proportionsWere gracefully garbed in a kilt,Performed the most daring contortionsWith true Caledonian lilt;Lord Morley resembled a Gracchus;Lloyd George was a genial Jack Cade,And Elibank, beaming like Bacchus,The revels surveyed.The music was subtly compoundedOf melodies famous of yore,And measures that richly aboundedIn modern cacophonous lore;There was Strauss, the adored of Vienna,The genius of joyous unrest,And Strauss, who the shrieks of GehennaContrives to suggest.I'd like to describe, but I canna,The envy combined with dismayAroused by adorable AnnaWhom several Kingdoms obey.Her entry produced quite a crisis—Some prudes were surprised she was axed—She appeared in the costume of IsisAccording to Bakst.It was four of the clock ere I quittedThese scenes of eclectic delight;The fogies had most of them flitted,The revels were still at their height;For Garvin was dancing a Tango,His head in the place of his legs;And Spender a blameless fandangoEncircled by eggs.What incidents happened thereafterI only can dimly surmise:But gusts of ecstatical laughterWent echoing up to the skies;And I know from my own observationThe guests were agreed, one and all,That Arthur united the nationBy giving this Ball.

I saw a delectable Duchess

Sit out with a Syndicalist,

And a battle-scarred soldier on crutches

Hob-nob with a Pacificist;

And a famous professor of Psychics—

A Scot who was reared at Dunkeld—

Indulge in the highest of high kicks

I ever beheld.

Lord Haldane, whose massive proportionsWere gracefully garbed in a kilt,Performed the most daring contortionsWith true Caledonian lilt;Lord Morley resembled a Gracchus;Lloyd George was a genial Jack Cade,And Elibank, beaming like Bacchus,The revels surveyed.

Lord Haldane, whose massive proportions

Were gracefully garbed in a kilt,

Performed the most daring contortions

With true Caledonian lilt;

Lord Morley resembled a Gracchus;

Lloyd George was a genial Jack Cade,

And Elibank, beaming like Bacchus,

The revels surveyed.

The music was subtly compoundedOf melodies famous of yore,And measures that richly aboundedIn modern cacophonous lore;There was Strauss, the adored of Vienna,The genius of joyous unrest,And Strauss, who the shrieks of GehennaContrives to suggest.

The music was subtly compounded

Of melodies famous of yore,

And measures that richly abounded

In modern cacophonous lore;

There was Strauss, the adored of Vienna,

The genius of joyous unrest,

And Strauss, who the shrieks of Gehenna

Contrives to suggest.

I'd like to describe, but I canna,The envy combined with dismayAroused by adorable AnnaWhom several Kingdoms obey.Her entry produced quite a crisis—Some prudes were surprised she was axed—She appeared in the costume of IsisAccording to Bakst.

I'd like to describe, but I canna,

The envy combined with dismay

Aroused by adorable Anna

Whom several Kingdoms obey.

Her entry produced quite a crisis—

Some prudes were surprised she was axed—

She appeared in the costume of Isis

According to Bakst.

It was four of the clock ere I quittedThese scenes of eclectic delight;The fogies had most of them flitted,The revels were still at their height;For Garvin was dancing a Tango,His head in the place of his legs;And Spender a blameless fandangoEncircled by eggs.

It was four of the clock ere I quitted

These scenes of eclectic delight;

The fogies had most of them flitted,

The revels were still at their height;

For Garvin was dancing a Tango,

His head in the place of his legs;

And Spender a blameless fandango

Encircled by eggs.

What incidents happened thereafterI only can dimly surmise:But gusts of ecstatical laughterWent echoing up to the skies;And I know from my own observationThe guests were agreed, one and all,That Arthur united the nationBy giving this Ball.

What incidents happened thereafter

I only can dimly surmise:

But gusts of ecstatical laughter

Went echoing up to the skies;

And I know from my own observation

The guests were agreed, one and all,

That Arthur united the nation

By giving this Ball.

Ballroom scene.THE POETRY OF MOTION, 1909The "Borston"

THE POETRY OF MOTION, 1909The "Borston"

Man speaking with lady.He: "Very interesting, these Morris-dances. Have you ever seen any before?"She: "No. I don't even know who Morris was."

He: "Very interesting, these Morris-dances. Have you ever seen any before?"

She: "No. I don't even know who Morris was."

Tango-mania

The mention of Anna—the famous Pavlova—was at any rate topical, for the cult of the Russian Ballet was now at its height, and in his Almanack for 1913Punchexhibited the political and other public celebrities of the hour engaged in appropriate evolutionsà la Russe. The "Bunny-hug" was very properly gibbeted in a scathing cartoon, and in his hints to social climbersPunchsuggests various styles of vulgar and inane dancing as a passport to notoriety. With laudable fairness he admits, in parallel illustrations, that the Tango of fact was a much less lurid thing than the Tango as painted by the fancy of Puritans; but the revival of afternoon dances and the fashion of "Tango teas" met with no approval, and in the cartoon "Exit Tango," early in 1914,Punch, rather prematurely perhaps, congratulated the "Spirit of Dancing" on the passing of "the tyranny of the dullest of nightmares."

In one of the last of the references to the dancing craze in this period—February, 1914, to be precise—Punchnotes, as one of the reasons why the Tango was alreadydémodé, the fact that matrons had taken to it with the utmost fury, after a preliminary stage of acute disapproval. In the words of one of the younger generation:—

Now we may watch our mothers, smiling and flushed and gay,Doing it, doing it, doing it—tangoing night and day.Stamping a Texas Tommy, wreathing a Grapevine Swirl,Gleefully Gaby Gliding, young as the youngest girl.We may not laugh at our mothers, for (between me and you)They can out-dance us often—get all our partners too.

Now we may watch our mothers, smiling and flushed and gay,Doing it, doing it, doing it—tangoing night and day.

Now we may watch our mothers, smiling and flushed and gay,

Doing it, doing it, doing it—tangoing night and day.

Stamping a Texas Tommy, wreathing a Grapevine Swirl,Gleefully Gaby Gliding, young as the youngest girl.

Stamping a Texas Tommy, wreathing a Grapevine Swirl,

Gleefully Gaby Gliding, young as the youngest girl.

We may not laugh at our mothers, for (between me and you)They can out-dance us often—get all our partners too.

We may not laugh at our mothers, for (between me and you)

They can out-dance us often—get all our partners too.

Cartoon, man with rabbit mask, addressing a dancer.THE "BUNNY-HUG"Modern Youth(to Terpsichore): "My hug, I think."Mr. Punch: "My kick, I know!"

THE "BUNNY-HUG"

Modern Youth(to Terpsichore): "My hug, I think."Mr. Punch: "My kick, I know!"

Matron v. Maid

This, however, was no new thing. It was only the latest manifestation of a "movement" which runs right through the social history of the whole of this period, and which may be alternatively described as the Emancipation or the Apotheosis of Middle Age. The earliest references to the change link it up with the coming of the New Woman. For example, in 1894, in a "Song of the Twentieth Century,"Punchdescribes the man of the family as relegated to the shelf by his more energetic female relatives:—

Aunt Jane is a popular preacher,Aunt Susan a dealer in stocks,While Father, the gentlest old creature,Attends to the family socks.

Aunt Jane is a popular preacher,

Aunt Susan a dealer in stocks,

While Father, the gentlest old creature,

Attends to the family socks.

But as time goes on it is in the pursuit of pleasure rather than in the sphere of serious effort that the competition of the middle-aged woman is noted as a new and formidable sign of the times. Thus in 1895 we have Du Maurier's picture of the Sunday caller finding that the mother of the family is playing lawn tennis while the young ladies have gone to church. By 1900 the youthfulness of the older generation is made a source of complaint by the juniors. In "Filia Pulchra, Mater Pulchrior,"Punchgenially arraigns the mothers who "cut out" their daughters. A paper for ladies had declared that the woman of forty was most dangerous to the susceptible male, andPunchenlarges on the theme in "The Rivals," in which an eligible suitor exclaims, "Take, oh take Mamma away!" In 1903 he recurs ironically to the subject in the lines "De Senectute":—

However pedagogues may frownAnd view such dicta with disfavour,The folk who never sober downConfer on life its saltiest savour.The grandmother who wears a capIncurs her family's displeasure;But if she sets a booby-trapAnd wears a fringe, she is a treasure.

However pedagogues may frownAnd view such dicta with disfavour,The folk who never sober downConfer on life its saltiest savour.

However pedagogues may frown

And view such dicta with disfavour,

The folk who never sober down

Confer on life its saltiest savour.

The grandmother who wears a capIncurs her family's displeasure;But if she sets a booby-trapAnd wears a fringe, she is a treasure.

The grandmother who wears a cap

Incurs her family's displeasure;

But if she sets a booby-trap

And wears a fringe, she is a treasure.

The old ideal of growing old gracefully had been superseded by a refusal to grow old at all; and the "unfair competition" of matron with maid is pointedly illustrated inPunch's"Country House Hints" in 1908, where, after giving information about tips, dresses, etc., the writer observes that girls are at a discount as guests: "they are not rich enough for Bridge, and they put a restriction on funny stories." They may have done so fourteen years ago; but only a year later, in a burlesque article based on the fulsome Society paragraphs of the contemporaryPress,Punchmade it clear that the process of emancipation was proceeding apace:—

Wise mothers—and modern mothers are seldom wanting in astuteness—do not keep their young "flapper" daughters buried in the schoolroom until the day of presentation. They prepare them for their complete emancipation by a series of preliminary canters. Thus they take them to dine at the Fitz or the Tarlton while the hair that is hanging down their backs is still their own....The upbringing of Lady Sarah Boodle has been wholly unconventional, and as her parents spend most of their time in balloons, she is looking forward to her first season with all thefougue de dix-huit ans. Until she was sixteen Lady Sarah was allowed to read nothing but theSporting Timesand theStatist. This led, not unnaturally, to a violent reaction, and Lady Sarah is now a devoted student of Maeterlinck, Mr. W. B. Yeats and Fiona Macleod. Happily this development has not impaired her healthy enjoyment of Bridge. Last year she won £300 at this winsome pastime.... One may fitly conclude this group of winsome English girls with the mention of two beautiful cousins, Lady Phoebe Bunting and Miss Miriam Belshazzar. By an extraordinary coincidence they are both third cousins once removed of Daphne, Lady Saxthorpe, whose coster impersonations were so marked a feature of her late husband's tenure of office as Governor of Hong Kong. Lady Phoebe, strange to say, never learned her alphabet until she was nearly fifteen, while her cousin had mastered the intricacies of compound interest almost before she could walk. Lady Phoebe is a winsome blonde, while Miss Belshazzar is asveltebrunette whose superb Semitic profile recalls the delicious proboscis of her illustrious grandfather, Sir Joshua Schnabelheimer.

The upbringing of Lady Sarah Boodle has been wholly unconventional, and as her parents spend most of their time in balloons, she is looking forward to her first season with all thefougue de dix-huit ans. Until she was sixteen Lady Sarah was allowed to read nothing but theSporting Timesand theStatist. This led, not unnaturally, to a violent reaction, and Lady Sarah is now a devoted student of Maeterlinck, Mr. W. B. Yeats and Fiona Macleod. Happily this development has not impaired her healthy enjoyment of Bridge. Last year she won £300 at this winsome pastime.... One may fitly conclude this group of winsome English girls with the mention of two beautiful cousins, Lady Phoebe Bunting and Miss Miriam Belshazzar. By an extraordinary coincidence they are both third cousins once removed of Daphne, Lady Saxthorpe, whose coster impersonations were so marked a feature of her late husband's tenure of office as Governor of Hong Kong. Lady Phoebe, strange to say, never learned her alphabet until she was nearly fifteen, while her cousin had mastered the intricacies of compound interest almost before she could walk. Lady Phoebe is a winsome blonde, while Miss Belshazzar is asveltebrunette whose superb Semitic profile recalls the delicious proboscis of her illustrious grandfather, Sir Joshua Schnabelheimer.

Ostentatious Luxury

Extravagant expense and ostentation—another old abomination ofPunch's—were not only rife, but they were constantly written up and discussed with a foolish voice of praise in what purported to be democratic papers. A ducal wedding in the mid-'nineties, which was carefully "rehearsed" before it was actually solemnized, caused a veritable explosion inPunchabout the columns of matrimonial gush and statistics—the "haystacks of chrysanthemums"—which deluged the papers. In the picture of coroneted sandwichmen engaged by adroit speculators to puff their schemes,Punchin 1897 was only repeating an old indictment of parasitic peers. He had no quarrelwith people who took to trade openly and seriously, disregarding the old fine-drawn social distinctions and contempt for commerce—witness his song of "The English Gentleman of the Present Day" in 1899. But he had no welcome for the newfangled newspaper articles on gastronomy, withmenusand prices, puffing well-known hotels and restaurants. The statement of a writer inThe Timesin 1900 that "the necessaries of life may be purchased for £2,000 a year" providedPunchwith food for ironical comment. A year later it was seriously maintained in a popular monthly that, from the point of view of a smart Society woman, it was impossible todresson £1,000 a year. The standard of high living had gone up by leaps and bounds from the days when toPunch'syouthful fancy £1,000 a year represented wealth almost beyond the dreams of avarice.

Another old grievance—needless extravagance in the Army—raised its head in 1900, when a correspondent inThe Timescomplained that the latest regulations issued by the War Office were like a tailor's list, and contained details of seventy-seven kinds of gold lace! No wonder was it, asPunchnoted, that the fathers of subalterns in crack regiments had to guarantee them a minimum allowance of £600 a year. This was just before the South African war, which immediately led to a general rise of prices—the universal excuse "owing to the war" foreshadowing what took place fifteen years later. Parallels abound, though on a smaller scale. Marriage is ironically declared to be impossible for self-respecting and self-protective girls owing to the dearth of servants. "Like the Dodo, the domestic servant is extinct," andPunch, in his list of suggested exhibits for museums, includes the following:—

Domestic Servant(Mummy).—An extremely rare and finely preserved specimen of a vanished class, whose extinction dates from 1901a.d.It is therefore of the highest interest to the Anthropologist and the Comparative Anatomist. Its duties are now performed, perhaps more effectively, by the automatic "general" and the electric dumb-waiter. When alive, it commanded the salary of a prima donna, etc.

Aversion from work was already abroad. A fond parent is shown in this year commenting on the recalcitrant attitude ofher daughter: "No, she won't work. She never would work. She never will work. There's only one thing—she'll 'ave to go out to service."

Still "smart" Society went on its way unheeding. The increasing publicity of social life is satirized under "Public Passion" in the recital of a young wife who writes: "We areneverat home. I believe it is fashionable to go to hospitals now and be ill amongst all sorts and conditions of people." The honeymoon was passing because brides could not face the awful loneliness of atête-à-têteexistence, and welcomed a speedy return to a semi-detached go-as-you-please existence amongst their friends. A week-end honeymoon at Brighton is indicated as the maximum period which could be endured by a modern couple. In fashionable speech inanity began to be replaced by profanity. Unbridled language on the part of aristocrats and smart people led in 1903 to the famous conversational opening of a burlesque Society novel: "'Hell!' said the Duchess, who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation"[7]—whichPunchtakes as his text for a discourse upon further developments and reactions. The device of engineering and paying for personal notices in the papers and simultaneously denouncing the scandalous enterprise of pressmen, and the introduction of "freak" parties from America are noticed and reproved in 1903, when amongst other recreations of the Smart Set we read of "Shinty, a wild and tumultuous version of hockey, in which there are absolutely no rules."

The New Mobility

At the beginning of this period bicycling was fashionable. The lines "To Julia, Knight-errant" in 1895 refer in whimsical vein to the brief vogue of bicycling parties by night in the City, organized by "smart" people. Battersea Park was also frequented by fashionable riders; butPunch, with a sure instinct, saw that the craze would not last, and in the same year foreshadowed donkey-riding as the next modish recreation. The advent of "mokestrians" was a mere piece of burlesque, suggested perhaps by the popularity of the sentimental coster song introduced by Mr. Albert Chevalier, but the speedy disestablishmentof the bicycle as a fashionable means of locomotion was correctly foretold in one of the latest pictures from the pen of Du Maurier. Here one of a group of fair bicyclists in the Park expresses her ardent desire for the passing of a tyranny which she hated and only obeyed because it was the fashion. Motoring was another matter, because it was expensive and luxurious, andPunch, philosophizing in 1904 on the probable results of a mode of motion which combined speed of transit with the immobility of the passenger, predicted the advent of an obese and voracious "motorocracy" with Gargantuan appetites and mediæval tastes. In a "Ballade of Modern Conversation" which appeared in 1905, the three outstanding topics are Bridge, motors and ailments, and about this timePunchprinted a picture of a gentleman who, when asked what was his favourite recreation, replied, "Indigestion."

Two aristocrats talkingENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE!Future Duke: "What are you goin' to do this mornin' eh?"Future Earl: "Oh, I dunno. Rot about, I s'pose, as usual."Future Duke: "Oh, but I say, that's so rotten."Future Earl: "Well, what else is there to do, you rotter?"

ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE!

Future Duke: "What are you goin' to do this mornin' eh?"

Future Earl: "Oh, I dunno. Rot about, I s'pose, as usual."

Future Duke: "Oh, but I say, that's so rotten."

Future Earl: "Well, what else is there to do, you rotter?"

The influence and example of American millionaires is a frequent theme of satire. In 1904Punchhad attacked their acquisitiveness in a burlesque account of the contemplated"bodily removal of certain European landscapes." In 1905 he dealt faithfully with a famous "freak" dinner at the Savoy Hotel, costing £600 a head, when the guests were entertained in a huge gondola and the courtyard was flooded to represent a Venetian lagoon. The American "enfant terrible" in 1907, frankly discussing her relations with her parents, supplies an interesting comment on the complexities of divorce, as described a few years earlier by the late Mr. Henry James inWhat Maisie Knew. The unemployment and inefficiency of the Upper Classes were admirably satirized in a set of Neo-Chaucerian verses, suggested by a society chronicler who had anticipated a March of the Upper Class unemployed to the East End. In 1906 the Pageant craze assumed formidable dimensions, and the ubiquitous activities of Mr. Louis Napoleon Parker as Pageant-master are duly if disrespectfully acknowledged.Punchhad never been enthusiastic about "dressing up"; it was, in his view, foreign to the temper of the British and essentially one of the things which they managed better abroad. Moreover, he regarded this preoccupation with the past as an evasion of our responsibilities to the future. This view is pointedly expressed in the cartoon "Living on Reputation" in 1908, where Britannia (among the Pageants) remarks: "Quite right of them to show pride in my past; but what worries me is that nobody seems to take any interest in my future." "Smart" people were furiously interested in the things of the present, and for the most part in the things that did not matter. From 1906 right up to the war no feature of the feverish pleasure-hunt indulged in by the idle rich escaped the vigilant eye of "Blanche," whose "Letters," when all allowance is made for a spice of exaggeration and for the wit which the author perhaps too generously ascribes to her puppets, remain a substantially faithful picture of the audacious frivolity, the inanity, the rowdiness and the extravagance of Englandde luxe, unashamed of its folly, yet, at its worst, never inhuman or even arrogant. I don't think that any of "Blanche's" set would have quitted a shooting party because he was asked to drink champagne out of a claret glass, as in the picture of the young super-snob in 1908.

Two ladies talkingTHE CULT OF THE PEKY-PEKYFirst Owner of Prize Doglet: "These seaside places don't appeal to me the least little bit. But Ozoneville was recommended to give tone to Choo-choo's nerves. He's been suffering from severe shock through seeing two fearful mongrels have a fight in the park one day. Your little thingy-thing's off colour too?"Second Owner of Prize Doglet: "Yes, a bit run down after the season. Sorry, but I really must hurry away. Band's beginning to play something of Balfe's, and Ineverallow Ming-ming to hear banaldémodémusic."

THE CULT OF THE PEKY-PEKY

First Owner of Prize Doglet: "These seaside places don't appeal to me the least little bit. But Ozoneville was recommended to give tone to Choo-choo's nerves. He's been suffering from severe shock through seeing two fearful mongrels have a fight in the park one day. Your little thingy-thing's off colour too?"

Second Owner of Prize Doglet: "Yes, a bit run down after the season. Sorry, but I really must hurry away. Band's beginning to play something of Balfe's, and Ineverallow Ming-ming to hear banaldémodémusic."

Paint and "Pekies"

Horse-play as an integral part of the modern idea of pleasure is satirized in 1910 in a series of suggestions for new "Side-shows" at Exhibitions, which should combine the maximum amount of motion, discomfort, and even danger to life and limb. The recrudescence of "beauty doctors" is noted by "Blanche" in the same year, and the increasing use of paint, not to repair the ravages of age, but to lend additional lustre to the bloom of youth, is faithfully recorded byPunch'sartists in the decade before the war. Bridge—to whichPunchhad paid a negative homage on the ground that it kept the drawing-room ballad-monger and the parlour-tricksters at bay—had ousted whist, and in 1913 was threatened by "Coon-Can." On the cult ofthe "Peky-Peky"Punchspoke with two voices, for while he deprecated the infatuation of their owners, he was fully alive to the charm, the intelligence, and the courage of these picturesque little Orientals.

Extravagance invariably leads to reaction; but in this period the reactions were not always sincere—at least not among the "Smart Set." They intermittently played at being serious, but the motive generally savoured of materialism: they were more concerned with conserving their bodies than with saving their souls. It was an age of new and strange Diets and Cures and food-fads.Punch's"Health Seeker'sVade Mecum" in 1893 reflects modern pessimism and uncertainty. In 1904, in "Our Doctors," he recalls Mr. Gladstone's tribute to Sir Andrew Clark, but his appreciation and eulogy of medical worthies was a good deal discounted by his linking the names of Jenner and Gull with those of Morell Mackenzie and Robson Roose. Neurotics were now to be found in unexpected quarters. In 1899 Phil May has a picture of an admiral kept awake all night by a butterfly that went flopping about his room.

The movement for learning "First Aid" had already become fashionable—and to that extent futile—and in 1901, in "Courtshipà laGalton,"Punchmildly satirizes the creed of Eugenics, as illustrated by the union of two Galtonites, despising sentiment, but possessing diplomas of matrimonial fitness. Romance and Hygiene seldom go hand-in-hand. The "Simple Life" was another favourite cult and catchword; but its votaries were for the most part "affecting to seem unaffected."

Smart Simplicity

American visitors flooded London for the Coronation of 1902, andPunchmakes good play with a statement in a weekly review that "the old-world simplicity of rural life is unique and has an unfailing charm for our Transatlantic visitors." This was and is true of the best of them, butPunchturned the announcement to legitimate ridicule in "Arcady, Ltd.," with its "faked" rusticity, carefully rehearsed and organized to cater for the taste of wealthy explorers. The cry of "Back to the Land" is illustrated in the futile efforts of fashionables pretending to assist in the harvest field: it is ironically commended in 1906 to exhausteddébutantesas the best form ofcure for the fatigues of the London season. The "Simple Life," as practised by well-to-do dyspeptics and the unindustrious rich, was in his view a complete fraud, for they were really preoccupied with the material side of existence. Hence the adoption of weird unknown foods and clothing. In 1910 "Blanche" gives us to understand that the craze for abstinence had even invaded the "Smart Set":—

A good many people are going in for the No-food cult, the Dick Flummerys among others. Indeed, dinners and suppers seem to be by way of becoming extinct functions. Dick says that till you've been without food for a week you don't know what you're really capable of. I don't think that would be a very reassuring thing to hear from anyone looking as wild and haggard as Dick does now, if one happened to betête-à-têtewith, him and some knives! Dotty tells me that, with their tiny house and small means, they find entertaining much easier now they belong to the No-food set. Their little rooms will holdtwiceas many no-fooders as ordinary people, she says, and then there's no expense of feeding 'em. No, indeed. At the Flummerys', when your partner asks, "What shall I get you?" he merely adds, "Hotorcoldwater?"

In general, however, these rigours were confined to intellectual or pseudo-intellectual coteries, of which a good representative is to be found in the hatless and sandalled youth depicted in May, 1912—not unnaturally classed as a tramp by the old Highland shepherd—who evidently belongs to the type ingeniously described as that of the "Herbaceous Boarder." In 1913, in "a chronicle of Cures, with the Biography of a Survivor,"Punchbriefly traces the progress of fads in food, drink and hygiene in the past half-century. He begins with light sherry, goes on with Gladstone claret, deviates into the water cure, takes to whisky and soda, then to cocoa nibs, and winds up with paraffin. Simultaneously and successively the survivor abandons "prime cuts" for vegetarianism; relapses to carnivorous habits under the auspices of Salisbury (the apostle of half-cooked beef and hot-water) and Fletcher (who found salvation in chewing); then took to Plasmon with Eustace Miles, lactobacilline in accordance with the prescription of Metchnikoff, and finally developed into a full-blown disciple of osteopathy. The list is not by any means complete, for nomention is made of Dr. Haig or of China tea, or the uncooked vegetable cure. But it will serve as a rough survey of the romance and reality of modern dietetics.

When I said that smart people were more concerned with their bodies than their souls, this must not be taken to imply a complete disregard for the things of the spirit. We hear little inPunchof Spiritualism, but a certain amount about occultism. "Auras" and their colours and meanings were attracting attention in 1903, and in 1906 the "mascot" craze had reached such a pitch thatPunchwas moved to intervene. If, he contends, wemusthave mascots, they had better be duly examined and licensed. The "Smart Set," again, always anxious to advertise their worship of pleasure, were not immune from the denunciations of popular preachers. The fiery fulminations of Father Bernard Vaughan did not escapePunch'samused notice. In 1907 the results of this crusade are foreshadowed in a series of pictures in which the "Smart Set" are exhibited as converts to decorum, simplicity and sanity. They have taken to serious pursuits—part-singing and photography. They frequent cheap restaurants and, as motorists, develop an unfamiliar consideration for the foot passenger. The irony and scepticism underlying these forecasts is further shown in the burlesque "Wise Words on Wedlock" by "Father Vaughan Tupper," in the following year—a string of extracts from his "great sermon," in which worldly wisdom is mixed with sonorous platitudes.

Caste and "The Social Fetish"

While complaints of the decline of manners are constant, evidences frequently recur of the worship of "good form" and the efforts made to keep it up. In 1900Punchpillories an advertisement which offered coaching to "strangers, colonials, Americans and foreigners on matters of high English etiquette and fashion"; but in the same year it requires a certain amount of reading between the lines to dissociatePunchfrom the sentiments expressed in the verses on Caste:—

"Kind hearts are more than coronets,"I know this must of course be true;It is the same old sun that setsOn high and low, that rises too.What matters it for whom you buyThe ring of diamonds and pearls,A maid whose birth is none too high,Or daughter of a hundred earls?If you're content that she should be—Well, not exactly as you are,The trifling difference in degreeMay only very seldom jar.Intolerance we should suppress,An attribute of fools and churls,Yet I prefer, I must confess,The daughter of a hundred earls.

"Kind hearts are more than coronets,"

I know this must of course be true;

It is the same old sun that sets

On high and low, that rises too.

What matters it for whom you buy

The ring of diamonds and pearls,

A maid whose birth is none too high,

Or daughter of a hundred earls?

If you're content that she should be—Well, not exactly as you are,The trifling difference in degreeMay only very seldom jar.Intolerance we should suppress,An attribute of fools and churls,Yet I prefer, I must confess,The daughter of a hundred earls.

If you're content that she should be—

Well, not exactly as you are,

The trifling difference in degree

May only very seldom jar.

Intolerance we should suppress,

An attribute of fools and churls,

Yet I prefer, I must confess,

The daughter of a hundred earls.

It may, perhaps, be fair to regard this as a piece of impersonation—a point of view—rather than an editorial pronouncement. Anyhow,Punchwas perfectly sound in his ridicule of the aristocratic pseudo-Socialist who wished to have it both ways, and of the gullibility or snobbery of reporters who ministered to her vanity. Suburban pretensions to smartness are also chaffed in the picture of the mother rebuking her daughter for relapsing to "Pa" and "Ma" instead of calling her parents "Pater" and "Mater."

WhatPunchcould not stand, and to his credit never had stood, was the inverted snobbery of those who professed to despise the privileges and the shibboleths of rank, while all the time they took the utmost pains to let you know that they belonged to the class which claimed those privileges and that they were incapable of violating its shibboleths. This old game, revived with considerable skill by Lady Grove in her treatise on The Social Fetish, in which great stress is laid on the test of pronunciation, was mercilessly exposed in its true colours byPunchin 1907. The article is an extremely workmanlike, polite, but damaging criticism of an odious but ancient habit—that of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Another old custom—the mutual abuse in public of politicians who were bosom friends in private—was revived with such gusto in these years as to elicitPunch'scomment of "Pals before Party."

Back to Index Next