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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Volume 103 September 10 1892 by Various
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Ebook has 60 lines and 10598 words, and 2 pages
"'Tis short and simple," responded YORICK. "'The afflicted Violinist' occupied a room at 34, Compton Street, Brunswick Square, in which he lived alone. He suffered from lumbago, as well as from a proud spirit and a broken heart. He had a dread of 'coming to the Workhouse.' Spectral fear which haunts ever the sensitive and poverty-stricken! Unreasonable? Perhaps. But not the less agonising. What comfort may Political Economy and an admirable Poor Law yield to proud-spirited victims of poverty?"
"But surely," said I, "the compassion of the stranger would gladly have poured oil and wine into the wounds of his spirit--or into poor afflicted MARIA's--had he only known."
"Indeed, no!" I responded, musingly.
LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.
After I had done with my luncheon, and had puffed a friendly cigar, I proceeded to that room in the Club which is specially dedicated to literature and silence. What a feast of multitudinous periodicals is there spread out, how brightly the variegated array of books from the circulating library attracts the leisurely, how dignified and awe-inspiring are the far-stretching ranks of accumulated volumes upon the shelves. And the carpet, how soft, and the chairs how comfortably easy. Into one of these chairs I sank with a religious novel , and began to think deeply about various life-problems that have much distressed me. Why must men wear themselves out prematurely with labour? Why must we suffer? And why, granting the necessity for pain, should I occasionally sink under a toothache, while HARRISON, a blatant fellow with a red face and a loud voice, continues in a condition of robust and oppressive health? These speculations were not so painful and disturbing as might be supposed. Indeed, they had a soothing effect. From the rhythmical breathing and the closed eyes of two other occupants of arm-chairs, I judged that they were similarly occupied in philosophic reflection. I was just composing myself to a bout of specially hard thinking, when, lo, the door opened, and in stepped Dr. FUSSELL!
Everybody, I take it, knows Dr. FUSSELL. He is a member of countless learned Societies. Over many of them he presides, to some he acts as secretary. He reads papers on abstruse questions connected with sanitation, he dashes with a kind of wild war-whoop into impassioned newspaper controversies on the component elements of a dust particle, or the civilisation of the Syro-Phoenicians. He is acute, dialectical, scornful and furious. He denounces those who oppose him as the meanest of mankind, he extols his supporters as the most illustrious and reasonable of all who have benefited the human race. In the Club he is always engaged in some investigation which keeps him continuously skipping from bookshelf to bookshelf, climbing up ladders to reach the highest shelves, rushing up and down-stairs with sheaves of paper bulging in his coat-pockets, or stowed under his arms. He lays his top-hat on the table, and makes it a receptacle for reams of notes and volumes of projected essays. In a word, he is a human storm.
Well, in he came with his grey hair streaming over his forehead, and his eyes aflame. I knew in a moment that repose in his presence was out of the question, though I still sat on, hoping against hope. First, the Doctor bounded to the fire-place, seized the poker, and began to rummage the fire. It was a good fire, and had done nothing to deserve this punishment. I shifted on my seat; the two other philosophers opened their eyes and frowned, and still Dr. FUSSELL continued to rummage. Now I knew, not only that that fire was being poked on an entirely wrong principle, but that I alone knew how it ought to be poked. My fingers itched, my whole body tingled with excitement. At last Dr. FUSSELL ceased. In a moment I was out of my seat and making a bee-line for the poker. I just managed to beat the other two by a short head, seized the poker, and relieved my soul by stirring the fire on strictly scientific principles. The others watched me hungrily. When I had finished, each of them took a short turn with the poker, and then we all returned, more or less appeased, to our seats.
Am I singular? I think not. There are others whose mannerisms plague me too. For instance, TRUBERRY, whom I meet occasionally, has a wild and venomous habit of relating to me his infinitesimal jokelets. That I could pardon. But when, having related one, he bursts, as he always does, into a helpless suffocation of purple laughter, the savage within me awakes and I murder TRUBERRY in fancy to an accompaniment of refined and protracted tortures. Once, as I helped him on with his overcoat, he joked and exploded. My fingers were horribly near his throat. But I mastered the impulse, and TRUBERRY will never know how near he was to destruction. And to make matters worse, he is one of the kindest and most considerately helpful of human beings. Oh, IRRITATION, IRRITATION, you have much to answer for. The fly in the ointment of the apothecary was a baby to you. Avaunt, avaunt!
DIOGENES ROBINSON.
NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.
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