The Casual Ward: Academic and Other Oddments

FORECAST

Tomkins! when revolving lustres   Thin those shining locks that nowWreathe their hyacinthine clusters   Round your intellectual brow, —You who in your nobler station   Still are kind enough to seekOur political salvation   Rather more than once a week, —Think you, will your rightful value   Still be duly understood?Will the British Public hail you   Always great and always good?When the Peoples fight for Freedom   And the tyrant’s rage confront,Will they call for you to lead ’em?   – No, my friend: I fear they won’t.Soon or late are Truth’s apostles   Laid upon their destined shelf;You, who talk of Ancient Fossils,   Tomkins! will be one yourself:Dons and Men with gibe and sneer your   Ancient crusted ways will view,Wondering oft with smile superior   What’s the use of Things like you!All the schemes that win you glory,   Meant to mend our mortal mess —These will simply brand you Tory,   Nothing more and nothing less:You who waked the world from slumber,   You, who shone in Progress’ van,You’ll be then a mere Back Number,   Obsolete as good Queen Anne!You I see with zeal excessive   Dying then for causes, whichNow (forsooth) you call Progressive,   In reaction’s Final Ditch:By Conservatives in caucus   (Ardent youth, reflect on that!)Sent to stem the horrid raucous   Clamours of the Democrat.No: I do not wish to quarrel   With your high exalted sense;No: there isn’t any moral —   Not of any consequence:Only, ’neath your exhortations   Passive while we’re doomed to sit,Themes like these conduce to patience, —   And I thought I’d mention it.

PAGEANTS

My Tityrus! and is’t a fact   (As wondrous facts there are)That History’s scenes thou wouldst enact   Beside the banks of Cher?Wilt thou for pomps like these desert   Thy calm and cloistered lair,Not quite so young as once thou wert,   Nor (pardon me) so fair?We saw thee stalk in youthful prime   With high Proctorial mien:We saw the majesty sublime   Which marked the Junior Dean;O pundit grave!  O sage M.A.!   Say in what happy partThou wilt before the crowd display   Thy histrionic art!With cranium bald, which ne’er again   Will need the barber’s shear,Wilt thou present in Charles his train   Some long-locked Cavalier?A sober Don for all to see   Who once didst walk abroad,Wilt now an Ancient Briton be   And painted blue with woad?Me from such scenes afar remove,   And hide my shuddering headWhere Nature doth in field and grove   Her fairer pageant spread:There will I meditating lie   ’Mid summer’s calm delights, —But thou wilt walk adown the High   My Tityrus, – in Tights..

RULES FOR FICTION

A Novelist, whose magic art,Had plumbed (’twas said) the human heart,Whom for the penetrative kenWherewith he probed the souls of menThe Public and the Public’s wifeDeclared synonymous with Life, —Sat idle, being much perplexedWhat Attitude to study next,Because he would not wholly tellWhich Pose was likeliest to sell.To him the Muse: “Why seek afarFor things that on the threshold are?Why thus evolve with care and painFrom your imaginative brain?Put Artifice upon the shelf, —Take pen and ink, and draw – Yourself!”The author heard: he took the hint:He photographed himself in print.His very inmost self he drew..The critics said, “This Will Not Do.No more we recognize the artWhich used to plumb the human heart, —This suffers from the patent viceOf being not Art but Artifice.’Tis deeply with the fault imbuedOf Inverisimilitude:He’s written out; his skill’s forgot:He only writes to Boil the Pot!It is not true; it will not wash;’Tis mere imaginative Bosh;And if he can’t” (they told him flat)“Get nearer to the Life than that,He will not earn the Public’s pelf!”This happens when you draw Yourself.Or – I should say – it happens whenSuch portraits are essayed by Men:For presently a Lady cameAnd did substantially the same.(Let everyone peruse this sequelWho dreams that Man is Woman’s equal), —She with a hand divinely freeDrew what she thought herself to be:It did not much resemble HerIn moral strength or mental stature —Yet did the critics all averIt simply teemed with Human Nature!

ART AND LETTERS

In that dim and distant æonKnown as Ante-Mycenæan,When the proud Pelasgian stillBounded on his native hill,And the shy Iberian dweltUndisturbed by conquering Celt,Ere from out their Aryan homeCame the Lords of Greece and Rome,Somewhere in those ancient spotsLived a man who painted Pots —Painted with an art defective,Quite devoid of all perspective,Very crude, and causing doubtWhen you tried to make them out,Men (at least they looked like that),Beasts that might be dog or cat,Pictures blue and pictures red,All that came into his head:Not that any tale he meantOn the Pots to represent:Simply ’twas to make them smart,Simply Decorative Art.So the seasons onward hied,And the Painter-person died —But the Pot whereon he drewStill survived as good as new:Painters come and painters go,Art remains in statu quo.When a thousand years (perhaps)Had proceeded to elapse,Out of Time’s primeval mistCame an Ætiologist;He by shrewd and subtle guessWrote Descriptive Letterpress,Setting forth the various causesFor the drawings on the vases,All the motives, all the plotsOf the painter of the pots,Entertained the nations withFable, Saga, Solar Myth,Based upon ingenious shotsAt the Purpose of the Pots,Showing ages subsequentWhat the painter really meant(Which, of course, the painter hadn’t;He’d have been extremely saddenedHad he seen his meanings missedBy the Ætiologist).Next arrives the Prone to ErrVery ancient Chronicler,All that mythologic loreSwallowing whole and wanting more,Crediting what wholly lackedAll similitude of Fact,Building on this wondrous basisAll we know of early races;So the Past as seen by himFurnished from its chambers dimHypothetical foundationsWhence succeeding generationsBuilt, as on a basis sure,Branches three of Literature,Social Systems four (or five),Two Religions Primitive;So that one may truly say(Speaking in a general way)All the facts and all the knowledgeTaught in School and taught in College,All the books the printer prints —Everything that’s happened since —Feels the influence of whatOnce was drawn upon that Pot,Plus the curious mental twistOf that Ætiologist!But the Pot that caused the troubleLay entombed in earth and rubble,Left about in various places,In the way that early races —Hittites, Greeks, or Hottentots —Used to leave important Pots;Till at length, to close the list,Came an Archæologist,Came and dug with care and pain,Came and found the Pot again:Dug and delved with spade and shovel,Made a version wholly novelOf the Potman’s old design(Others none were genuine).Pots were in a special senseEcht-Historisch Documents:All who Error hope to stemMust begin by studying them;So the Public (which, he said,Had been grievously misled)Must in all things freshly startFrom his views of Ancient Art.All (the learned man proceeded)Otherwise who thought than he did,Showed a stupid, base, untrue,Obscurantist point of view;Men like these (the sage would say)Should be wholly swept away;They, and eke the faults prodigiousWhich beset their creeds religious,Render totally impureAll their so-called Literature,Lastly, sap to its foundationAll their boasted education, —Just because they’ve quite forgotWhat was meant, and what was not,By the Painter of the Pot!* * * * *Pots are long and life is fleeting;Artists, when their subjects treating,Should be very, very farCarefuller than now they are.

THE NOVEL

When by efforts literary you might scale the summits airy   Which the eminent in fiction are ascending every day,Why obscurely crawl and grovel? – I will write (I said) a Novel!   So I started and I planned it in the ordinary way.I’d a Heroine – a creature of resplendent form and feature,   With a spell in every motion and a charm in every look:I’d a Villain – worse than Nero, – I’d a most superior Hero:   And the host of minor persons which is needed in a book:Each was drawn from observation: yet was each a pure creation   Which revealed at once the genius of originating mind:Not a man and not a woman but combined the Broadly Human   With a something quite peculiar of an interesting kind:What a wealth of meaning inner in the things they said at dinner!   How their conversation sparkled (like the ripples on the deep),Half disclosing, half concealing a Profundity of Feeling   Which would move the gay to laughter and incite the grave to weep!There they stood in grace and vigour, each imaginary figure,   Each a masterpiece of drawing for the world to wonder at:There was really nothing more I had to find but just the story,   Nothing more, but just the story – but I couldn’t think of that.Yet (I cried), in other writers, how the lovers and the fighters   Are conducted through the mazes of a complicated plan, —How the incidents are planted just precisely where they’re wanted —   How the man invites the moment, and the moment finds the man!How a Barrie or a Kipling guides the maiden and the stripling   Till they’re ultimately landed in the matrimonial state, —And they die, or else they marry (in a Kipling or a Barrie)   Just as if the thing was ordered by unalterable Fate, —While with me, alas! to balance my innumerable talents,   There’s a fatal imperfection and a melancholy blot:All the forms of my creating stand continually waiting   For a charitable person to provide them with a Plot!Still I put the endless query why I wander lone and dreary   (Barred from Eden like the Peri) minus fame and minus fee,Why the idols of the masses have an entrée to Parnassus,   While a want of mere invention is an obstacle to me!

FRAGMENT OF A JARGONIAD

Arise, my Muse, and ply th’ extended Wing!It is of Language that I mean to sing.Thou mighty Medium, potent to conveyThe clearest Notions in the darkest Way,Diffus’d by thee, what Depth of verbal MistVeils now the Realist, now th’ Idealist!Our mental Processes more complex growThan those our Sires were privileged to know.In Ages old, ere Time Instruction brought,A Thought or Thing was but a Thing or Thought:Such simple Names are now forever gone —A Concept this, that a Noümenon:As Cambria’s Sons their Pride of Race increaseBy joining Ap to Evan, Jones, or Rees,A prouder Halo decks the Sage’s Brow,Perceptive once, he’s Apperceptive now!Here sits Mentality (that erst was Mind),By correlated Entities defin’d:Here Monads lone Duality expressIn bright Immediacy of Consciousness:O who shall say what Obstacles deterThe Youth who’d fain commence Philosopher!The painful Public with bewilder’d BrainFor Metaphysic pants, but pants in vain:Too hard the Names, too weighty far the Load:Language forbids, and Br-dl-y blocks the Road.From Themes like these I willingly depart,And pass (discursive) to the Realms of Art.Ye Muses nine! what Phrases ye employ,What wondrous Terms t’ express æsthetic Joy!As once in Years ere Babel’s Turrets roseContented Nations talk’d the self-same Prose:As early Christians in the Days of YoreTook what they wanted from a common Store:So different Arts th’ astonished Reader seesPool all their Terms, then choose whate’er they please.’Mid critick Crews (where Intellect abounds)Sound sings in Colours, Colours shine in Sounds:When mimick Groves Apelles decks with green,Or Zeuxis limns the vespertinal Scene,Staccato Tints delight th’ auscultant EyeAnd soft Andantes paint the conscious Sky:Nor less, when Musick holds the list’ning Throng,How crisply lucent glows th’ entrancing Song!Each loud Sonata boasts its lively Hue,And Fugues are red, and Symphonies are blue.Not mine to deem your Epithets misplac’d,Ye learned Arbiters of publick Taste!Yet such th’ Effect on merely human Wit,That Esperanto is a Joke to it.Hail, Terminology! celestial Maid!Portress of Science, Guide to Art and Trade!I see Democracy – an ardent BandWho fain would read yet wish to understand —Compell’d that Goal in alien Tongues to seek,Fly for Relief to Necessary Greek,Claim as their Right (advised by Mr. Snow)The sweet Simplicity of ὁ ἡ τό, —While Dons con English till they’re pale and lean,And Candidates in Mods do English for Unseen!

THE PUPILS’ POINT OF VIEW

Relate, my Muse, the fame of him   Whose calling and peculiar missionIt was to wage with courage grim   A battle ’gainst effete Tradition!When Movements moved, with holy zest   He scaled the breach and led the stormers, —And was among the first and best   Of Educational Reformers.He saw the Boy at Public Schools   Regard his books with fear and loathing,From Latin’s arbitrary rules   Deriving practically nothing: —He said, – “O bounding human Boys,   Of all the fare whereon you batten,What chiefly mars your simple joys?”   With one accord they answered “Latin!”“Exactly so,” th’ Inquirer cried,   “This is the lore which cramps and stunts us;O how can pedagogues abide   A course that makes their pupils dunces?Since with the rules of Latin Prose   They can’t be brought to yield compliance,This Fact conclusively it shows —   They’ve all a natural bent for Science!”They sought for Scientific Truth,   And pedagogues with books and birchesGuided the faltering steps of Youth   In biological researches:The infant in his nurse’s care   In Science’ terms was taught to stammer:They practised vivisection where   They used to cut their Latin grammar;’Twas all in vain – the Human Boy   Remained unalterably chilly:Still less than Virgil’s tale of Troy   He liked compulsory bacilli!Much grieved the Zealot was thereat: —   “We’ll try,” he said, “a course of Spelling”.But O, the way they hated that   Quite overcomes my power of telling!“There must be ways,” the good man said,   “(Though hitherto perhaps we’ve missed ’em)Of putting things within the head:   We’ve something wrong about the System:”And musing on the sacred flame   Of Genius, and the cause that hid it,He unto this conclusion came —   Compulsion was the thing that did it.“Within the Boy’s aspiring brain   For Study still there lies a craving,And what is won against the grain   Is never really worth the having;This boasted Categorical   Imperative is clearly vicious, —Pastors and masters, one and all,   Must ascertain their pupils’ wishes!”And now those simple human Boys, —   All, to a boy, for Culture yearning, —No pedagogues with idle noise   Impede upon the path of Learning: —Released from books and teachers both,   No intellectual pastures feed ’em;And, if they lose in mental growth,   Think how they gain in moral freedom!

HINTS FOR THE TRANSACTION OF PUBLIC BUSINESS

Of a Cheerful HopeWhene’er you do to Meetings go, as many such there be(And few and far those persons are who home return to tea),Then take with you this principle, to cheer you on your way —The less there is to talk about, the more there is to say.Of an ExordiumConsult your hearers’ happiness, and state for their reliefThat you’ll avoid prolixity and study to be brief:For if you can’t be brief at once, ’twill comfort them to knowThat you’ll arrive at brevity in half an hour or so.Of Obedience to RuleShould e’er the Chairman censure you, as Chairmen oft will do,And tell you that you miss the point, and bid you keep thereto,(Though points are things, by Euclid’s law, that always must be missed —They have no parts or magnitude, and therefore don’t exist) —Obey at once the Chairman’s hest (because, as you’re aware,It is a most improper thing to argue with the Chair),Accept his ruling patiently, without superfluous fuss,And state the things you might have said – unless he’d ruled it thus.Of a PerorationAnd when you’ve spent your arguments yet somehow still go on(It shows a want of enterprise to stop because you’ve done),Don’t search about for topics new or vex your weary brain,But take what someone else has said and say it all again.Of ImpartialityAnd when at last your speech is o’er, be careful if you canThat none may hint – a horrid charge – that you’re a Party Man:So speak for this and speak for that as blithely as you may,But keep your mental balance true, and            Vote the other Way.

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

Two youths there were in days of yore   Called Jones and Robinson.Jones had abilities galore,   While Robinson had none.They met with corresponding fates:   And Jones, that genius proud,Obtained in time a First in Greats:   While Robinson was ploughed.Jones hoped that mental gifts like his   Might gain a Fellowship:But ah! full many a slip there is   Between the cup and lip:“You have a brain,” the College said,   “Which unassisted soars:’Tis not for Colleges to aid   Abilities like yours!Go – wealth awaits your gathering hand,   And empires crave your rule!But Fellowships like ours are planned   To help the helpless fool.”He tried the Press: he tried the Bar:   But still the Bar and PressSaid, “Not for him our openings are   Whose gifts ensure success:Such posts are meant (’tis justice plain)   For those unhappy chaps(Like Robinson) whom lack of brain   Unfairly handicaps!”And now – yet check the rising tear:   It seems that long agoThose Founders whom we all revere   Meant it to happen so —Some lack of necessary food,   All in a garret lone,Has ended Jones.  I thought it would.   But Robinson’s a Don.

UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS

By Lambda MinusA rumour and rumbling volcanic   Is heard in the Radical Press,And Presidents tremble in panic   And Wardens their terrors confess:How each with anxiety shivers,   The Dean with his fines and his gates,The ruffian who ragged me in Divvers,   The pedant who ploughed me in Greats!The doctrines degrading they taught, and   The Progress they nipped in the bud:The things that they did when they oughtn’t   And failed to perform when they should:The Questions prevented from burning,   The Movements forbidden to move,Recoil on their centres of learning,   Their Parks and the System thereof!Afar will Democracy chase it,   That gang of impenitent DonsWho drowned the occasional Placet   By bawling their truculent Nons:No idle and opulent College   Will feed that obstructionist clique,Those scoffers at Practical Knowledge   Who vote for compulsory Greek.And now when the Party of Labour,   Asserting its virtuous sway,Annexes the wealth of its neighbour   In Labour’s traditional way, —When purged of its various abuses   By Birrell’s beneficent rule,This haunt of the obsolete Muses   Is changed to a charity school, —When Fellows and bloated Professors   Their stipends are forced to disgorge,(Obeying the fiat of Messrs.   Keir Hardie and Burns and Lloyd George)Deprived by the wrath of the Nation   Of all their unmerited aids,Perhaps to escape from starvation   They’ll take to respectable trades!O wholly delectable vision!   I view with excusable gleeThe fate of the shallow precisian   Who failed to appreciate Me; —I fancy I see myself tossing   With blandly contemptuous mienA penny for sweeping a crossing   To him who was formerly Dean!

DIPLOMAS IN ARCHITECTURE AT CAMBRIDGE

(“Education differs from technical training.” – Expert opinion in a letter to the Times.)

Not in vain with quaint devices   Infants of the age of fourBuild their mimic edifices   All upon the nursery floor;Neither is the presage missedBy the Educationist,When he doth the fact recallHow that Balbus built a wall!Thus I mused on such-like theses,   While my errant fancy swamThrough the circumambient breezes   To the silver streams of Cam, —There observed with pleased surpriseAncient UniversitiesStill in touch at every stageWith the Progress of the Age;There, released from sloth and coma   (Alma Mater’s chief defect),There they grant a new Diploma   To the budding Architect,Take the blighted Builder’s artTo their academic heart,Hope it may in time becomePart of their curriculum:There they tell their College Porters   Not to think it strange or oddWhen a load of bricks and mortar’s   Dumped within the College quad;No indignant Tutor haulsHim who scales the College walls, —Plying on that airy perchArchitectural Research!Thus I sang: I seemed to see an   Epoch made, the Future’s guide;But my glad exultant pæan   Was not wholly justified:Men whose names we all revere,Stars in Architecture’s sphere,Phrases used which don’t implyAny genuine sympathy:Ch-mpn-ys, Bl-mfield, T. G. J-cks-n,   Hushed my lyre’s triumphant string —Said in limpid Anglo-Saxon   What they thought about the thing:“Seats of learning are designedFor to Educate the Mind,Not to teach a craft or trade,”That was what these persons said!What! and must a thwarted Nation   Draw the obvious inference?What! a Liberal Education   Doesn’t mean the quest of pence?(Really, this extremely crudeObscurantist attitudeIsn’t quite what one expectsFrom distinguished Architects!)Here’s another dear illusion   Reft away and wholly gone:O the spiritual confusion   Of the pained progressive Don!If the facts are quite correctAs regards the Architect,Comes the question, plain and clear,How about the Engineer?

ICHABOD: A MONODY

Now is the time when everything is glad,Their vernal greenery the fields renew,   Each feathered songster chants with livelier tone,And lambkins leap and cloudless skies are blue,   And all is gay and cheerful: – I alone         Am singularly sad;Mine erstwhile happiness and calm content   Yields to a sense of sorrowful surprise:   Things that I thought were thus, are otherwise:And all is grief, and disillusionment.For He, who did in everything surpassOur common world, – the Good, the Truly Great,   The Working Man, who shamed with standards highOur obscurantists unregenerate, —   Is not, ’twould seem, better than you, or I,      Or any other ass:The vision’s faded, as a snowflake melts;   Fallen is that idol from his high renown:   He hath waxed fat, and kicked, and tumbled down,And we must seek ensamples somewhere else!Where is it, Comrades! in this direful day —That noble zeal for academic lore,   That reverence due for discipline, in whichHe used to shine conspicuously o’er   The Brainless Athlete and the Idle Rich?      O, does he now displayThat ample breadth of calm impartial view,   That sober judgment and that balanced mind,   Which we were taught that we should always find,O R-skin College, domiciled in you?I have a Pupil: when his mental foodFails (as it will) his appetite to sate,   What! does that patient much-enduring elfProclaim a strike? set pickets at my gate?   Boycott my lectures? give them for himself?      (Full oft I wish he would:)Nay – when he finds those lectures dull and flat,   He asks no other: new ones might be worse:   Too well he knows that Cosmos’ ordered courseMeant him to hear, and me to talk like that.Also I own I’m disappointed byYour friends and patrons, British Working Man!   For they, methought, were champions of the Cause,Fighters for Freedom, foremost in the van,   Not servile scruplers, bound by rules and laws,      Not men who dealt in dryRespectable traditions: leaders true,   No timid Moderates, who would define   Too strict a boundary ’twixt Mine and Thine,Potential martyrs, heart and soul with you: —’Twas all illusion: they would feed you withMere talks on Temperance: when your spirit’s wings   Would soar to Sociology alone,Whereby will come that blessed state of things   When none has property to call his own,      They give you – Adam Smith.These too are fall’n: ah me, that I should live   To hear our brightest Radicals and best   By angry Labour in such terms addressedAs might apply to a Conservative!To this conclusion I perforce must come,’Twere best we parted: seeing that we, ’twould seem,   Haply have no appreciation ofYour high ambitions and your aims supreme,   Nor can we hope that you should greatly love      Our mental pabulum:Depart, O Comrades! to some happier sphere   Where you can still be nobly on the make,   And mine, or plumb, or brew, or butch, or bake, —Best to depart, and leave us mouldering here!Yea, if ye scorn our learning overmuch,Misguided sons of horny-handed toil!   Yet discontented with your lowly lotStill pine to burn the sad nocturnal oil   ’Mid academic culture, or ’mid what      Describes itself as such —Go elsewhere, O my brothers! only go   To Bath, to Birmingham – where’er the Don   Teaches the sacred art of Getting On, —– It is not far from here to Jericho.

THE PANACEA

It is Research of which I sing,Research, that salutary thing!None can succeed, in World or Church,Who does not prosecute Research:   For some read books, and toil thereat      Their intellect to waken:   But if you think Research is that      You’re very much mistaken.All in Columbia’s blesséd StatesThey have no Smalls, or Mods, or Greats,Nor do their faculties benumbWith any cold curriculum:   O no! for there the ambitious Boy,      Released from schools and birches,   At once pursues with studious joy      Original Researches:A happy lot that Student’s is,– I wish that mine were like to his, —Where in the bud no pedants nipHis Services to Scholarship:   And none need read with care and pain      Rome’s History, or Greece’s,   But each from his creative brain      Evolves semestrial Theses!On books to pore is not the kindOf thing to please the serious mind, —I do not very greatly careFor such unsatisfying fare:   To seek the lore that in them lurks      Would last ad infinitum:   Let others read immortal works, —      I much prefer to write ’em!