Punch, or the London Charivari Part 6

_A._ Certainly, or I shouldn't live at all.

_Q._ Which do you prefer--a story produced in parts, or a story published as a whole?

_A._ Again a question of terms. Still, if remuneration is equal, sketches of character are easier than construction of plot.

_Q._ When is the latter necessary?

_A._ When the novel is written for a serial, and is published with the standing announcement (frequently repeated), "to be continued in our next."

_Q._ Is it difficult to sketch character?

_A._ Not if you do not mind irritating your friends and driving your foes into lunacy.

_Q._ How do you irritate your friends?

_A._ By reproducing in an amusing manner their peculiarities.

_Q._ And how do you madden your foes?

_A._ By pa.s.sing them over in a dead silence, and sternly refusing to recognise their existence.

_Q._ How should you treat your contemporaries?

_A._ If you appreciate your work at its proper (that is to say, your _own_) value, you will not admire contemporaries.

_Q._ And what will you say of authors of the past?

_A._ That it is fortunate that they did live in the past, as they certainly do not exist in the present, and will certainly not revive in the future.

_Q._ How should you criticise a contemporary's novel?

_A._ If you are sure of his influencing a criticism of your own work favourably, praise his romance sky high. If he is, from a reviewer's point of view, a negligable quant.i.ty, why, treat him on that basis.

_Q._ Then what is your motto?

_A._ "Nothing for nothing."

_Q._ Do you consider a novelist's life the best possible form of existence?

_A._ I should say yes if I did not know of a form of existence to be even better.

_Q._ And what is that?

_A._ Inheriting a fortune, putting your hands in your pockets, and for the rest of your life doing nothing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREHISTORIC PEEPS.

A LITTLE COVERT SHOOTING. (DRAGONS PLENTIFUL, AND STRONG ON THE WING.)]

AMARE, O!

(_By an Usher._)

With weary brain I hear again The drowsy urchins stammer, O, From _mensa_ down through every noun That's in the Latin grammar, O!

And when declensions pall, why then, The exercise to vary, O, I bid them show how well they know My sweet, sweet verb, _Amare_, O!

"_Amo_, _amas_,--I love a la.s.s,"

Her dainty name is NANCY, O, And none but she shall ever be The darling of my fancy, O!

_Amavi_--well, in love I fell, And sure 'twas no vagary, O, For since that day I've learnt the way To conjugate _Amare_, O!

I whisper now, "_Ama_, Love thou!"

Amongst the fields of barley, O, And NANCE replies, with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, "I love, I love thee, CHARLIE, O!"

_Amo_, _ama_, the livelong day I'll teach my winsome fairy, O, For has not she resolved with me To conjugate _Amare_, O?

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAUTION.

_The Major._ "DON'T YOU LIKE LIQUEURS, MRS. JINKS?"

_Mrs. Jinks._ "YES; BUT THEY MAKE ONE SO _UNRESERVED_!"]

AD JOVEM PLUVIUM.

["Ju Plu has been in his best form lately."--_Sporting Paper._]

ENGLAND farewell, when showers of rain From dewy eve to dawn pour, I fly across the heaving main To Aden or to Cawnpore.

The deep floods hide my native land, No more as land I rank it, I envy on some foreign strand The brown man in his blanket.

Through sandy deserts he may roam, But bright suns s.h.i.+ne for him there, And if he wants to reach his home He never has to swim there.

There would I dwell, away, away I fly, these floods disdaining, Where Jupiter can rule the day Without a thought of raining.