“Oh, dear beyond our dearest dreams,
Fairer than all that fairest seems!
To feast the rosy hours away,
To revel in a roundelay!
How blest would be
A life so free—
Ipwergis-Pudding to consume,
And drink the subtle Azzigoom!
“And if in other days and hours,
Mid other fluffs and other flowers,
The choice were given me how to dine—
‘Name what thou wilt: it shalt be thine!’
Oh, then I see
The life for me
Ipwergis-Pudding to consume,
And drink the subtle Azzigoom!”
“Oo may leave off playing now, Sylvie. I can do the uvver tune much
better wizout a compliment.”
“He means ‘without accompaniment,'” Sylvie whispered, smiling at my
puzzled look: and she pretended to shut up the stops of the organ.
“The Badgers did not care to talk to Fish:
They did not dote on Herrings’ songs:
They never had experienced the dish
To which that name belongs:
And oh, to pinch their tails,’ (this was their wish,)
‘With tongs, yea, tongs, and tongs!'”
I ought to mention that he marked the parenthesis, in the air, with his
finger. It seemed to me a very good plan. You know there’s no sound
to represent it–any more than there is for a question.
Suppose you have said to your friend “You are better to-day,” and that
you want him to understand that you are asking him a question, what can
be simpler than just to make a “?”. in the air with your finger?
He would understand you in a moment!
[Image…’Those aged one waxed gay’]
“‘And are not these the Fish,’ the Eldest sighed,
‘Whose Mother dwells beneath the foam’
‘They are the Fish!’ the Second one replied.
‘And they have left their home!’
‘Oh wicked Fish,’ the Youngest Badger cried,
‘To roam, yea, roam, and roam!’
“Gently the Badgers trotted to the shore
The sandy shore that fringed the bay:
Each in his mouth a living Herring bore–
Those aged ones waxed gay:
Clear rang their voices through the ocean’s roar,
‘Hooray, hooray, hooray!'”
“So they all got safe home again,” Bruno said, after waiting a minute
to see if I had anything to say: he evidently felt that some remark
ought to be made. And I couldn’t help wishing there were some such
rule in Society, at the conclusion of a song–that the singer herself
should say the right thing, and not leave it to the audience. Suppose
a young lady has just been warbling (‘with a grating and uncertain sound’)
Shelley’s exquisite lyric ‘I arise from dreams of thee’: how much nicer
it would be, instead of your having to say “Oh, thank you, thank you!”
for the young lady herself to remark, as she draws on her gloves,
while the impassioned words ‘Oh, press it to thine own, or it will break
at last!’ are still ringing in your ears, “–but she wouldn’t do it,
you know. So it did break at last.”
“And I knew it would!” she added quietly, as I started at the sudden
crash of broken glass. “You’ve been holding it sideways for the last
minute, and letting all the champagne run out! Were you asleep,
I wonder? I’m so sorry my singing has such a narcotic effect!”
CHAPTER 18.
QUEER STREET, NUMBER FORTY.
Lady Muriel was the speaker. And, for the moment, that was the only
fact I could clearly realise. But how she came to be there and how I
came to be there–and how the glass of champagne came to be there–all
these were questions which I felt it better to think out in silence,
and not commit myself to any statement till I understood things a
little more clearly.
‘First accumulate a mass of Facts: and then construct a Theory.’
That, I believe, is the true Scientific Method.
I sat up, rubbed my eves, and began to accumulate Facts.
A smooth grassy slope, bounded, at the upper end, by venerable ruins
half buried in ivy, at the lower, by a stream seen through arching
trees–a dozen gaily-dressed people, seated in little groups here and
there–some open hampers–the debris of a picnic–such were the Facts
accumulated by the Scientific Researcher. And now, what deep,
far-reaching Theory was he to construct from them? The Researcher