Part 5 (1/2)
The Carlyles
[I was talking with a newspaper man the other day who seemed to think that the fact that Mrs. Carlyle threw a teacup at Mr. Carlyle should be given to the public merely as a fact.
But a fact presented to people without the proper--or even, if necessary, without the improper--human being to go with it does not mean anything and does not really become alive or caper about in people's minds.
But what I want and what I believe most people want when a fact is being presented is one or two touches that will make natural and human questions rise in and play about like this:
”Did a servant see Mrs. Carlyle throw the teacup? Was the servant an English servant with an English imagination or an Irish servant with an Irish imagination? What would the fact have been like if Mr. Browning had been listening at the keyhole? Or Oscar Wilde, or Punch, or the Missionary Herald, or The New York Sun, or the Christian Science Monitor?”
--GERALD STANLEY LEE in the Satevepost.]
BY OUR OWN ROBERT BROWNING
As a poet heart- and fancy-free--whole, I listened at the Carlyles' keyhole; And I saw, I, Robert Browning, saw, Tom hurl a teacup at Jane's jaw.
She silent sat, nor tried to speak up When came the wallop with the teacup-- A cup not filled with Beaune or Clicquot, But one that brimmed with Orange Pekoe.
”Jane Welsh Carlyle,” said Thomas, bold, ”The tea you brewed for m' breakfast's cold!
I'm feeling low i' my mind; a thing You know b' this time. Have at you!”... Bing!
And hurled, threw he at her the teacup; And I wrote it, deeming it unique, up.
BY OUR OWN OSCAR WILDE
LADY LEFFINGWELL (_coldly_).--A full teacup!
What a waste! So many good women and so little good tea.
[_Exit Lady Leffingwell_]
FROM OUR OWN ”PUNCH”
A MANCHESTER autograph collector, we are informed, has just offered 50 for the signature of Tea Carlyle.
FROM OUR OWN ”MISSIONARY HERALD”
From what clouds cannot suns.h.i.+ne be distilled!
When, in a fit of G.o.dless rage, Mr.
Carlyle threw a teacup at the good woman he had vowed at the altar to love, honour, and obey, she smiled and the thought of China entered her head.
Yesterday Mrs. Carlyle enrolled as a missionary, and will sail for the benighted land of the heathen to-morrow.
FROM OUR OWN ”NEW YORK SUN”
Fortunate is MRS. JANE WELSH CARLYLE to have escaped with her life, though if she had not, no American worthy of the traditions of Was.h.i.+ngton could simulate acute sorrow. MR. CARLYLE, wearied of the dilatory methods of the BAKERIAN War Department, properly took the law into his own strong hands.