STEWED PRUNES AND PRISM
“Dragons of the prime
That tare each other in their slime”
sounds less terrible than a dog-fight.
“Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d——”
is but a termagant.
“ Ring out, wild bells” suggests no tocsin (as it might, for
they symbolise the stupendous world-tragedy of the Atone-
ment) but at most the pastoral summons to a simple worship,
at least the dinner-gong—a dinner whose Turkey cooed, not
gobbled; a Plum Pudding innocent of brandy.
Yet these lines are the most forcible one can remember;
and if these things are done in the green tree ?
Lady Clara Vere de Vere feels (or is supposed to feel) a
ladylike repugnance to the sight of a suicide’s scarred throat!
She never is conceived of as rising either in joy or horror to
the height of tragedy. Her atonement? To preside at the
Dorcas Society!
This ridiculous monster!
Let us cover up these bones neatly and tidily and bury
them yet deeper in their tumulus of oblivion.
Bones? Jelly!
A. QUILLER, JR.
397