In drinking the honour of cads and bungs,
Progress is greased with the brewer's stingo.
SELF-COM.: Enough! throw in your tribute, Jingo!
JINGO.: A music hall song with a loathsome tang!
(He throws it in.
SELF-COM.: What more?
JINGO.: A bucket of moral slang!
(He throws it in.
SELF-COM.: Doesn't it simmer and seethe! Don't flinch!
What more?
JINGO.: The tiniest little pinch
Of Anglo-Saxon imperialism:—
SELF-COM.: Show it! Show it! Jingoism!
ALL: Touch it with care, it may go crack!
JINGO.: The Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack
As 'commercial assets' or out vote hunting!
(He throws them in.
SELF-COM.: For the melting pot there's nothing like bunting.
ALL: Ho, ho, for the melting pot,
Bubbling, seething, simmering hot.
SELF-COM.: Come, come, what have you got to throw
Maundering, maudlin L'Art Nouveau?
L'ART NOUVEAU: I'm in the fashion—non-controversial,
And the fashion is nothing if not commercial,
Pre-Raphaelite once, with a tiny twist
Of the philosophical hedonist,—
Inspired by Whistler,—next a touch
Of the 'Arts and Crafts,' but not too much.
Then Impressionism, the daintiest fluke;
Then the German squirm, & the Glasgow spook,
A spice of the latest French erotic,
Anything new and Studiotic,
As long as it tells in black and white,
And however wrong comes out all right,
'Id est,' as long as it pays, you know,
That's what's meant by L'Art Nouveau,
A very old fancy, sure enough,
Dished up for the profit of Mr. Puff.
To the artist (he's mortal!) when all's said and done,
If he worship the goddess of getting on,
Progress and Mr. Puff are one.
SELF-COM.: Yes, yes, yes, but make the pot fuller!
L'ART: Look then, a thing they call an art colour.
(He throws it in.
SELF-COM.: Your'e a pretty pickle, and that's the truth! here
I'm sick of talking in stychomuthia!
ALL: Ho, ho, for the melting pot,
Bubbling, seething, simmering hot,
It goes in thus, and it comes out, what?
SELF-COM.: Once again, we change the text,
Vandalism, your turn next.
VANDALISM: Change the text? The text's the same,
Vandalism's but a name
For that contempt, supreme, divine,
Of the pearls we cast before the swine.
For note that the vandals of life are twain,
Those who destroy from the lust of gain,
And those like the School Board official who did it, he
Vowed out of sheer sublime stupidity,
Of these some speak with the throaty whine
Of the cultured and high-bred Philistine,
As who should say I have no taste,
But to be found out is to be disgraced,
While others still bowing with 'yes, sir,' 'no, sir,'—
The ubiquitous unction of Grub the grocer,—
Assume as they spout the commercial platitude,
The usual beefy and truculent attitude,
For theirs is the text they learnt by rote,
Theirs the trump card—the popular vote.
Aye, though you whip him from pillar to post,
The vandal dwells here in the innermost,
And in England thick with historic dust,
For all the work of the 'National Trust,'
The Tory is often the greatest vandal,
Invoking his gods at the terrible scandal
Of not being any more free to destroy
That which he won't let others enjoy;
Progress, my dog-in-the-manger, you see,
Can't get along very far without me,
Coarse, and sloven, and slipshod, and sloppety.
SELF-COM.: Throw in!
VAN.: The rights of private property!
(He throws them in.
ALL: Ho, ho, for the melting pot,
Bubbling, seething, simmering hot,
What have ye got? what have ye got?
SELF-COM.: Come! you that elude all diagnosis,
Your offering next—come, come Neurosis!
NEUROSIS: Ah me! I'm a bit of a tartar who clings
To the far-off conceits of impossible things,
A troublesome spinster, a dubious wife,
But I make a good thing of the grievance of life,
In letters a pique more suggestive than nice,
In drama a problem of doubtful device,
In paint but a pose of impossible curves,
For every day use 'stead of backbone I've nerves,
And my children? Ask Progress, the last denier wins,
Through me she may chasten the race for its sins.
SELF-COM.: But what have you got, to throw into the pot?
NEU.: I? why ask me to show what I've got?
Why I've nothing of course! I stay on the shelf,
I'm merely the outcome of Progress myself!
They make as if to throw Neurosis herself into the pot, but she screaming, protests, till Self-Complacency trying to help her they all turn upon him and standing in a ring they point evil fingers at him, saying:
ALL: Shall we name him the last of the riotous lot,
It might create friction, make things a bit hot,
39
