Two worlds indeed. The mighty West Poured out her untold money To gaze upon my palimpsest; I think that Codex A was best, But parts of this have been suppressed; Publishers are so funny.
And now my fame through London rings In well-bred speech and _argot_; At mild suburban tea-makings The postman knocks, and poor dear things Tear wildly at the parcel-strings When MUDIE gives them MARGOT.
Pressmen have tried to make a lot Out of a certain instance Of mild misstatement as to what Happened in 1914. Rot! All I can say is that my plot Has much more _verve_ than WINSTON'S.
Well, never mind. The work is done; People who do not need it-- The wit, the fire, the force, the fun, The pathos--let them simply shun This frightful book, shout "Shame!" and run; Nobody's _forced_ to read it.
[Illustration: _Dentist (after preliminary inspection)._ "EXTRAORDINARY THING--THERE'S ONE OF YOUR TEETH ONLY HALF STOPPED."
_Patient._ "AH, THAT WERE T'OOTHER DENTIST. T' LAAD 'URT ME, SO AH GAVE 'IM A GOOD LICK IN T' JAW."]
No one who is interested in the possibilities of psycho-therapy can view without serious misgiving recent tendencies in artistic nomenclature. Some of us are old enough to remember when the trend was in the direction of Italianisation; when FOLEY became SIGNOR FOLI; CAMPBELL, CAMPOBELLO, and an American from Brooklyn was transformed into BROCCOLINI. The vogue of alien aliases has passed, but it may return, and it is to guard against the formidable and deleterious results of its recrudescence that the following suggestions, are propounded, not merely in the interests of Gongorism or of an intensive cultivation of syncretic euphuism, but in accordance with the most approved conclusions of psycho-analytic research.
It may be urged--and the objection is natural--that there can be little danger of a relapse in view of the heroic and patriotic adhesion of some of our most distinguished artists to their homely patronymics. No doubt the noble example of CLARA BUTT and CARRIE TUBB is fortifying and reassuring, and there are also clamant proofs that denationalisation is no passport to eminence. But it would be foolish to overlook the existence of powerful influences operating in an antipodal direction. I confess to a feeling approaching to dismay when I study the advertisement columns of the daily papers and note the recurrence, in the announcements of impending concerts, of names of a strangely outlandish and exotic form. In a single issue I have encountered KRISH, ARRAU, KOUNS and DINH GILLY. The Christian names of some of these eminent performers are equally momentous and perturbing, _e.g._, JASCHA, KOFZA and UTT.