THE BURDEN 
 
 OF BABYLON DON 
 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 OR 
 
 THE SOCIAL INCUBUS
 
 THE BURDEN OF 
 BABYLONDON 
 
 OR 
 
 THE SOCIAL INCUBUS 
 
 AND OTHER VERS DE SOCIETE 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH E. M. STUTFIELD 
 
 Societas societatum — omnia Societas 
 
 LONDON 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, BOND STREET, W. 
 
 I905 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 ?R 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON : 
 
 PAGE 
 I. A SONG OF LAMENTATION g 
 
 II. INTROSPECTIVE ------- T 6 
 
 III. THE MODERN SYBARIS - - - - l8 
 
 IV. THE GENIUS OF RECLAME - - - "23 
 V. THE DEBUTANTE ------ 26 
 
 VI. TEMPUS EDAX - - 29 
 
 VII. POLITE CONVERSATION 32 
 
 VIII. RELIGION A LA MODE - - - 34 
 
 IX. THE CULT OF BEAUTY 36 
 
 X. THE WAY WE LIVE NOW 38 
 
 XI. THE CLIMBER'S PATH TO SOCIAL FAME - - 41 
 
 XII. POLITICS AND THE UPPER CRUST - - "43 
 
 XIII. "AVE, SOCIETAS ! MAGNA ES, ET PR^EVALEBIS !" 47 
 
 COLUMBIA VICTRIX- ------ 5I 
 
 A LOOK AHEAD ------ -63 
 
 917&.
 
 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON
 
 I 
 A SONG OF LAMENTATION 
 
 "... the most acute attack of Social Sickness that the 
 world has probably ever seen ... so charged is the air with 
 the bacilli, so hard is it to escape infection." — Mr. E. F. 
 Benson in the Fortnightly Review. 
 
 The nation's moral health, I learn, 
 Its Galens note with grave concern : 
 In weighty journals and Reviews, 
 
 In tomes of formidable thickness, 
 We read the most alarming news 
 
 Of epidemic Social Sickness. 
 O'er Smart Society's loss of tone 
 Rises a universal moan ; 
 Each week some horrid new complaint 
 Infects the Classes with its taint, 
 And many a wandering bacillus 
 Empoisons, when it doesn't kill, us. 
 9
 
 10 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Of Ball- Room Leprosy* some cases 
 Have been detected in high places : 
 The frailties of our Idle Rich 
 Have reached a truly shocking pitch ; 
 And Britain's gilded Upper Crust, 
 
 With constitutions undermined 
 
 By wild excess of every kind 
 And Wanderjiihrcn on the bust — 
 Fall (is it not so, Dr. Torrey ?) 
 To honeyed lures an easy quarry. 
 To virtuous souls, like you and me. 
 'Tis grievous, Reader mine, to see 
 How lightly lords and ladies trip 
 
 Adown the Primrose Path — and, oh ! 
 The world has lately had the tip 
 
 From persons plainly in the know, 
 There is a Set that wallows in 
 A slough of Scandal and of Sin ! 
 
 ii 
 
 Lord of all realms in earth and sky, 
 
 The one divinity we own, 
 The Golden Calf is set on high. 
 
 His the sole sceptre and the throne, 
 
 * Vide l'ress correspondence on the lepers of our London 
 ball-rooms.
 
 A SONG OF LAMENTATION n 
 
 No other shrine we burn incense on 
 (See works by Ouida and by Benson, 
 If you are seeking mental food 
 To stimulate the cynic mood.) 
 In Babylondon, I am told, 
 Love's darts are deftly tipped with gold ; 
 Else would they fail, the jesters state, 
 Our world-seared hearts to penetrate ! 
 And rank is sold, and Beauty bought — 
 Such commerce reigns in Hymen's court — 
 We balance wedlock's loss and gain, 
 
 As though it were a trade, a calling : 
 Yet, when we choose to wear its chain, 
 
 We find it very far from galling ! 
 Venus, our newsy Press declares, 
 
 Is actually contemplating 
 A winding-up of her affairs, 
 
 And generally liquidating : 
 She means to sell her car, her doves, 
 Her interest in human loves — 
 Mortals so shamefully neglect her — 
 To some concern with one-pound shares, 
 And Mammon managing director.
 
 12 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Yet may the Goddess be inclined 
 To change (as ladies will) her mind. 
 Maugre his Mother's resolution, 
 
 Young Cupid still seems prone to range — 
 The rascal thinks his constitution 
 
 Occasionally needs a change ! 
 Ye sprightly Benedicks and wives 
 
 Who, ere the honeymoon be spent, 
 
 Separate by mutual consent — 
 I dare not contemplate your lives ! 
 Do ye not tremble at the sound 
 
 Of " Rita's " voice and stern Corelli's 
 As, fired with righteous wrath, they pound 
 
 Your reputations into jellies, 
 And make each frisky worldling feel 
 The rod of their reforming zeal ? 
 Oh ! License waxes overbold, 
 While Virtue shivers in the cold ! 
 The rampant luxury of the nation 
 
 Its leading citizens bewail ; 
 Our physical degeneration 
 
 Is vouched for by the Daily Mail : 
 Our old are frivolous, our young 
 
 (" Onlookers " in their Note-Books say) 
 Exhausted, and with nerves unstrung — 
 
 We must be in a parlous way
 
 A SONG OF LAMENTATION 13 
 
 When Britain's aurea juventus 
 
 Are slim and scented popinjays 
 With — omen direful and portentous — 
 
 A taste for powder, paint, and stays ! 
 
 in 
 
 And we who bear the hall-mark " Smart " 
 
 (Symbol of feminine backsliding !) 
 Butts for the Wit's envenomed dart, 
 
 The Writing Woman's shrill deriding — 
 Mere butterflies and fritterlings, 
 
 We serve, they say, no useful function, 
 And do all sorts of naughty things 
 
 Without the very least compunction ; 
 While sometimes there's a hint ungentle 
 We are not even ornamental ! 
 'Twould seem — to hear the critics screaming — 
 Our morals are past all redeeming : 
 Careless of honour's obligation, 
 
 To compass our ignoble ends, 
 We prove our powers of fascination 
 
 By filching lovers from our friends ; 
 Our lives are nought but push and worry : 
 Distraught by social hurry-scurry, 
 
 With chloral or the tiny needle 
 ('Tis gospel — " Rita" tells you so;
 
 14 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 And " Rita's" bound, of course, to know !) 
 
 The niggard God of Sleep we wheedle. 
 Our manners and our voices loud — 
 Ofttimes the new Society Shout 
 Has split your tympanum, no doubt — 
 We angle notice from the crowd ; 
 And discontent most undivine 
 Instils a quenchless thirst to shine. 
 'Tis bridge all day, and bridge at night 
 Till sickly beams of morning light 
 Greet the dull sparkle of tired eyes, 
 And Dawn in saffron 'gins to rise 
 On nervous systems overwrought 
 And tempers growing sadly short. 
 We've lately heard that signalling 
 Is not at all the proper thing ; 
 That woman, if resolved on playing, 
 Must be prepared, as man, for paying — 
 High stakes and lack of ready cash, 
 Their issue oft is shameful debt ; 
 And Fowler Satan spreads his net 
 To mesh us, foolish birds and rash. 
 
 O tempova, mores ! 
 Must scandal ever thus abound ? 
 
 How shocking are the stories 
 Rumour sends flying round and round,
 
 A SONG OF LAMENTATION 15 
 
 How yonder social sun has set — 
 
 Another social star is paling, 
 
 All owing to this dreadful failing ! 
 
 Nor do they call a spade a spade 
 
 Who write Society novels : 
 The tools of these romancers' trade 
 
 Are imprecatory shovels ! 
 Oh ! had I but the brain of Ouida 
 
 Or " Rita's " fine imagination, 
 Then from my nimble pen, dear Reader, 
 
 Would flow a tale to lick Creation — 
 A " simple " tale of gilded vice, 
 Reeking of rich Corellian spice ; 
 A tale where all the female swells 
 Are unregenerate Jezebels : 
 
 Its fascinating heroine, 
 With no redeeming point about her, 
 But just a regular out-and-outer — 
 Or possibly one might define her 
 As Pompadour-plus-Messalina — 
 
 A perfect masterpiece of sin. 
 Though no such being on earth exists, 
 
 Her portraiture the scribblers' prop is, 
 And helps the happy novelists 
 
 To sell their half a million copies !
 
 II 
 INTROSPECTIVE 
 
 To be by spiteful tongues abused 
 
 As rotten, rotten to the core ; 
 
 To hear, a hundred times or more, 
 We only live to be amused, 
 
 Grows an unmitigated bore — 
 Still, let us try to form some notion 
 Whence springs, what causes, this commotion. 
 Society, doubtless, stands alone 
 In its peculiar ethic tone — 
 Something, I grant you, quite its own ; 
 Its scorn (like Mr. Cecil Rhodes) 
 Of unctuous rectitude, its codes 
 Of conduct modelled on les modes- 
 How shall its moral judgments err, 
 With Fashion for interpreter ? 
 We are not mindful, in our Set, 
 Of Mrs. Grundy's frown ; nor let 
 
 iG
 
 INTROSPECTIVE 
 
 (Here, too, we match the late Colossus) 
 The Nonconformist Conscience boss us. 
 We're not exactly good or bad — 
 
 Highly complex is our psychology — 
 And, I should also like to add, 
 
 Our characters need no apology ! 
 Our views and principles are plastic : 
 
 You mustn't ask polite Society 
 Ever to wax enthusiastic, 
 
 Or mar its pose of calm dubiety. 
 Your female zealot — Heaven preserve her ! 
 We don't approve of moral fervour ; 
 Good form, no less, and sense of ratio 
 Are foes to sceva indignatio ; 
 A kindly spirit of compassion 
 For sinners long has been the fashion, 
 And Toleration keeps in mind 
 That maxim sage, " Unkist, unkind !" — 
 No well-bred person ever quarrels 
 About his friends' or neighbours' morals. 
 
 17
 
 Ill 
 THE MODERN SYBARIS 
 
 Extravagance, I don't deny, 
 
 Is sinful — so is ostentation : 
 But, if we make the shekels fly, 
 
 We learned it from the kindred nation 
 That brought to light that human pearl 
 Whose brilliance sets our brains awhirl, 
 The Transatlantic " twencent " girl. 
 So do not blame us if we are, 
 Like her,* a bit particular, 
 Or if mere questions of expense 
 We treat with mild indifference — 
 Absurd to think that social queens 
 Must suit their minages to their means ! 
 Spare us, I pray, the usual screed 
 O'er Fashion's luxury and greed ; 
 
 * "The American girl is always striving to have the best 
 of everything "—Mrs. George Cornwallis West. 
 
 i3
 
 THE MODERN SYBARIS 19 
 
 Forbear to give us worldlings beans 
 For all Life's tit-bits that we need — 
 Our pleasures, and (I must confess) 
 Our costly aids to comeliness ; 
 The modest mansion-house in town, 
 
 The " cottage " in some Thames-side haunt, 
 Where packs of guests may scurry down 
 
 For Saturday-to-Monday jaunt. 
 We've heard enough about the craze 
 For Panhards, Napiers, Serpollets — 
 Life, motorless, were dull and vapid ; 
 And 'tis our Twentieth-Century creed 
 To make a deity of speed : 
 We're all — men, women, motors — rapid ! 
 As for the Highland moor, the salmon 
 
 River, the opera-box, the yacht — 
 Why grudge these trifling " perks" of Mammon 
 
 To ease the rigours of our lot ? 
 
 The wise may sternly reprobate, 
 And say we're verging to decay : 
 Still — though I cannot say them nay- 
 
 The simple life is out of date. 
 
 The very children of our day 
 
 Are little worldlings in their way : 
 
 2 — 2
 
 20 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 The tot that lately learned to toddle 
 Has grand ideas within its noddle ; 
 It scorns the fairy-tales, the toys, 
 That used to be our infant joys, 
 But babbles, with the dawn of reason, 
 Of parties, dress, the Park, the Season. 
 Precocious cravings for high living 
 Moralists view with vain misgiving : 
 Vain, too, the Pedagogue's regret 
 
 When lads, in the parental parlour, 
 Their little whistles daily wet 
 
 With Perrier Jouet :: or Ayala — 
 How thus shall Youth's instructors throttle 
 Its early relish for the bottle ? 
 And, when we reach a riper age, 
 One subject always must engage 
 
 Our serious attention — 
 I mean the science of gastronomy, 
 
 Coupled, I scarce need mention, 
 With due regard to strict economy. 
 All Britons true should cultivate 
 
 The noble art of dining : 
 You cannot overestimate 
 
 Its influence refining — 
 
 * See speech by the Headmaster of Haileybury at tlie 
 Church Congress.
 
 THE MODERN SYBARIS 21 
 
 But household cares are most annoying, 
 And home-cooked viands sadly cloying, 
 So plainly everybody ought 
 To know where gourmets most resort 
 To fill the inner man ; and where 
 Persons content with simple fare 
 May find a modest table spread, 
 
 In some select Lucullian shrine, 
 At two-pound-ten, or so, per head 
 
 (This sum does not include the wine). 
 
 The cooks are threatening insurrection ; 
 
 And then, gay nomads, won't we roam ! 
 Oh ! grant us daily our refection 
 
 At any place, kind Heaven, but home ! 
 A Carlton dinner and the play — 
 
 Such trivial partem et Circenses 
 Vouchsafe thy suppliants, we pray — 
 
 With some kind friend to stand expenses ! 
 Of knives and forks we love the clatter ; 
 
 We cannot eat without a band, 
 And flee from the domestic platter 
 
 To hostels in Pall Mall or Strand. 
 There young and old, and fair and foul, 
 And Vice and Virtue, cheek by jowl —
 
 22 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Beauties and Beasts — a motley horde, 
 All gathered round the festive board, 
 Take, in this most expensive inn, 
 Their ease amidst a deafening din. 
 Nobles of ancient pedigrees 
 Hobnob with parvenu M.P.'s ; 
 Mondaines with banter smart and witty 
 Engage young blue-bloods from the City : 
 With nose and lorgnette high in air, 
 
 A duchess of uncertain age 
 Transfixes with her restaurant stare 
 
 Some reigning beauty of the Stage. 
 Mark, too, yon gem-bedizened Jew, 
 With visage of ensanguined hue, 
 And — Fashion's constant votary- — 
 His yet more gorgeous vzs-d-vis : 
 
 In all that parti-coloured throng 
 None so magnificent as she ; 
 
 Upon her massive ombongpong 
 The ruby's and the diamond's rays, 
 A jewelled constellation, blaze — 
 But, tell me truly, do you think 
 They're genuine wares of Messrs. Spink ?
 
 V 
 
 THE GENIUS OF RECLAME 
 
 When first Victoria was Queen 
 
 And good Society ruled the roast, 
 The well-bred world was seldom seen, 
 
 Nor made publicity a boast. 
 We have them still, the " Bores and Bored," 
 But where is now that " polished horde " 
 That always held itself aloof ? 
 
 In these our Early Edward days 
 'Tis no occasion for reproof 
 
 Freely to court the public gaze ; 
 And there's a science of reclame 
 That wins, without the dust, the palm. 
 Your fashionable capers 
 Must all be in the papers — 
 The early canter in the Row, 
 
 The noontide airing in the Park : 
 If shopping down Bond Street you go, 
 
 It were a pity to keep dark 
 23
 
 24 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 So memorable an event ! 
 
 Like toilet-soap or patent pill 
 
 That's cure for every human ill, 
 Daily seek good advertisement. 
 When staying in your native Square 
 Inform the Press that you are there ; 
 
 And, when you leave the madding crowd 
 In search of sea or country air, 
 
 The fact should be proclaimed aloud. 
 Such matters — pray don't think I'm jesting- 
 The suburbs deem most interesting, 
 So heed my admonition solemn 
 And don't despise the Fashion Column. 
 'Tis the magic of the par 
 Creates the social star : 
 Snooks, all agog for social fame, 
 May see that uneuphonious name 
 Adorn the Smart Intelligence 
 At quite absurdly small expense ; 
 And who, except a stingy ninny, 
 Would grudge the needful pound or guinea 
 That lets an anxious Public know 
 The news of Mrs. So-and-So ? 
 
 If ever in some spacious hall 
 
 You chance to give a Costume Ball,
 
 THE GENIUS OF RECLAME 25 
 
 Let a photographer be handy ; 
 
 And don't omit some casual hints 
 That portraits of each belle and dandy 
 
 Would much adorn our public prints ! 
 Yourself adopt some Eastern pose 
 That needs a sacrifice of hose : 
 
 With sandalled and unstockinged feet 
 And jewels on your dainty toes, 
 
 The Press will vote the turn-out " sweet." 
 But, lest occasion should be missed, 
 Seek out the Lady Journalist — 
 " Babs " of the Cacklev, " Maudie," " Kits," 
 Or " Trix " of Snappy Social Bits, 
 Or her by whom is overheard 
 All the town-talk, the " Twittering Bird." 
 A fee — five shillings, more or less — 
 Secures a notice of your dress ; 
 But, if the writer has a title, 
 
 'Twere well to make it seven-and-six 
 By way of adequate requital, 
 
 When haply the obliging " Trix " 
 Will grant you, for the added pelf, 
 A paragraph all to yourself !
 
 V 
 
 THE DEBUTANTE 
 
 MlSS HlLDEGARDE JANE VaN DER BEER 
 
 Is coming out, they say, this year, 
 A debutante most captivating : 
 I think I'm justified in stating 
 That she the fairest by repute is 
 Of all the Season's budding beauties. 
 And now, that I may vindicate 
 
 My ardent predilections, 
 Permit me to enumerate 
 
 Her manifold perfections 
 (I scheduled them expressly for 
 The Saucy Snippets' editor). 
 First let me mention of her charms 
 Her ivory shoulders and her arms, 
 Her waist most exquisitely slender, 
 Her voice so mellow, soft, and tender ; 
 Her forehead low and broad, her eye 
 Bluer than any Southern sky. 
 26
 
 THE DEBUTANTE 27 
 
 Her cheeks are like a pair of posies ; 
 Their hue is that of 
 
 MILK AND ROSES J* 
 
 Her svelte, well-rounded figure serves 
 To prove the magnetism of curves, 
 While auburn tresses crown in state 
 A proud, petite, and shapely tete. 
 She has a very queenly port ; 
 
 Yet it may cause you some surprise 
 To learn she's neither tall nor short — 
 
 In fact, she's just three-quarter size. 
 She dotes on all outdoor pursuits ; 
 Plays hockey, fishes, hunts, and shoots, 
 While very seldom have I seen 
 Her equal on the putting-green. 
 'Cross country, Nimrods state, 
 She goes extremely straight : 
 Her deadly little twenty-bore 
 Slays furred and feathered things, galore ; 
 She uses it — this young Diana — 
 In such an efficacious manner 
 That, when there echoes through the glade 
 
 The cry " Hare forward ! Woodcock over !" 
 
 * This charming nuance may be obtained at Madame 
 Layiton Thycke's "Beauty's Penetralia," 495, New Bond 
 Street — price only five guineas the pot.
 
 28 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Her fellow-sportsmen crouch, dismayed ; 
 
 Affrighted beaters run to cover. 
 Nor does she household duties shirk — 
 She's simply great at needlework ! 
 Of sundry pets she idolizes 
 Her pug has taken several prizes, 
 While all the ladies' papers chat 
 About her favourite pussy- cat. 
 A perfect type of English maid, 
 She's not too bold, she's not too staid : 
 Her suitors vie with one another — 
 
 They simply bow before her ; 
 She is the idol of her mother, 
 
 Her maiden aunts adore her ! 
 1 pray you, Reader, don't be rough 
 
 On these poor foolish panegyrics : 
 Really, I haven't said enough 
 
 On the fair subject of my lyrics ! 
 Our forbears would have stood amazed 
 To hear their daughters thus appraised — 
 They would have boxed my ears, I know, 
 
 For publishing such puffs inane, 
 But now the parents like it so. 
 
 No doubt, you think us very vain, 
 But please remember, nowadays 
 Publicity's the thing that pays.
 
 VI 
 TEMPUS EDAX 
 
 Of plasmon, grape-nuts, and hot water 
 
 I am by no means a supporter ; 
 
 A vegetarian regimen 
 
 Nor tempts me, nor inspires my pen. 
 
 Still, five substantial daily meals 
 
 Are more than health requires, one feels ; 
 
 And, when the Season's at its height 
 
 And knives and forks ply day and night, 
 
 A man, beyond all question, 
 Requires a cormorant's appetite, 
 
 An ostrich's digestion. 
 O ye who dread the fell attack 
 
 Of " indy " or of gout, beware 
 The " awful heavy lunch," the " snack," 
 
 The orgie of the millionaire ! 
 
 They tell us that we live too fast, 
 Our daily pace too hot to last ; 
 
 29
 
 30 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 That Little Mary is our mentor, 
 Our motto, Dens Noster Venter ; 
 But how, if Fashion be not fed, 
 Or have inadequate nutrition, 
 Can it maintain its high condition ? 
 Let cynics brand as rank outsiders 
 Esurient Vanity Fair's " providers," 
 But why, great Heaven ! should it care, 
 When banqueting on sumptuous fare, 
 How its Amphitryons are bred ? 
 
 Hosts should be gauged by money's worth- 
 A fig for the accident of birth ! 
 Let them but keep the table spread, 
 And let the cellar match the chef, 
 The voice of Cavil finds us deaf. 
 
 Hard is the Season's toil and stress, 
 Most hard the tasks of idleness ; 
 The eager overworked mondaine 
 
 Who slaves at Fashion late and early, 
 Dragging an "ever-lengthening chain" 
 
 Amid the social hurly-burly — 
 In all the world, it seems to me, 
 None live the strenuous life as she. 
 Natheless our vigour we retain,
 
 TEMPUS ED AX 31 
 
 And Youth's an ailment that is chronic : 
 With Smart Society for our tonic, 
 And Art's resources, we contrive 
 
 To vanquish anno domini; 
 
 Time's ravages we all defy 
 And no one's more than thirty-five. 
 " Kittens " we are, I grant you, and 
 
 " Kittens," please Heaven ! we'll be for ever, 
 (Do, Mr. Benson,* understand) 
 
 But "grizzly kittens" never — never! 
 
 * ". . . rouge and hair-dye and alien tresses lend their aid 
 to make a grizzly kitten of her." — Mr. Benson on "Social 
 Sickness" in the Fortnightly.
 
 VII 
 POLITE CONVERSATION 
 
 If " bridge is killing conversation " 
 
 (Could any statement be absurder ?) 
 Perhaps some people's inclination 
 
 Might be to justify the murder ! 
 But there is not the slightest risk 
 That table-talk will grow less brisk : 
 The raconteur, the humorist, 
 Will still continue to exist 
 And, on occasion, to emit 
 The coruscations of his wit. 
 We denizens of Vanity Fair 
 
 Scorn the dull world's insipid prate, 
 (As novel-readers are aware) 
 
 We do not talk — we scintillate. 
 You know how natural to us 
 
 Are epigram and paradox, 
 Inversion of the obvious 
 
 Spiced with the quip that mildly shocks. 
 32
 
 POLITE CONVERSATION 33 
 
 On language unadorned with argot 
 We lay a very strict embargo — 
 To use plain terms of common-sense 
 Argues an understandin' dense — 
 And sternly bar, as unconvivial, 
 Aught but the infinitely trivial. 
 One topic only cannot weary us, 
 Though it is very, very serious : 
 Talk but of matters dietetic, 
 Of rival cures, of Dr. Haig's 
 Treatment for Uric Acid plagues — 
 We listen, rapt and sympathetic. 
 'Mid all this gossip on diseases, 
 Symptoms intestinal, hepatic, 
 There pass the usual jokes and wheezes — 
 
 The salt is not exactly Attic, 
 The crambe sadly repetita 
 
 Of tales that border on the risky, 
 But our habitual gloom grows lighter 
 
 When, bored, we struggle to be frisky, 
 And make a brave attempt to swell 
 The chorus, " Vive la bagatelle !"
 
 VIII 
 
 RELIGION A LA MODE 
 
 The vogue of Erudition is dead : 
 The fashion of the Dilettante 
 With learning wide (but rather scanty) 
 Was lately knocked upon the head. 
 No longer now our Soulful Sets 
 Of smartly blue Society pets, 
 Or lettered Coteries, have occasion 
 To guard their Edens from invasion. 
 We've given fads of culture 
 Respectable sepulture ; 
 The latest philosophic notion 
 
 Or creed of Mrs. Humphry Ward 
 Fails to enkindle our emotion, 
 
 But leaves us most completely bored. 
 On theories of a different sort 
 
 We place our fond reliance ; 
 We dabble with the Higher Thought, 
 
 Or toy with Christian Science. 
 34
 
 RELIGION A LA MODE 35 
 
 In these light spiritual bubbles 
 Mayfair forgets its earthly troubles, 
 Lulled by soft-crowing chanticleers 
 
 (From Plato most uncandid stealers) 
 Who preach " new " doctrines of Ideas 
 
 Or pose as " scientific" healers. 
 We love to listen to the crank, 
 The wonder-working mountebank ; 
 Astrology and necromancy, 
 
 Psychic researches and inquiries, 
 Enthral our mystery-loving fancy 
 
 With cults of Isis and Osiris. 
 These cobwebs of the brain amuse 
 The connoisseurs of novel views : 
 Let but the creed be up-to-date, 
 'Twill charm the modern giddy-pate, 
 And scepticism no longer shocks 
 A heedless age that doubts and mock? — 
 We change our creeds as lightly as our frocks.* 
 
 * I sometimes give, just as a treat, 
 My stanza's final line five feet ! 
 
 3—2
 
 IX 
 THE CULT OF BEAUTY 
 
 No cult or gospel have I known, 
 
 Since Fashion's sea I launched my skiff on, 
 Against all rivals hold its own, 
 
 Like " Beauty and the Higher Chiffon." 
 And what sartorial charm on earth, 
 What smart toilette or frock by Worth, 
 Can rival a well-made complexion 
 That dazzles and defies detection ? 
 If Nature made your face a failure, 
 
 Or decked it with superfluous hair, 
 Then visit " Beauty's Penetralia"* 
 
 And interview the Sybil there. 
 Of all your little troubles tell her — 
 The freckles, crows'-feet, the " saltcellar " ; 
 Most efficacious are her simples 
 To cure all blemishes and pimples : 
 
 * 495, New Bond Street (entirely gratuitous advertise- 
 ment). 
 
 ;6
 
 THE CULT OF BEAUTY 37 
 
 She charms away the double chin, 
 
 Eradicates your every wrinkle ; 
 Makes thin folk plump, and fat folk thin — 
 
 Rejuvenates you in a twinkle. 
 Her " Pukka " straps for chin and face 
 Keep vagrant muscles in their place, 
 While not to purchase her Frown Plasters 
 Is simply courting of disasters — 
 And let me here express a hope 
 That you will give her talents scope 
 By shunning, like the poison, soap ! 
 
 Your husband, if a roarer, 
 
 Should try her Anti-Snorer — 
 'Twill mend (or end) him, I suspect ! 
 
 Her wigs — your pardon, " transformations" — 
 Deceive, they tell me, the elect. 
 
 So cunning are her machinations, 
 Her arts so subtly therapeutical, 
 
 That folks who erstwhile mocked her 
 
 Now bless that Beauty Doctor 
 Who worked such magic on their cuticle. 
 Though long the appointed tasks and hard, 
 
 Submit — 'tis idle to rebel : 
 Exceeding great is your reward 
 And, martyrs to the Cult know well, 
 II fiint souffrir pour etve belle.
 
 X 
 THE WAY WE LIVE NOW 
 
 Society cherishes some sad 
 
 Memories of past financial shocks ; 
 The times have been extremely bad 
 
 For those who speculate in stocks : 
 Bad luck and adverse differences 
 Compel curtailment of expenses, 
 While, with each failure of supplies, 
 New wants continually arise. 
 The tribe that lives (" Onlooker" said it) 
 On "charity, and cards, and credit " — 
 By folk not given to pretty speeches 
 Yclept, unkindly, human leeches — 
 In times like these, I fear, must find 
 It hard to raise the needed wind. 
 Their industries are various — 
 The gains somewhat precarious : 
 From Ascot to the Stock Exchange, 
 From bridge to baccarat, they range, 
 
 38
 
 THE WAY WE LIVE NOW 39 
 
 Or lure the transitory Noodle 
 
 To part from his redundant boodle : 
 
 Their mode of life gregarious, 
 From town to country house they flit 
 
 And exercise their powers of suction, 
 While now and then they make a bit 
 
 By furnishing an introduction. 
 There's nothing that they more abom- 
 inate than that expression, " Comm.," 
 But yet I greatly doubt their spurning it 
 If half a chance occurs of earning it ! 
 When the Promoter goes his rounds 
 Through social happy hunting-grounds, 
 Or tempting rumours fill Mayfair 
 
 That Hebrew Jews or other aliens 
 Are operating, bull or bear, 
 
 In Yankees, Coppers, or Westralians — 
 Fate lures them on : they take a hand ; 
 
 Or, perhaps, woo Fortune in the " Circus," 
 And swell that impecunious band 
 
 Whose goal is Queer Street or the work'us ! 
 
 Much I commiserate, too, your plight, 
 O smart financial Neophyte ! — 
 No Unemployed deserve our pity 
 Like workless Somethings-in-the-City.
 
 40 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 It is your elevating mission 
 To rouse in people of high station 
 The appetite for speculation, 
 To herald the impending Boom 
 In many a West-End drawing-room, 
 And point the shortest cuts to wealth — 
 
 And, I've a sort of vague suspicion, 
 You do not do it for your health, 
 
 But charge, I think, a slight commission ! 
 'Tis thus our ladies of to-day 
 Get so surprisingly au fait 
 With all that passes, City way ; 
 'Tis thus one hears from coral lips 
 Most unexpected market tips, 
 When sweet-and-thirty tells her " pal," 
 With knowing air prophetical, 
 " The Syndicate that owns the shares 
 
 In Eldorado Banket 
 Is going to make things hot for bears ; " 
 
 And so she means to plank it 
 Down, if her broker will but trust her, 
 And go for once a regular buster !
 
 X 
 
 THE CLIMBER'S PATH TO SOCIAL 
 FAME 
 
 If, when you have amassed your pile, 
 
 You feel the prevalent ambition, 
 And seek your leisure to beguile 
 
 With souls of loftier position ; 
 If, like a Peri, at the gate 
 Of our smart Paradise you wait, 
 In patience striving to appease 
 Some janitor who holds the keys — 
 Pray, let me tell how best you can 
 
 Become what England's Knight of Tea, 
 
 In happiest phraseology, 
 Has styled the " perfect gentleman." 
 
 In politics you must not vary 
 From our prevailing Tory norm ; 
 
 Of change, you know, we're very chary — 1 
 
 Nought but the Tariff needs reform : 
 
 41
 
 42 THE BURDEN OF BABY LONDON 
 
 We plump, whatever doubts perplex us, 
 Solid for the Commercial Nexus. 
 Our tastes are somewhat military, 
 With quite a Chauvinistic smack ; 
 
 We love to beat the warlike drum, 
 To wave the dear old Union Jack 
 
 And wish its foes at kingdom come : 
 With guns and submarines for toys 
 In martial lore we train our boys ; 
 And, when the nuptial knot is tied, 
 Glad hymns of battle soothe the bride. 
 So brace each muscle, thew, and sinew, 
 And show whatever manhood's in you ; 
 Uphold your country's ancient laws ; 
 Espouse the Patriotic Cause ; 
 And, fervid as a Park Lane helot, 
 At Empire-building be a zealot, 
 Your patron saint the good St. Jingo, 
 Your favourite brew Imperial stingo. 
 Learn to endure without fatigue 
 Long meetings of the Primrose League : 
 By liberal donations 
 To Party organizations 
 Win for your Knightly self and Dame 
 A Habitation and a name, 
 And enter on your earthly rest 
 Hobnob with Britain's noblest and her best.
 
 XII 
 POLITICS AND THE UPPER CRUST 
 
 These matters prompt my Muse to speak 
 
 A word on la haute politique, 
 
 And what more apt or stirring theme 
 
 Than our Society regime ? 
 
 O Demos, yours was once the crown 
 
 To wear. Why have you laid it down ? 
 
 Time was, you wrung from Church and State 
 
 Obeisance as the Lord's Anointed, 
 But now you tamely abdicate — 
 
 Your friends are sadly disappointed ! 
 The old minority regains 
 From your limp, nerveless hands, the reins ; 
 And, forged anew the ancient fetters, 
 You bow submission to your betters : 
 
 And so, to gratify your bent — 
 The inborn courtier-like propensity 
 That yearly sprouts with fresh intensity — 
 
 43
 
 44 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Kind Heaven, for your liege lords, has sent 
 A most exclusive Government ! 
 
 'Tis rude to talk, like " Tommy " Bowles, 
 Of " Cecils, Sycophants, and Souls !" 
 Such whirling words, so hot and strong, 
 I reprobate as wholly wrong. 
 
 Nor need the Classes take affright, 
 Though some irate Iconoclast 
 May blow his penny trumpet-blast 
 Against the citadel of Caste — 
 Nay, let them bid the brawler go 
 (As is most meet) to Jericho ! 
 
 I heard a fierce reforming Wight 
 Cry, " Woe !" on our degenerate race : 
 " Blue ruin," he said, "and deep disgrace, 
 Ye Britons, stare you in the face ! 
 Society wears its yoke Semitic, 
 
 And ye accept their double sway — 
 Lord ! how the vapours grow mephitic, 
 
 The atmosphere is faisandee ! 
 Fie ! on you, giddy folk of Fashion, 
 
 Who kindle with unseemly fire 
 And madly throw the reins of Passion ' 
 
 On to the shoulders of Desire — 
 
 * " Smart Society throws the reins of passion on to the 
 neck of desire." — For Efficiency : Arnold White.
 
 POLITICS AND THE UPPER CRUST 45 
 
 The nation in a mess must get 
 That's vassal to a Bad Smart Set ! 
 So, down with Mayfair and Belgravia ! 
 And hail the Middle Class your saviour ; 
 Shake off, before you're wholly undone, 
 The yoke of wicked Babylondon, 
 And you will see salvation come 
 From Sheffield, Manchester, or Brum. 
 Let an indignant people's vote 
 Slay government by petticoat — 
 Blue-blooded stark incompetence, 
 The fruit of Social Influence : 
 No more let woman's tears or smiles 
 
 Bamboozle military nobs ; 
 No more a social Siren's wiles 
 
 Originate most shocking jobs ! 
 The Government has been detected — 
 
 The fraud can be no longer hid : 
 Its doom was sealed when its ' projected 
 
 Efficiency' proved simply — Kidd !" 
 
 Thus, O ye Statesmen, folk deplore 
 Your fatal lack of perspicacity : 
 
 Delve deeper, and unearth our store 
 Of hidden governing capacity ;
 
 46 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Forbear, most puissant Party Chief, 
 Mindful of unemployed relations, 
 
 To lavish your outdoor relief 
 In Ministerial situations — 
 
 Cease, O thou ineffectual Mandarin, 
 
 The glades of Office to meander in !
 
 XIII 
 
 " AVE SOCIETAS ! MAGNA ES, ET 
 PR^VALEBIS " 
 
 Philosophers say nations get 
 Such rulers as they merit : yet 
 Some foolish folk with anger bridle 
 Because Society, England's Idol, 
 Pursuing laudable ambitions, 
 
 Accepts the gifts that Fortune brings — 
 The snuggest berths, the best positions — 
 
 And plays the Sultan, pulls the strings, 
 And generally loves to sit on 
 Its deferential brother Briton ! 
 I hold it but a sorry joke 
 
 To call John Bull a democrat : 
 Fun at your fat sides, John, they poke, 
 
 We know you're anything but that ! 
 The arch and keystone of your polity 
 
 47
 
 48 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Is Man's essential ^equality, 
 
 And who would change for Arithmocracy 
 
 Our Quality's benign autocracy ? 
 
 Hey ! then, for Cabinets of blue blood, 
 
 Unsoiled by any taint of new blood ; 
 
 Let none but the patriciate 
 
 Be pilots of your Ship of State — 
 
 A British Ministerial commoner 
 
 Should rank among our rare phenomena ! 
 
 Let Liberals wax or Tories wane, 
 
 Your old allegiance will not falter ; 
 Let fiscal problems tax your brain — 
 Whether 'tis through the foreign dump 
 That British manufacturers slump 
 And harassed merchants get the hump ? 
 Or would, perchance, the Tariff whittle 
 Our medium-sized loaf to a little ? — 
 
 Your sentiments will never alter. 
 What though the City world, grown sager, 
 
 May grudge the guinea-pig his guerdon, 
 And deem the nobly born front-pager 
 
 A quite unnecessary burden, 
 No fear of true-blue John's defection — 
 Politics or Company Direction, 
 He always much prefers to trust 
 His interests to the Upper Crust !
 
 " AVE SOCIETAS !" 49 
 
 11 
 
 The times, I know, are sadly changed : 
 
 With elongated faces 
 O'er the old order disarranged 
 
 We sing, " Eheu, fugaces !" 
 The status of our Quality, 
 No longer what it used to be, 
 Is menaced by a mob of new men — 
 
 So runs the universal chatter, 
 Displaying, doubtless, much acumen — 
 
 Yet, think you, does it greatly matter ? 
 The old nobility we cherish 
 
 Is on a sure foundation builded ; 
 But, should (which Heaven forfend !) it perish, 
 
 We'll frame a new one — richly gilded ! 
 Or millionaires or noblemen, 
 Britons must have their Upper Ten — 
 Fate and the planets will determine 
 Whose lot it is to wear the ermine. 
 O Middle and O Lower Class, 
 
 Gentility's mad dog* has bit you all, 
 
 * "That mad puppy they calls gentility," says George 
 Borrow's gipsy in The Romany Rye, bit the chies (girls) to 
 the eventual undoing of gipsyism.
 
 5 o THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 And roused a raging thirst, alas ! 
 
 That's bound, I fear, to grow habitual. 
 Raise, then, in unison upraise 
 To Fashion's god your hymn of praise : 
 
 Still chant your imitative paean 
 O'er those who live " melodious days " 
 
 In our terrestrial Empyraean !
 
 COLUMBIA VICTRIX 
 
 4—2
 
 COLUMBIA VICTRIX 
 
 How choice the favours thou dost pour, 
 Columbia, on old England's shore ! 
 
 Of imports a most mixed assortment 
 Across the herring-pond we draw — 
 All manner of materials raw, 
 And corn and cattle, pork and beans, 
 And cunningly devised machines ; 
 The Company that shortly busts, 
 And big monopolies and Trusts — 
 All these thou sendest us, together 
 With samples of most curious weather, 
 And I confess it puzzles me 
 Why they're admitted duty free — 
 Duchesses, too, and Gibson goddesses, 
 
 With irreproachable deportment 
 And smart Parisian skirts and bodices ; 
 And they are poaching, I'm afraid, 
 On your preserves, O peerless British Maid ! 
 
 53
 
 54 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 II 
 
 Commingling in our fashion-fray, 
 
 Mark the two antithetic types — 
 Coy Phyllis of an outworn day, 
 
 Smart Hebe from the Stars and Stripes 
 Who rules by feminine right divine. 
 Triumphant all along the line, 
 She comes ! that captivating houri, 
 From far Wisconsin or Missouri 
 To Europe's shores, to subjugate us 
 And elevate her social status. 
 Child of a strenuous age of hustle 
 When life is one continuous tussle, 
 Observe this haughty young Sultana 
 So dexterously limned by Dana 
 Gibson — alert, and 'cute, and quizzical, 
 Replete with mental charms and physical, 
 
 She knows a thing or two, I guess ! 
 Not hers to dream in realms ethereal ; 
 Her kingdom is of things material, 
 (And what, regarded rightly, is 
 This modern life of ours but BIZ ?) 
 Fair incarnation of Success, 
 Of Luxury the spruce Ambassadress !
 
 COLUMBIA VICTRIX 55 
 
 in 
 
 With countrymen of Pierpont Morgan 
 
 The heart, discreetly shepherded— 
 If not quite a superfluous organ- 
 Is ne'er allowed to rule the head ; 
 And when, in Yankee hyperbole, 
 Digestion reigns in place of soul, 
 Poor Europe pits her skill in vain 
 Against that unencumbered brain ! 
 Columbia's empire in finance 
 
 Who dare deny or contravene ? 
 And now in chic she leads the dance, 
 
 (Your pardon, the cake-walk, I mean : 
 We're much too skittish and too fast 
 
 For ancient methods of Terpsichore ; 
 The stately measures of the past 
 
 Must yield to Ethiop high-kickery) 
 And each egregious drawing-room antic, 
 Or frolic ultra-Corybantic, 
 That's ushered on the social scene 
 To tickle tastes grown epicene- 
 Its home, you bet your boots, is Transatlantic.
 
 56 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 The Southern Press and pulpits thunder ; 
 The Capital of Pork 
 
 " Voices " the West's derisive wonder ; 
 
 Ebullient literary lions 
 
 Chastise with straightest talk 
 The pranks of gay New York ; 
 
 And, of thy fierce ink-slinging scions, 
 
 Hast thou more mettlesome or hotter son, 
 
 Columbia, than stout Henry Watterson,* 
 
 The frolicsome Four Hundred's foeman ? 
 
 Symptoms he spies of worse than Roman 
 
 Or Babylonian decadence — 
 
 Wealth, vulgar, flaunting, and despotic, 
 
 The starred-and-striped Omnipotence 
 
 Whose touch finds every door unbarred ; 
 
 The morals of the poultry-yard, 
 
 When wedlock's brief tempestuous course 
 
 Ends in Dakota-made divorce ; 
 
 Luxury run mad or Tommyrotic — 
 
 Hotels, with valets, maids, and vets, 
 
 For Smart Society's canine pets ; 
 
 High jinks of Heliogabalus, 
 
 * The famous Kentucky editor and scourge of the Four 
 Hundred, who shoots folly as it flies in the " brutal 
 parvenuism" — the " diamond -dog- collar " and monkey 
 parties, the farmyard banquets, the dinners in sewers or on 
 horseback —of Newport and New York
 
 COLUMBIA VICTRIX 57 
 
 When roysterers paint the town vermilion 
 With orgies costing half a million ; 
 Gargantuan feasts to stagger us — 
 I like your dining, Yankee boss, 
 On fillets of rhinosceros ; 
 But, when the trumpet's martial strains* 
 Salute the pachyderm's remains, 
 I own it makes me feel a trifle cross ! 
 
 The soiree diamond-dog-collar 
 Proclaims the empire of the dollar ; 
 And, O ingenuous money-spinner, 
 
 What glory when thy better half 
 Achieves the freakiest freak dinner 
 
 That ever earned a paragraph, 
 And New York's best and loveliest 
 
 Greet, in some tasty Newport villa, 
 (Methinks, a not unfitting guest) 
 
 A hairy ape or young gorilla ! 
 The feast, no less, must surely please 
 Where all the guests are divorcees — 
 To think that license can so far go 
 Within thy walls, austere Chicago ! 
 
 * It was well, no doubt, for the Camping Club to dine off 
 Prince Henry of Prussia's rhinoceros from the Berlin Zoo ; 
 but why the " escort of trumpeters " ?
 
 58 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 That charming banquet a cheval 
 
 Is getting too conventional ; 
 
 'Tis out of date : seek something newer, 
 
 And hold your revels in a sewer ; 
 
 Or else let cattle, pigs, and horses 
 
 Grace "little dinners" in a farm — 
 To linnets' tongues and such-like courses 
 
 They lend a trooly-rooral charm. 
 Quelled is the barnyard's every sound : 
 
 Hushed the jay's chatter and the daw's, 
 
 The peacock's voice is mute — because 
 He finds his scream completely drowned ! 
 Farewell, thou gay metropolis ! 
 Be mine henceforth Arcadian bliss, 
 Pure pastoral pleasure, such as this ! 
 So may the Spirit of Rusticity 
 Relume the lamp of our old-world simplicity. 
 
 IV 
 
 Lo, there ! from her bathing-machine 
 (Was ever an expression worse 
 Adapted for iambic verse ?) 
 
 Steps forth the stately Newport queen,
 
 COLUMBIA VICTRIX 59 
 
 In all the family diamonds decked ! 
 
 No vassal she of drab democracy — 
 Where all are peers, but none elect — 
 
 But herald of the new gynocracy 
 Whose stars, from out the Occident, 
 Illume our social firmament. 
 Her girls, the fairest of the fair, 
 Fine fleitv of modish Outre Mer, 
 Disport like mermaids in the deep, 
 Or climb like antelopes the steep, 
 While billion-dollared gentlemen 
 Pursue them with adoring ken, 
 And wanton breezes kiss their loosed back-hair. 
 
 Though very seldom by his side, 
 
 She is her goodman's joy and pride : 
 
 When in Society she blazes, 
 
 Eclipsing all her rivals' crazes, 
 
 (Of the Four Hundred she's the one 
 
 That most distinctly takes the bun 
 
 In showing how things should be done !) 
 
 The triumphs are not hers alone, 
 
 But half the glory is his own. 
 
 Of his ambition they're the crown ; 
 
 For them he daily slaves 'way down 
 
 The sweltering purlieus of the town —
 
 60 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 His aim, his goal, his life's desire 
 To pile the heap of dollars higher. 
 By him they're made, by her they're spent, 
 And either side is quite content : 
 O blessed conjugal arrangement. 
 Thy fruit is union, not estrangement ! 
 So spare us, Stranger, your derision, 
 For theirs is mutual toil's most just division. 
 
 When young John Bull arrives to woo 
 
 Some gilded niece of Uncle Sam, 
 Why such a mighty how-di-do, 
 
 Such wealth of journalistic flam ? 
 Why must the Eagle flap his pinions 
 
 Whene'er a money-bag is wed, 
 And raise throughout his wide dominions 
 
 A clamour fit to wake the dead ? 
 A dozen times they tell the story — 
 The gilt, the glitter, and the glory 
 Of sparkling gems and priceless plate : 
 Of everything we learn the cost — 
 No single item must be lost ; 
 The cake a quarter-ton in weight
 
 COLUMBIA VICTRIX 61 
 
 With wondrous gewgaws interspersed, 
 And wheeled on lines of silver tram : 
 The wedding twice or thrice rehearsed ; 
 
 The perfumes poured in fountains, 
 
 Exotics piled in mountains — 
 Pomp overstepping taste and sense, 
 Most barbarous magnificence. 
 How strange they never seem to know 
 The meaning of the " toujours trop "! 
 It ought to make them " tired "; — but no : 
 As hay-fed steeds run riot on corn, 
 So on Plutocracy new-born 
 Such Nabob's pageants never pall : 
 The Calf of Gold exalts its horn, 
 (My mingled metaphor transcends 
 All previously recorded blends !) 
 And stout old Mammon, lord of all, 
 With smile benignant holds high carnival.
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 
 
 The view is held by certain philosophers that England's 
 future will be social rather than industrial. Our supremacy 
 in commerce and war may be lost ; but our land, and its 
 Society, will still be recognised as the most charming in the 
 world. Culture, luxury, and gaiety will abound ; and, with 
 a mighty army of the "servile classes " to minister to their 
 needs, life will be very pleasant all round for the well-to-do. 
 Great Britain will then be the foreigner's health resort, a 
 trysting-place for lettered diletantti, the " playground and the 
 pleasaunce," as Lord Rosebery put it, " of the plutocrats of all 
 nations" — quite a nice place, in short, for cosmopolitan tea- 
 parties on an extended scale! — See "The Social Future of 
 England," by William Clarke, in the Contemporary Review.
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 
 
 I view in prospect, far away, 
 
 The dawning of a glorious day ; 
 
 I see (with Mr. William Clarke 
 
 And other learned men of mark) 
 
 It usher in a sprightly era, 
 
 And bring Utopia rather nearer ; 
 
 A sumptuous age of gold and pleasure, 
 
 Of Fashion's choicest vanities, 
 Of luxury that passes measure 
 
 And elegant inanities, 
 Of fuss and feathers, frills and frippery, 
 Light work and plenteous holiday — 
 Its motto, duke est desipeve, 
 For all the world will be at play ! 
 
 'Twas Britain's glory in the past 
 To brave the battle and the storm ; 
 
 But, in the ages I forecast, 
 
 Her greatness takes another form. 
 
 A strange transfigurement I see 
 
 65 5
 
 66 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 In those Elysian days to be : 
 Enjoying with unruffled pride — 
 As fits an old Imperial race — 
 All that for which our fathers died, 
 
 We find ourselves in easy case 
 And bless old England's lucky star 
 That we are what we are, we are ! 
 \\ ith wealth and creature comforts sated, 
 The nation's vigour has abated : 
 Our flag no longer flouts the breeze, 
 Our fleets no longer sweep the seas ; 
 
 The sword rests in its scabbard, rusted 
 We have but little stomach for 
 The stern arbitrament of War 
 (Forgive this interdicted rhyme ; 
 It shan't occur another time !) 
 
 Bellona hides her face, disgusted 
 With Britons, erst so prone to strife, 
 
 Now peaceful grown and inoffensive. 
 We've mastered quite the Art of Life ; 
 
 Our culture, too, is most extensive : 
 Of sensibility overfull, 
 
 Our manner suave and acquiescent, 
 (I find it a decided pull 
 
 To speak in the historic present) 
 We cultivate the Beautiful 
 
 And find the process not unpleasant !
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 67 
 
 11 
 
 Artists in charm and elegance, 
 
 We view with much complacence 
 Our British-made Renaissance 
 Reviving glories of old France, 
 Or those superb Italian ages, 
 
 When Culture blossomed like the rose, 
 Portrayed in mediaeval pages. 
 
 The times, in fact, resemble those 
 (At least, I'm given to apprehend so) 
 Of the magnificent Lorenzo ; 
 And poets see fulfilled their dream 
 In England's Grove of Academe, 
 Where every Dilettante writes 
 
 And prints the fruit of his reflections ; 
 Each Nobody, ah me ! indites 
 
 His " Visits," " Life," or " Recollections. 
 Our highly-polished coteries take, 
 
 In Albion's blissful by-and-by, 
 Beyond compare, the social cake ; 
 
 And briefly I will tell you why — 
 Then all the world, whate'er his trade is, 
 
 Belongs to some exclusive Set ; 
 Your washerwomen all are ladies, 
 
 Your grocer figures in Debrett. 
 
 5—2
 
 68 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 I see our land become a sort 
 Of universal pleasaunce 
 For foreign swells in search of sport ; 
 'Tis honoured with the presence 
 Of Princes forced to flee their Court : 
 
 The Plutocratic Upper Ten 
 
 And harassed Yankee business men 
 Flock to this charming health-resort. 
 There the successful Colonist 
 
 May find the peace that age deserves ; 
 The overworked Capitalist 
 
 Recuperate his shattered nerves : 
 For Dives and his parasites, 
 
 The learned or artistic man 
 
 Or blase cosmopolitan, 
 It is a wellspring of delights. 
 
 hi 
 
 A land of pageantries and shows, 
 Of dandies, exquisites, and beaux, 
 Of ladies blithe and debonair 
 And most artistically fair — 
 Its life, how gracious and serene it is 
 How fascinating its amenities ! 
 For jocund Mirth then dissipates 
 All hypochondriac miasma,
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 69 
 
 And every countenance simulates 
 The sea's dvr]pi6/j.ov ■yeAaoyzcc. 
 
 The world our playground, life our play- 
 time, 
 
 We eat and drink and have a gay time ; 
 
 Discretion to the winds we fling 
 
 And carry on like anything. 
 
 Our bodies, minds, and faces 
 Consecrate to the Graces, 
 
 Inimitable is the quality — 
 
 Unmarred by any flaw or blot — 
 
 Of our aestheticized frivolity 
 
 And smart Corinthian Tommyrot ! 
 
 Freely the Wine of Life is quaffed : 
 ('Tis positively sinful, 
 Imbibing such a skinful) 
 
 And, with the hot and heady draught, 
 
 A giddy world grows sadly ivre 
 
 On undiluted joie de vivre ! 
 
 IV 
 
 In classical Renaissance times 
 An ill-cut coat was worst of crimes ; 
 To wear a shabby gown or frock, 
 To be a thing of scorn, meant —
 
 70 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 They knew the worth, that ancient stock, 
 
 Of personal adornment ; 
 And, think you, 'twill be less the rage 
 In England's destined Attic age ? 
 I dream sweet dreams of daintiness - 
 A coming carnival of dress — 
 When all our London streets are lined 
 With shops to please Patricia's mind, 
 With wares to deck Patricia's back, 
 And bijoutry and bric-a-brac ; 
 When — chiffon, chiffon, everywhere — 
 
 It gladdens every eye to see 
 The wilderness of underwear 
 
 And fascinating lingerie — 
 Costumiers and milliners, 
 Coiffeurs de dames and jewellers, 
 Tailors, galore, and haberdashers 
 To cater for the tribe of mashers — 
 All run by scions of the peerage. 
 Of sombre garb we'll make a clearage : 
 No weeds will be permitted, no 
 Symbol or badge of woman's woe ; 
 We even shall discard our gents' 
 Time-honoured black habiliments, 
 And everybody will be dight 
 In brave array and garments bright —
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 71 
 
 Coats, breeches, scarves, a brilliant medley 
 Of toggery a la Joseph Sedley. 
 
 But woe betide the luckless wight 
 Who boldly struggles to be free 
 From the sartorial tyranny,* 
 And won't be either smart or chic : 
 
 Our Twentieth-Century Sybaris 
 
 Will brand a rebel such as this 
 A hopeless social heretic. 
 Anathema on him who loathes 
 Our new Philosophy of Clothes 
 When Fashion gives the law, and when 
 With new-born chivalry our men 
 
 Divide their empire with the sex ! 
 For there will come a happy day 
 (Let's hope it will not long delay) 
 When all the clubs are "cock-and-hen," 
 And angel-hosts of " Petticoat Lane,"f 
 Falling upon Pall Mall amain, 
 
 The Carlton and "The Rag" annex, 
 
 * " Hunting men must ride in pink, and their grooms in 
 livery, or the former will be boycotted. . . . Officers and 
 undergraduates unbecomingly attired will be severely 
 'ragged.' . . . Only the latest modes are to be worn by 
 ladies, under pain of social excommunication." — Extract from 
 Sumptuary Laws of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 ]■ Dover Street, W., where ladies' clubs abound.
 
 72 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 Invade the Travellers, and storm 
 
 The Athenaeum and Reform. 
 
 (But, when the sexes thus are blended, 
 
 At vulgar nicknames we must stickle 
 Our ears must never be offended 
 
 By epithets like " Pinch-and-Tickle " 
 Or " Hag " :;: — 'tis odious so to dub 
 A reputable Ladies' Club !) 
 
 v 
 
 To make a science of his pleasure, 
 As fits your earnest Hedonist, 
 
 A man requires a deal of leisure. 
 
 Brain-fag and other dangers lurk 
 
 To prey on those who overwork, 
 And so Posterity must insist 
 
 On making health its chiefest care ; 
 
 For it, of course, is well aware 
 
 That Man's most pressing need is plenty 
 
 Of rest and dole e far niente, 
 
 And very frequent change of air. 
 
 Its Church, its doctors, and the Bar 
 
 Agree in one particular — 
 
 * Nicknames of present-day institutions, cited by The 
 Ladies' Field.
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 73 
 
 That, lest they should o'ertax their powers, 
 
 They ought to labour shorter hours. 
 
 Its Parliamentary talking-shop 
 
 On rambling rhetoric puts a stop : 
 
 The Statesman hurries from debate ; 
 
 He disapproves of talking late — 
 
 No power on earth can make him wait, 
 
 Or from the path of pleasure lure 
 
 The Ministerial Amateur — 
 
 When dinner-parties claim their presence. 
 Long ere the high-day of St. Grouse 
 Tired politicians quit the House; 
 (The Inner Cabinet suffices 
 To settle all the usual crises) 
 The Session's lapsed into quiescence, 
 And closed the future Toby, M.P.'s Essence. 
 
 In that bright age the City toff 
 Three days a week, or four, is off, 
 
 Spurning his dull environment, 
 For sport, Society, or golf. 
 The world has gained a deal more sense, 
 
 And joie de vivve its rightful vent, 
 Believe me, half a century hence ! 
 Early the merchant quits his desk- 
 He's free as everybody would be
 
 74 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 To-day, if things were as they should be, 
 
 And life were gay and picturesque. 
 
 Others, perhaps, our trade have got, 
 
 Our industries are gone to pot — 
 
 The Yankees have absorbed the lot — 
 
 But, in this after-time, we still 
 
 Retain our old financial skill : 
 
 As hucksters in the money-mart 
 
 We play a most important part, 
 
 And gamesters make their fortunes quick 
 
 By plunging gaily in the thick 
 
 Of market rigs, prospectus gammon, 
 
 And all the tricks of modern Mammon, 
 
 For none can beat us in that art ; 
 And Britain rules, if not the Ocean, 
 At least the realm of Company Promotion ! 
 
 VI 
 
 An age of Pleasure and of Gold ! 
 
 Consorted powers — 'tis they alone 
 
 Rule from the gutter to the throne, 
 And boss the nations, as of old. 
 Sir Capel Court and Miss Mayfair 
 
 Have plighted mutual affiance : 
 Good luck attend you, happy pair ! 
 
 Yours is a very strong alliance,
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 75 
 
 And all mankind must bow its head 
 When Fashion and Finance are wed. 
 O beauteous Bride, O gilded Groom ! 
 Make room, ye proletariate, make room ! 
 
 VII 
 
 Although their efforts often fail 
 Who strive to pierce the Future's veil, 
 I cannot but divine with sorrow 
 The rural England of to-morrow 
 When, deserts all the fields and downs, 
 The labourers huddle in the towns ; 
 No sturdy yeoman ploughs the land, 
 
 Or gathers in the new-mown hay ; 
 His sons have sought some foreign strand, 
 
 His farm is falling to decay, 
 And in the Squire's old easy chair 
 Reclines the new-fledged Millionaire. 
 The scanty remnants of the peasants 
 Nor sheep nor cattle rear — but pheasants : 
 Flunkies, in place of rustic Hodges, 
 Tenant the cottages and lodges, 
 The chauffeur with his motor-car, 
 
 And well-armed guardians of the game— 
 Of Midas all dependents are ;
 
 76 THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 And, if the little street-bred folk 
 Contented wear his easy yoke, 
 
 Why — who shall say they are to blame ? 
 In countryside, upon the shore, 
 Rise pleasure-centres by the score, 
 And love of bustle, change, and noise 
 
 The love of hearth and home expels ; 
 We live, in scorn of rural joys, 
 
 A nomad life in big hotels : 
 The Season lasts from Spring to Spring, 
 Each fribble has his twelve-months' fling — 
 For then is Mammon's kingdom come, 
 The Smart Set's Millinerennium, 
 The Avatar of modish Cockneydom. 
 
 VIII 
 
 A sound of rending Alls the air. 
 Revolt is here, Revival there, 
 
 With clamour of religious faction ; 
 The wise Spectator* bids beware 
 
 Impending Puritan reaction. 
 
 * The Spectator, in an article on the last Society cause 
 celebre, suggested a possible re-awakening of the old English 
 Puritan spirit, when the masses, by means of excessive taxa- 
 tion or otherwise, will give the upper classes a very bad 
 quarter of an hour.
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 77 
 
 So listen, lords and ladies gay, 
 To what your mentors have to say ; 
 From many a grave and learned page 
 I cull the following counsel sage : 
 " Abandon luxury and license 
 
 And mend your manners and your ways ; 
 Of honour cultivate a high sense ; 
 
 Live clean, if not laborious, days : 
 Rush not in blindness on your fate — 
 
 Thin is the ice that you are treading — 
 Nor let repentance come too late. 
 
 With luck you may escape beheading, 
 But a vengeful proletariat 
 (If you persist in sloth and sin) 
 
 Half-measures will not tarry at — 
 'Twill bleed and ' tax you to the skin !' " 
 
 Cassandra- voices, thus in warning 
 Uplifted, presage days of mourning ; 
 And I, too, ere my task be done, 
 
 Would rouse the worldling from his 
 sleep 
 
 And make the frivol's flesh to creep— 
 You'll find me, by comparison, 
 A fairly cheerful Jeremiah ; 
 But, when the fat is in the fire,
 
 7* THE BURDEN OF BABYLONDON 
 
 And all the world engulfed in woe, 
 Remember that J told you so ! 
 I see, with vision of the Seer, 
 
 Things strange, and terrible, and new 
 Hear, ye smart Crystal-Gazers, hear 
 
 What portents burst upon my view, 
 What shapes and phantoms of affright 
 Ride in a wild Walpurgis-night ! 
 I see old Chaos come again 
 And Anarchy renew its reign : 
 Demos, vindictive and defiant. 
 
 To misery's yoke no more submits ; 
 Look you ! the lean and hungry giant 
 
 Rises, and gives his masters fits ! 
 To purge our morals, end our scandals, 
 
 The spawn of poverty and crime — 
 Battalions of wild Goths and Vandals — 
 
 Are issuing from their dens of slime. 
 Hark ! 'tis Rebellion's tocsin fell 
 That strikes Society's death-knell ! 
 Hot grows the strife, and ever hotter ; 
 
 Masses and Classes are at grips : 
 Thrones topple, lordly Empires totter ; 
 
 And — last of these my Delphic tips — 
 Old Mammon proves a genuine rotter 
 
 And suffers serious eclipse !
 
 A LOOK AHEAD 79 
 
 Pale is the Plutocrat with fear, 
 And quite astonishingly humble ; 
 
 He feels the end is drawing near, 
 The pillars of his Temple crumble — 
 
 Falls, fateful, on his prescient ear 
 The tumbril's ominous, dull rumble ! 
 
 THE END 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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