The Silver Domino: Side Whispers, Social and Literary

The "vulgarity of the world" and the "outside vulgar" are phrases by which the literary folk designate the vast Public, without whose substantial appreciation, they, the inside elect, would starve. The "outside vulgar," however, with unerring good taste, have purchased Tennyson's work for the past fifty years, and in the rich harvest of thoughts they have thus gathered, they can smile with a tender indulgence at their Kingly Minstrel's shrinking aversion to the "crowd" who loved him. He was the greatest poet of the Victorian era; and, draped in the flag of England, as befits his sturdy and splendid patriotism, he sleeps the sleep of the just and pure-minded who have served their Art, as worthy subjects serve their Queen, loyally and unflinchingly to the end. It was "fitting," I suppose, that he should be laid to rest in dismal "Poet's Corner"—(beside Browning, too! the Real singer beside the Sham!)—but many would rather have seen him placed in a shrine of his own,—a warm grassy grave under the "talking" English oaks whose forest language he so well translated, than thus pent up among the crumbling ashes of inferior and almost forgotten men.

Another change has come "o'er the spirit of my dream" since, in the language of the Daily Chronicle, I flung back the curtain and made my bow to the public "in a breezy, not to say slap-bang, manner." The Pall Mall Gazettehas changed hands and politics. Once, as will be seen in the ensuing pages, I adored the Pall Mall Gazette. Its fads, its whimsies, its prize "booms," and above all its religious notions, were my delight. It was, as I said, a "bright particular star" in the sphere of journalism, but I doubt whether it will continue to shine on. I much fear that its days of Whimsicality and Boom are over, though it now has a serious and gentlemanly Scot for an editor, who does not find his chief amusement in levelling cheap sneers at Crown and Constitution, and advocating a dangerous and (at heart) unpopular Democracy. However, we shall see. In the interim, though I may not now "adore" the Pall Mall, I mournfully respect it.

I fancy I have made a slight error in that harmless, but Grundy-scaring jest of mine entitled "The Journalist's Creed." I have alluded to the excellent and brilliant Henry Labouchere, as "very Rad of very Rad." It should have been "very Tory of very Tory." This is absurd? Incongruous? Impossible? Well! Events will prove whether I am right or wrong. And I beg to assure all whom it may concern, that I consider there is no more "irreverence" in the "Journalist's Creed" than is displayed by the respectable church-goer who murmurs an address or prayer to God in the hollow of his stove-pipe hat, rather than spoil the set of his trousers by kneeling down.

I very earnestly desire to thank my critics one and all for the attention they have bestowed upon me. They have taken me very seriously; much more seriously than I have taken myself. I am so little "peculiar," that I confess to have copied the phraseology of my diatribes on certain poets and novelists from the language of the "reviews" in divers journals, and I am truly surprised to hear such phraseology termed "vulgar." When I was a "known" author (I was, once!) reviewers "reviewed" me with a profuseness of vituperative force that struck me as singular; but I did not presume to call their well-rounded terms of abuse "vulgar" or "scurrilous." Now I see I might very well have done so, as they all agree in a condemnation of their own literary vernacular. One lives and learns (this is a platitude), and when an author anonymously "slates" those who anonymously "slate" him, it is curious and instructive to observe what a different view is taken of his case! It is a strange world (platitude number two).