"A Late Symposium! Yet they're not engaged

In compotations. Argument hath raged

Four hours by the dial;

But zealotry of party, creed, or clique

Marks not the clock, whilst of polemic pique

There's one unvoided vial."

So smiled the Shade. Dusk coat and gleaming head,

Viewed from above, before my gaze outspread

Like a black sea bespotted

With bare pink peaks of coral isles; all eyes

Were fixed on one who reeled out rhapsodies

In diction double-shotted.

A long and lofty room, with pillars cold,

And spacious walls of chocolate and gold;

The solid sombre glory

Of tint oppressive and of tasteless shine,

Dear to the modern British Philistine,

Saint, sceptic, Whig, or Tory.

"No Samson-strength of intellect or taste

Shall bow the pillars of this temple chaste

Of ugliness and unction.

What is't they argue lengthily and late?

The flame of patriot passion for the State

Fires this polemic function.

"A caitiff Government has done a thing

To make its guardian-angel droop her wing

In sickened indignation:

That is, has striven to strengthen its redoubts,

Perfidious 'Ins,' to foil the eager 'Outs.'

Hence endless execration.

"Hence all Wire-pullerdom is up in arms;

With clarion-toned excursions and alarms

The rival camp is ringing.

Hence perky commoners and pompous peers,

'Midst vehement applause and volleying cheers,

Stale platitudes are stringing.

"The British Public—some five hundred strong—

Is here to 'strangle a Gigantic Wrong,'—

So Marabout is saying.

Watch his wide waistcoat and his wandering eyes,

His stamping boots of Brobdingnagian size,

Clenched hands, and shoulders swaying.

"A great Machine-man, Marabout! He dotes

On programmes hectographed and Party votes.

For all his pasty pallor

And shifty glance, he has the mob's regard,

And he is deemed by council, club, and ward

A mighty man of valour.

"A purchased henchman to a Star of State?

Perhaps. But here he'll pose and perorate,

A Brutus vain and voluble.

And who, like Marabout, with vocal flux

Of formulas, can settle every crux

That wisdom finds insoluble?

"'Hear! hear!' That shibboleth of shallow souls

Around his ears in clamorous cadence rolls;

He swells, he glows, he twinkles;

The sapient Chairman wags his snowy pate,

Whilst cynic triumph, cautious yet elate,

Lurks laughing in his wrinkles.

"And there sits honest zeal, absorbed, intent,

And cheerfully credulous. Marabout has bent

To the Commercial Dagon

He publicly derides; but many here

Will toast 'his genuine grit, his manly cheer,'

Over a friendly flagon.

"Look on him later! There he snugly sits

With his rich patron. Were it war of wits

That wakes their crackling chuckles,

They scarce were heartier. It would strangely shock

Marabout's worshippers to hear him mock

The 'mob' to which he truckles.

"Truckles in platform speech. In club-room chat

With Wagstaff, shrewd wire-puller, flushed and fat,

Or Dodd, the rich dry-salter,

You'd hear how supply he can shift and twist,

How Brutus with 'the base Monopolist'

Can calmly plot and palter,"

"Whilst Marabouts abound, O Shade," I cried,

"What wonder men are 'Mugwumps?'" Then my guide

Laughed low. "The Æsthetic villa

Finds Shopdom's zeal on its fine senses jar;

Yet the Mugwumps Charybdis stands not far

From the Machine-man's Scylla.

"Culture derides the Caucus for its heat,

Its hate—its absence of the Light and Sweet,

So jays might flout the vulture.

Partisan bitterness and purblind haste?

Come, view the haunts of dilettante Taste,

The coteries of Culture!

"Here Savants wrangle o'er a fossil bone,

Champer, with curling lip and caustic tone,

At Ruddiman is railing.

Champer knows everything, from Plato's text

To Protoplasm; yet his soul is vext,

His cheeks with spite are paling.

"Why? Because Ruddiman, the rude, robust,

Has pierced with logic's vigorous vulgar thrust

The shield of icy polish.

Champer, in print, is hot on party-hate,

Here his one aim is in the rough debate

His rival to demolish.

"Sweet Reasonableness? Another host

Of sages see! The habits of the Ghost,

The Astral Body's action,

Absorb them, eager. Does more furious fire

The councils of the Caucusites inspire,

Or light the feuds of faction?

"And there? They argue out with toil intense

A 'cosmic' poet's esoteric sense,

Of which a world, unwitting,

Recks nothing. Yet how terribly they'd trounce

Parliament's pettifogging, and denounce

'Political hair-splitting'!"

"O Shade, the difference is but small, one dreads.

Betwixt logomachists at loggerheads,

Whether their theme be bonnets

Or British interests. Zealot ardour burns

Scarce fiercer o'er Electoral Returns

Than over Shakspeare's Sonnets.

"At Marabout the Mugwump sniffs and sneers;

Gregarious 'votes of thanks' and sheepish 'cheers'

Stir him to satire scornful.

But when sleek Culture apes, irate and loud,

The follies of the Caucus and the Crowd,

The spectacle is mournful."

"True!" smiled the Shade. "Yon supercilious sage,

With patent prejudice and petty rage,

Penning a tart jobation

On practised Statesmen, must as much amuse

As Statesmen-sciolists venting vapid views

On rocks and revelation."