Life — March 26, 1885 — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

> LIFE: LETTERS FROM BELOW. | | III. Shady Side, Styx. EAR SWINBURNE :— When you come down | here, do come prepared. I brought one of “ Jen- ny’s” parasols, that sad colored red one that she carried that afternoon at Richmond, and it is of no more use than the | alcohol lamp Carlyle brought, with which to warm his oatmeal. Do | keep your wits about you, and bring something of inherent Tartarean value. Say ten feet of asbestos hose, wrapped in tin foil, or a phosphorus sponge, or a hand grenade bath tub, or a little modesty. For none of these things are in stock here. I suppose my fame is still alive. “I never wrote anything immature,” you know, and that must count in my favor. How do my three heavenly damozels in straight night-gowns geton? You might not suspect it, but everybody down here thinks I was a kind of social fanatic who died in a crusade against hooks and eyes and hairpins. Thomas Babbington Antithesis is the only individual who has been distinctly disagreeable to me. Machine balladist that he was, he no doubt envies me my successful poetic li- cense. For example, the other day as I was walking with Waller past the “ Blazer Café,” we saw Thomas B. Antithe- sis sitting at a table with Boswell. We went in and found that T. B. Antithesis was repeating an old number of the Times backwards to his companion. Waller said something pleasant about memory, and I added that even originality was only the enthusiastic discovery of old things. But as we went out the door I heard T. B. Antithesis say to Boswell some- thing about lewdness swathed in sentiment. Now, that was unkind of Antithesis, and if you get a good opportunity try and show up some more of his wild historical inaccuracies. To show how little he is considered in Hell, it suffices to tell you that they punish the school-children here by making them learn how Horatius defended the bridge that day, and Homer's Catalogue of Ships and then chant them to the time of one of Wagner's choruses. | And one day when Sydney Smith was making fun of the Devil's mother-in-law, he was told quite sharply that if he did | not put an end to his lisping jocoseness he should be tied to a rock and be talked to for thirty-six hours by T. B. Antithe- | sis and Harriet Martineau. The thought of this made him so unhappy that they were obliged to let him play with the little | princes, who were smothered in the tower, to revive him. | 1 suppose it gives great satisfaction to Buchanan and Mal- | 178 Jock and the Evangelical clergy to know that I am down here They say Harriet Martineau and Margaret Fuller gave their classes in ethics a half holiday when they heard I was coming. But Harriet was a bit of pious pomposity so sexed by a kind Providence as to prevent the duplication of Dr. John Cum- ming, D.D., of blessed memory. It is true I was of the opinmonico-bilious temperament, but there were many others just like me, only I had the tal- ent of my sins, while they only had the mediocrity of some thinly disguised virtues. Hell to me is sadly lacking in color and complexity. It is dreanly monotonous. Only the ashes of burned out passion, only impotent deviltry, nothing that can hurt, only a waste of individuals powerless even to be bad and uncon- scious of the meaning of noble aspirations. Bring some color when you come. Everything here is red. Bringsome marine blue and some yellow—yes, some yel- low, if you love me. Yours, My dear Algernon, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. T. B. ANTITH THE “TIM ESIS WAS REPEATING AN OLD NUMBER CF " BACKWARDS TO HIS COMPANION, Palmer ; “Father, some one wants you at the telephone.” Old Gentleman (stepping up): ‘Hello! Hello! eh? oh yes, all right, of course. Good bye.” (Turning fo son): “Palmer, remind me to-morrow of what these people wanted.” Palmer thinks the old gentleman has been dining with St. John. TOOT ENSEMBLE.—The German street band. comicbooks.com 2