PESSIMISM v. OPTIMISM.
Reading edition
(From the City.)
"You're getting quite a Corporation, Brown!"
"Yes; the result of a Contented Mind, Old Man!"
"No. You mean the result of a Continual Feast!"
An Omission in Last Week's Ceremonial Accounted for.—It was first proposed to make a détour from Piccadilly by way of Park Lane, Stanhope Street, and so forth, round again to Piccadilly. But as H. R. H. the Duke of YORK pointed out, there was no necessity for specially visiting May Fair, as from start to finish he took May Fair with him.
PUNCH'S "GOD-SPEED" TO THE POLE-SEEKERS.
[Dr. Fridtjof Nansen's Arctic Expedition sailed from Christiania in the Fram on June 24.]
So Dr. Fridtjof Nansen's off! Cynics will chuckle, and pessimists scoff. What a noodle, that Norroway chap, Who'd drift to the Pole to—complete our map! Year after year in the broad-beam'd Fram, Far from Society's "Real Jam," Away from the fjords, and Five o'Clock Tea, Amidst the ice of the Kara Sea; Certain of darkness, discomfort, and frost, With an excellent prospect of getting lost, Crunched in the ice-pack, frozen, or starved, Whilst Mansion-House Banquets are being carved; Over the snow like pale ghosts flitting, Missing the sweets of an All-Night Sitting! Alone in a canvas-bottom'd bunk, When gossip is gabbled, and toasts are drunk, Where Good Society's geese gregarious, Hiss malignant, or cackle hilarious! Well, who knows? Those Arctic snows May bore men less than our Social Shows; And utter aridity starve the soul More in the House than the Northern Pole! Here's to Nansen! Here's to his crew! We know they'll venture what men may do. Good luck and good cheer be Heaven's gift To the Fram and her men on that long, long drift! And if they win through the Polar pack, May Punch be foremost to welcome them back.