Much Ado About SomethingLawrence, C. E. (Charles Edward)
Science
Much Ado About Something
Lawrence, C. E. (Charles Edward)
England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Fairies -- Fiction
OBERON SHALL BE KING.
And all the while Oberon was in one or other of his castles--in Ireland,
in Wales, in Spain, in that dim country where the dreams are made, in
Weissnichtwo--living the fairy life, making the birds, flowers, clouds
and rivers happier; yet, never for the tithe of an instant, forgetting
the madness of June.
The particular newspaper we refuse to have anything to do with, O
reader--the newspaper whose opinions we despise and deplore--scoffed at
the fairies in its usual cocksure way, as was to be expected! It
professed to regard the Lord Mayor’s plea as the agreeable sentiment of
a well-dined gentleman, and made play with a leaderette in which Titania
was called a myth and the fairies fruits of nightmare.
Such conduct on the part of a widely-read journal had to be answered.
June--let it be granted--treated its iconoclastic persiflage with the
toleration of contempt. She, too, did not read the newspapers; but
Archdeacon Pryde, who recognized that Sir Titus would not condescend to
defend himself against such an attack, and remembering that he also was
involved in that halfpenny condemnation, called a cab, packed a
snuff-box with voice-lozenges, and went with heat and dudgeon to the
headquarters of the offending newspaper.
He was welcomed with a military salute by the commissionaire at the
gate; snapshotted thrice--when paying the cabman, eating a lozenge, and
handing his card to a youth in the enquiry office. When inside the
editorial sanctum, he was induced to pose for two flash-light
photographs--one showing him engaged in earnest talk with the great man,
the other with his hand resting on the tousled head of a printer’s
devil.
These pictures were to illustrate an "interview"--dictated to a
shorthand writer--which explained the Archdeacon’s ideas and intentions
in connection with his and the Lord Mayor’s new determinings, and so
gave the Editor an excuse for a _volte-face_.
The Archdeacon was in a rapture of enthusiasm white hot. This prominent
usefulness, or useful prominence, was gratifying. He promised to send
his menu, that the inscribed resolutions might be reproduced in
facsimile for the morrow’s issue; and ended by asking the Editor to tea.
He went home more conscious than ever of being a man of influence and
work.
So even the paper which you and I, O reader, habitually dislike and
ignore, came over to the side of light.
The great organs of the Press, with amazing unanimity, rolled their
machines, blew trumpets, and beat drums, in the interests of Fairy
Reform. It was no sudden affair, that splendid combination; but a
gradual all-round awakening to the benefit, delight, and need of
preaching the causes of Elfdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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