_Ed._ Well, now you can send down the paper to press as soon as you please. (_Exit_ Chief Sub. _to carry out directions_.) Dear me! It really simplifies matters considerably when waves of thought will do as well as the electric telegraph. [_The Curtain falls upon the_ Editor's _very natural reflection_. * * * * * [Illustration: SANCTA SIMPLICITAS. _Housemaid._ "WE'RE GETTING UP A SWEEPSTAKES, MRS. THRUPP. WON'T YOU JOIN?" _Housekeeper._ "GRACIOUS ME, CHILD; NOT I! WHY IF I _WON_ A HORSE I SHOULDN'T KNOW WHAT TO _DO_ WITH HIM!"] * * * * * TO THE SEA. _An Expostulation._ Oh, smooth and smiling! I have loved thee well! Hymned thee, and heard thee; lived beneath thy spell; For years thy life-giving ozone have bless'd, That makes loose garments tighter round the chest. Paced in the dark thy sounding margent white, And voiced my rapture in the boisterous night, Striking the lurking coastguard with affright. Now on my barque--ah, no! no barque be mine! On the new packet of the Angler Line, I learn, too late, when fairly out at sea, How well they speak who speak not well of thee Implacable, inscrutable Emirs Mock not the captured foe of bloodstained years As thou hast mock'd one who ne'er did thee wrong, Save in the venial fault of unexpressive song. Or canst thou this unmeasured vengeance take, Remembering some childish duck-and-drake, Forgotten long, and never done in spite? How could it harm thy navy-rending might, Thou, whose huge waves in wanton affluence bang Their heads against the rocks, in mid-air hang, Up the sheer cliffs clamber with foamy claws, And backward plunge again, with mad applause Of all the turbulent, tumultuous press That hurl themselves to spray in wantonness? Prone, but unconquered, I have roll'd to leeward, Soothed by the merciless mercy of the steward. How can I stand when hardest steel and teak Play a vertiginous game of hide-and-seek? All is a-swing and dipping and a-roll. Oh, vain material creed! Th' informing soul! Proves well its immateriality, Defying thus the tortures of the sea, That force all else to helpless surrender; For aught but very Spirit would prefer To seek at once the illimitable inane, Than cognisant of anguish thus remain The tenant of a desolated shrine, A bare clay cabin, like this frame of mine. Oh, rich saloons! Oh, rooms of wretched state! The pomp and glory of you all I hate! Ye fulsome diving dados, would ye were Extinct as your vocabular congener! Place me where errant icebergs, anchored deep By chains of frost, a darkling vigil keep, Fixed in the pole's impenetrable wall, Dead to the warmer ocean's roving call! Far from this liquid way that heaves and rolls, This world-long switchback, bounded by the poles, This path of pain, whose undulations cease Only in that palæocrystic peace!