Punch, or the London Charivari

that makes one feel like the sculptor when at last the living beauty has burst forth under his chisel from the shapeless stone. Besides, they are cheaper than coal.

As I say, when people talk of "Yule-logs and things," it is not the Yule-logs that I object to. It is the things. Nasty cold things like clean shirts and collars and bedroom door-handles--there ought to be hot water in bedroom door-handles--nasty cold things that make one say "Ugh." I have a theory that the word "Ugh" was invented on some such morning as this. Previously people had been contented with noises like "Ouch" and "Ouf" and "Ur-r," though they realised how inadequate they were. And then one day, one very cold 0/40 day, inspiration came to the frenzied brain of a genius, and he wrote down that single exquisite heart-cry and hurried it off to the printer. People knew then that the supreme mating of sound and sense, which we have agreed to call poetry, had once more been achieved.

But I have wandered a little from the Serpenti