The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 by Harry Furniss (new books to read TXT) 📕

of place just to refer to the domestic relations of the staff of Punch. Our wives and families were invited to meet on the occasion of the Lord Mayor's procession, when they may have been observed upon the roof of the publishing office—till recently it was in Fleet Street—from which coign of vantage they had an excellent view of the civic show, afterwards having a capital lunch in a room on the first floor. Yet how much men who live on their wits owe to their domestic happiness! It is a pleasant fact to be able to chronicle that—I believe at all times—the domestic lives of the Punch staff have been most happy. It is rather curious that all of them have made the same kind of matrimonial selection—they have married "sensible wives," women who have all been sympathetic, devoted, bright, and domesticated. The wit at the dinner-table, the humorous writer or the caricaturist in the pages you read, is a very different dog at home. It must naturally be so. It is the reaction, and it is to such men that the woman possessed of tact and cheerfulness is invaluable. In truth, Punch's advice to those about to marry, "Don't!" has been disregarded by the majority of his members, in every case with the utmost satisfaction to themselves.