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Title: The So-called Human Race
Author: Bert Leston Taylor
Release Date: January 31, 2010 [EBook #31138]
Language: English
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The So-Called
Human Race
+----------------------------------------------+
| |
| _BOOKS BY |
| BERT LESTON TAYLOR_ |
| |
| A PENNY WHISTLE |
| |
| THE SO-CALLED HUMAN RACE |
| THE EAST WINDOW |
| (_Fall, 1922_) |
| |
| _And others in a uniform collected |
| edition, to be ready later._ |
| |
| _New York: Alfred · A · Knopf_ |
| |
+----------------------------------------------+
The So-Called
Human Race
by
Bert Leston Taylor
_Arranged, with an Introduction, by
Henry B. Fuller_
New York 1922
Alfred · A · Knopf
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
_Published, March, 1922
Second Printing, April, 1922_
_Set up and electrotyped by J. J. Little & Ives Co., New York, N. Y.
Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y.
Printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y.
Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y._
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_WORLD WITHOUT END_
_Once upon a summer's night
Mused a mischief-making sprite,
Underneath the leafy hood
Of a fairy-haunted wood.
Here and there, in light and shade,
Ill-assorted couples strayed:
"Lord," said Puck, in elfish glee,
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"_
_Now he sings the self-same tune
Underneath an older moon.
Life to him is, plain enough,
Still a game of blind man's buff.
If we listen we may hear
Puckish laughter always near,
And the elf's apostrophe,
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"_
B. L. T.
Foreword
By Henry B. Fuller
Bert Leston Taylor (known the country over as "B. L. T.") was the first
of our day's "colyumists"--first in point of time, and first in point of
merit. For nearly twenty years, with some interruptions, he conducted "A
Line-o'-Type or Two" on the editorial page of the Chicago _Tribune_. His
broad column--broad by measurement, broad in scope, and a bit broad, now
and again, in its tone--cheered hundreds of thousands at the
breakfast-tables of the Middle West, and on its trains and trolleys. As
the "Column" grew in reputation, "making the Line" became almost a
national sport. Whoever had a happy thought, whoever could handily turn
a humorous paragraph or tune a pointed jingle, was only too glad to
attempt collaboration with B. L. T. Others, possessing no literary
knack, chanced it with brief reports on the follies or ineptitudes of
the "so-called human race." Some of them picked up their matter on their
travels--these were the "Gadders." Others culled oddities from the
provincial press, and so gave further scope to "The Enraptured
Reporter," or offered selected gems of _gaucherie_ from private
correspondence, and thus added to the rich yield of "The Second Post."
Still humbler helpers chipped in with queer bits of nomenclature,
thereby aiding the formation of an "Academy of Immortals"--an
organization fully officered by people with droll names and always
tending, as will become apparent in the following pages, to enlarge and
vary its roster.
All these contributors, as well as many other persons who existed
independently of the "Line," lived in the corrective fear of the
"Cannery," that capacious receptacle which yawned for the trite word and
the stereotyped phrase. Our language, to B. L. T., was an honest, living
growth: deadwood, whether in thought or in the expression of thought,
never got by, but was marked for the burning. The "Cannery," with its
numbered shelves and jars, was a deterrent indeed, and anyone who
ventured to relieve himself as "Vox Populi" or as a conventional
versifier, did well to walk with care.
Over all these aids, would-be or actual, presided the Conductor himself,
furnishing a steady framework by his own quips, jingles and
philosophizings, and bringing each day's exhibit to an ordered unity.
The Column was more than the sum of its contributors. It was the sum of
units, original or contributed, that had been manipulated and brought to
high effectiveness by a skilled hand and a nature wide in its sympathies
and in its range of interests.
Taylor had the gift of opening new roads and of inviting a willing
public to follow. Or, to put it another way, he had the faculty of
making new moulds, into which his helpers were only too glad to pour
their material. Some of these "leads" lasted for weeks; some for months;
others persisted through the years. The lifted wand evoked, marshalled,
vivified, and the daily miracle came to its regular accomplishment.
Taylor hewed his Line in precise accord with his own taste and fancy.
All was on the basis of personal preference. His chiefs learned early
that so rare an organism was best left alone to function in harmony with
its own nature. The Column had not only its own philosophy and its own
æsthetics, but its own politics: if it seemed to contravene other and
more representative departments of the paper, never mind. Its conductor
had such confidence in the validity of his personal predilections and in
their identity with those of "the general," that he carried on things
with the one rule of pleasing himself, certain that he should find no
better rule for pleasing others. His success was complete.
His papers and clippings, found in a fairly forward state of
preparation, gave in part the necessary indications for the completion
of this volume. The results will perhaps lack somewhat the typographical
effectiveness which is within the reach of a metropolitan daily when
utilized by a "colyumist" who was also a practical printer, and they can
only approximate that piquant employment of juxtaposition and contrast
which made every issue of "A Line-o'-Type or Two" a work of art in its
way. But no arrangement of items from that source could becloud the
essential nature of its Conductor: though "The So-Called Human Race"
sometimes plays rather tartly and impatiently with men's follies and
shortcomings, it clearly and constantly exhibits a sunny, alert and airy
spirit to whom all things human made their sharp appeal.
The So-Called
Human Race
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
_Motto: Hew to the Line, let the quips fall where they may._
SIMPLE
My readers are a varied lot;
Their tastes do not agree.
A squib that tickles A is not
At all the thing for B.
What's sense to J, is folderol
To K, but pleases Q.
So, when I come to fill the Col,
I know just what to do.
* * *
It is refreshing to find in the society columns an account of a quiet
wedding. The conventional screams of a groom are rather trying.
* * *
A man will sit around smoking all day and his wife will remark: "My
dear, aren't you smoking too much?" The doctor cuts him down to three
cigars a day, and his wife remarks: "My dear, aren't you smoking too
much?" Finally he chops off to a single after-dinner smoke, and when he
lights up his wife remarks: "John, you do nothing but smoke all day
long." Women are singularly observant.
* * *
NO DOUBT THERE ARE OTHERS.
Sir: A gadder friend of mine has been on the road so long that he always
speaks of the parlor in his house as the lobby. E. C. M.
* * *
With the possible exception of Trotzky, Mr. Hearst is the busiest person
politically that one is able to wot of. Such boundless zeal! Such
measureless energy! Such genius--an infinite capacity for giving pains!
* * *
Ancestor worship is not peculiar to any tribe or nation. We observed
last evening, on North Clark street, a crowd shaking hands in turn with
an organ-grinder's monkey.
* * *
"In fact," says an editorial on Uncongenial Clubs, "a man may go to a
club to get away from congenial spirits." True. And is there any more
uncongenial club than the Human Race? The service is bad, the membership
is frightfully promiscuous, and about the only place to which one can
escape is the library. It is always quiet there.
* * *
Sign in the Black Hawk Hotel, Byron, Ill.: "If you think you are witty
send your thoughts to B. L. T., care Chicago Tribune. Do not spring them
on the help. It hurts efficiency."
* * *
AN OBSERVANT KANSAN.
[From the Emporia Gazette.]
The handsome clerk at the Harvey House makes this profound observation:
Any girl will flirt as the train is pulling out.
* * *
_THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD._
_She formerly talked of the weather,
The popular book, or the play;
Her old line of chat
Was of this thing or that
In the fashions and fads of the day._
_But now she discusses eugenics,
And things that a pundit perplex;
She knocks you quite flat
With her new line of chat,
And her "What do you think about sex?"_
* * *
"Are we all to shudder at the name of Rabelais and take to smelling
salts?" queries an editorial colleague. "Are we to be a wholly lady-like
nation?" Small danger, brother. Human nature changes imperceptibly, or
not at all. The objection to most imitations of Rabelais is that they
lack the unforced wit and humor of the original.
* * *
A picture of Dr. A. Ford Carr testing a baby provokes a frivolous reader
to observe that when the babies cry the doctor probably gives them a
rattle.
* * *
WHAT DO YOU MEAN "ALMOST"!
[From the Cedar Rapids Republican.]
The man who writes a certain column in Chicago can always fill
two-thirds of it with quotations and contributions. But that may be
called success--when they bring the stuff to you and are almost willing
to pay you for printing it.
* * *
WE'LL TELL THE PLEIADES SO.
Sir: "I'll say she is," "Don't take it so hard," "I'll tell the world."
These, and other slangy explosives from our nursery, fell upon the
sensitive auditory nerves of callers last evening. I am in a quandary,
whether to complain to the missus or write a corrective letter to the
children's school teachers, for on the square some guy ought to bawl the
kids out for fair about this rough stuff--it gets my goat.
J. F. B.
* * *
Did you think "I'll say so" was new slang? Well, it isn't. You will find
it in Sterne's "Sentimental Journey."
* * *
Formula for accepting a second cigar from a man whose taste in tobacco
is poor: "Thank you; the courtesy is not _all_ yours."
* * *
A number of suicides are attributed to the impending conjunction of the
planets and the menace of world-end. You can interest anybody in
astronomy if you can establish for him a connection between his personal
affairs and the movements of the stars.
* * *
WHERE 'VANGIE LIES.
_Rondeau Sentimental to Evangeline, the Office Goat._
Where 'Vangie lies strown folios
Like Vallambrosan leaves repose,
The sad, the blithe, the quaint, the queer,
The good, the punk are scattered here--
A pile of poof in verse and prose.
And none would guess, save him who strows,
How much transcendent genius goes
Unwept, unknown, into the smear
Where 'Vangie lies.
With every opening mail it snows
Till 'Vangie's covered to her nose.
Forgetting that she is so near,
I sometimes kick her in the ear.
Then sundry piteous ba-a-a's disclose
Where 'Vangie lies.
* * *
"This sale," advertises a candid clothier, "lasts only so long as the
goods last, and that won't be very long."
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
(_Letter from an island caretaker._)
Dear Sir: Your letter came. Glad you bought a team of horses. Hilda is
sick. She has diphtheria and she will die I think. Clara died this eve.
She had it, too. We are quarantined. Five of Fisher's family have got
it. My wife is sick. She hain't got it. If this thing gets worse we may
have to get a doctor. Them trees are budding good. Everything is O. K.
* * *
Just as we started to light a pipe preparatory to filling this column,
we were reminded of Whistler's remark to a student who was smoking: "You
should be very careful. You know you might get interested in your work
and let your pipe go out."
* * *
It is odd, and not uninteresting to students of the so-called human
race, that a steamfitter or a manufacturer of suspenders who may not
know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution--who may not, indeed, know anything at all--is nevertheless
a bubbly-fountain of political wisdom; whereas a writer for a newspaper
is capable of emitting only drivel. This may be due to the greater
opportunity for meditation enjoyed by suspender-makers and
steamfitters.
* * *
Janesville's Grand Hotel just blew itself on its Thanksgiving dinner.
The menu included "Cheese a la Fromage."
* * *
"It is with ideas we shall conquer the world," boasts Lenine. If he
needs a few more he can get them at the Patent Office in Washington,
which is packed with plans and specifications of perpetual motion
machines and other contraptions as unworkable as bolshevism.
* * *
HEARD IN THE BANK.
A woman from the country made a deposit consisting of several items.
After ascertaining the amount the receiving teller asked, "Did you foot
it up?" "No, I rode in," said she.
H. A. N.
* * *
The fact that Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and other great
departed whose names are taken in vain every day by small-bore
politicians, do not return and whack these persons over the heads with a
tambourine, is almost--as Anatole France remarked in an essay on
Flaubert--is almost an argument against the immortality of the soul.
* * *
Harper's Weekly refrains from comment on the shipping bill because, says
its editor, "we have not been able to accumulate enough knowledge."
Well! If every one refrained from expressing an opinion on a subject
until he was well informed the pulp mills would go out of business and a
great silence would fall upon the world.
* * *
It is pleasant to believe the sun is restoring its expended energy by
condensation, and that the so-called human race is in the morning of its
existence; and it is necessary that the majority should believe so, for
otherwise the business of the world would not get done. The happiest
cynic would be depressed by the sight of humanity sitting with folded
hands, waiting apathetically for the end.
* * *
Perhaps the best way to get acquainted with the self-styled human race
is to collect money from it.
* * *
TO A WELL-KNOWN GLOBE.
I would not seem to slam our valued planet,--
Space, being infinite, may hold a worse;
Nor would I intimate that if I ran it
Its vapors might disperse.
Within our solar system, or without it,
May be a world less rationally run;
There may be such a geoid, but I doubt it--
I can't conceive of one.
If from the time our sphere began revolving
Until the present writing there had been
A glimmer of a promise of resolving
The muddle we are in:
If we could answer "Whither are we drifting?"
Or hope to wallow out of the morass--
I might continue boosting and uplifting;
But as it is, I pass.
So on your way, old globe, wherever aiming,
Go blundering down the endless slopes of space:
As far away the prospect of reclaiming
The so-called human race.
Gyrate, old Top, and let who will be clever;
The mess we're in is much too deep to solve.
Me for a quiet life while you, as ever,
Continue to revolve.
* * *
"Our editorials," announces the Tampa Tribune, "are written by members
of the staff, and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the paper."
Similarly, the contents of this column are written by its conductor and
the straphangers, and have nothing whatever to do with its policy.
* * *
"What, indeed?" as Romeo replied to Juliet's query. And yet Ralph Dilley
and Irene Pickle were married in Decatur last week.
* * *
He was heard to observe, coming from the theater into the thick of the
wind and snow: "God help the rich; the poor can sleep with their windows
shut."
* * *
We have received a copy of the first issue of The Fabulist, printed in
Hingham Centre, Mass., and although we haven't had time to read it, we
like one of its ideas. "Contributions," it announces, "must be paid for
in advance at space rates."
* * *
The viewpoint of Dr. Jacques Duval (interestingly set forth by Mr.
Arliss) is that knowledge is more important than the life of individual
members of the so-called human race. But even Duval is a sentimentalist.
He believes that knowledge is important.
* * *
Among reasonable requests must be included that of the Hotel Fleming in
Petersburg, Ind.: "Gentlemen, please walk light at night. The guests are
paying 75 cents to sleep and do not want to be disturbed."
* * *
We have recorded the opinion that the Lum Tum Lumber Co. of Walla Walla,
Wash., would make a good college yell; but the Wishkah Boom Co. of
Wishkah, Wash., would do even better.
* * *
Some one was commiserating Impresario Dippel on his picturesque
assortment of griefs. "Yes," he said, "an impresario is a man who has
trouble. If he hasn't any he makes it."
* * *
What is the use of expositions of other men's philosophic systems unless
the exposition is made lucid and interesting? Philosophers are much like
certain musical critics: they write for one another, in a jargon which
only themselves can understand.
* * *
O shade of Claude Debussy, for whom the bells of hell or heaven go
tingalingaling (for wherever you are it is certain there are many
bells--great bells, little bells, bells in high air, and bells beneath
the sea), how we should rejoice that the beautiful things which you
dreamed are as a book that is sealed to most of those who put them upon
programmes; for these do not merely play them badly, they do not play
them at all. Thus they cannot be spoiled for us, nor can our ear be
dulled; and when the few play them that understand, they are as fresh
and beautiful as on the day when first you set them down.
* * *
"The increase in the use of tobacco by women," declares the Methodist
Board, "is appalling." Is it not? But so many things are appalling that
it would be a relief to everybody if a board, or commission, or other
volunteer organization were to act as a shock-absorber. Whenever an
appalling situation arose, this group could be appalled for the rest of
us. And we, knowing that the board would be properly appalled, should
not have to worry.
* * *
Ad of a Des Moines baggage transfer company: "Don't lie awake fearing
you'll miss your train--we'll attend to that." You bet they do.
* * *
The president of the Printing Press and Feeders' (sic) union estimates
that a family in New York requires $2,362 a year to get by. Which sets
us musing on the days of our youth in Manchester, N. H., when we were
envied by the others of the newspaper staff because we got $18 a week.
We lived high, dressed expensively (for Manchester), and always had
money for Wine and Song. How did we manage it? Blessed if we can
remember.
* * *
The soi-disant human race appears to its best advantage, perhaps its
only advantage, in work. The race is not ornamental, nor is it
over-bright, having only enough wit to scrape along with. Work is the
best thing it does, and when it seeks to avoid this, its reason for
existence disappears.
* * *
"Where," asks G. N., "can I find the remainder of that beautiful
Highland ballad beginning--
'I canna drook th' stourie tow,
Nor ither soak my hoggie:
Hae cluttered up the muckle doon,
An' wow but I was voggie.'"
* * *
Women regard hair as pianists regard technic: one can't have too much of
it.
* * *
The demand for regulation of the sale of wood alcohol reminds Uncle
Henry of Horace Greeley's remark when he was asked to subscribe to a
missionary fund "to save his fellow-man from going to hell." Said Hod,
"Not enough of them go there now."
* * *
A few lines on the literary page relate that Edith Alice Maitland, who
recently died in London, was the original of "Alice In Wonderland."
Lewis Carroll wrote the book for her, and perhaps read chapters to her
as he went along. Happy author, happy reader! If the ordering of our
labors were entirely within our control we should write exclusively for
children. They are more intelligent than adults, have a quicker
apprehension, and are without prejudices. In addressing children, one
may write quite frankly and sincerely. In addressing grown-ups the only
safe medium of expression is irony.
* * *
Gleaned by R. J. S. from a Topeka church calendar: "Preaching at
8 p.m., subject 'A Voice from Hell.' Miss Holman will sing."
* * *
Here is a happy little suggestion for traveling men, offered by
S. B. T.: "When entering the dining room of a hotel, why not look
searchingly about and rub hands together briskly?"
* * *
What could be more frank than the framed motto in the Hotel Fortney, at
Viroqua, Wis.--"There Is No Place Like Home."?
* * *
As to why hotelkeepers charge farmers less than they charge traveling
men, one of our readers discovered the reason in 1899: The gadder takes
a bunch of toothpicks after each meal and pouches them; the farmer takes
only one, and when he is finished with it he puts it back.
* * *
If Plato were writing to-day he would have no occasion to revise his
notion of democracy--"a charming form of government, full of variety and
disorder, and dispensing equality to equals and unequals alike."
* * *
The older we grow the more impressed we are
by the amount of bias in the world. Thank
heaven, the only prejudices we have are religious,
racial, and social prejudices. In other respects
we are open to reason.
* * *
From the calendar of the Pike county court: "Shank vs. Shinn."
Strange all this difference should have been
'Twixt Mr. Shank and Mr. Shinn.
* * *
HOME TIES.
Sir: Discovered, in Minnesota, the country delegate who goes to bed
wearing the tie his daughter tied on him before he left home, because he
wouldn't know how to tie it in the morning if he took it off.
J. O. C.
* * *
THEY FOUND THEM IN THE ALLEY.
Sir: A young man promised a charming young woman, as a birthday
remembrance, a rose for every year she was old. After he had given the
order for two dozen Killarneys, the florist said to his boy: "He's a
good customer. Just put in half a dozen extra."
M. C. G.
* * *
"When," inquires a fair reader, apropos of our remark that the only way
to improve the so-called human race is to junk it and begin over again,
"when does the junking begin? Because...." Cawn't say when the big
explosion will occur. But look for us in a neighboring constellation.
When they junk the human species
We will meet you, love, in Pisces.
* * *
THE TOONERVILLE TROLLEY.
Sir: Did you ever ride on a street car in one of those towns where no
one has any place to go and all day to get there in? The conversation
runs something like this between the motorman and conductor:
Conductor: "Ding ding!" (Meaning, "I'm ready whenever you are.")
Motorman: "Ding ding!" ("Well, I'm ready.")
Conductor: "Ding ding!" ("All right, you can go.")
Motorman: "Ding ding!" ("I gotcha, Steve.")
Then they go.
P. I. N.
* * *
O WILD! O STRANGE!
"That wild and strange thing, the press."--H. G. Wells.
It's now too late, I fear, to change,
For ever since a child
I've always been a little strange,
And just a little wild.
I never knew the reason why,
But now the cause I guess--
What Mr. Wells, the author, calls
"That wild, strange thing, the press."
I've worked for every kind of pape
In journalism's range,
And some were tame and commonplace,
But most were wild and strange.
I ran a country paper once--
Or, rather, it ran me;
It was the strangest, wildest thing
That ever you did see.
Some years ago I settled down
And thought to find a cure
By writing books and plays and sich,
That class as litrachoor.
And for a time I lived apart,
In abject happiness;
Yet all the while I hankered for
That strange, wild thing, the press.
Its fatal fascination I
Could not resist for long;
I fled the path of litrachoor,
And once again went wrong.
I resurrected this here Col,
By which you are beguiled.
I fear you find it strange sometimes,
And always rather wild.
* * *
A delegation of Socialists has returned from Russia with the news that
Sovietude leaves everything to be desired, that "things are worse than
in the Czarist days." Naturally. The trouble is, the ideal is more
easily achieved than retained. The ideal existed for a few weeks in
Russia. It was at the time of the canning of Kerensky. Everybody had
authority and nobody had it. Lincoln Steffens, beating his luminous
wings in the void, beamed with joy. The ideal had been achieved; all
government had disappeared. But this happy state could not last. The
people who think such a happy state can last are the most interesting
minds outside of the high brick wall which surrounds the institution.
* * *
When one consults what he is pleased to call his mind, this planet seems
the saddest and maddest of possible worlds. And when one walks homeward
under a waning moon, through Suburbia's deserted lanes, between hedges
that exhale the breath of lilac and honeysuckle, the world seems a very
satisfactory half-way house on the road to the Unknown. Shall we trust
our intelligence or our senses? If we follow the latter it is because we
wish to, not because they are a more trustworthy guide.
* * *
One must agree with Mr. Yeats, that the poetic drama is for a very small
audience, but we should not like to see it so restricted. For a good
share of the amusement which we get out of life comes from watching the
attempts to feed caviar to the general.
* * *
THE POPOCATEPETL OF APPRECIATION.
[From the Paris, Ill., News.]
For the past seven days I have been in inmate at the county jail, and
through the columns of the Daily News I wish to express my thanks and
appreciation to Sheriff and Mrs. McCallister and Mr. McDaniel for the
kindness shown to me. I have been in jail before, here and at other
places, and never found a like institution kept in such a sanitary
condition. The food prepared by Mrs. McCallister was excellent. In my
opinion Mr. McCallister is entitled to any office.
May Claybaugh.
* * *
A copy of the second edition of The Ozark Harpist is received. The
Harpist is Alys Hale, who sings on the flyleaf:
"Sing on, my harp,
Sing on some more and ever,
For sweet souls are breaking,
And fond hearts are aching,
Sing on some more and ever!"
* * *
We quite agree with Mr. Masefield that great literary work requires
leisure. Lack of leisure is handicapping us in the writing of a romance.
We compose it while waiting for trains, while shoveling snow and coal,
while riding on the L, while shaving; and we write it on the backs of
envelopes, on the covering of packages, on the margins of newspapers.
The best place to write a book is in jail, where Cervantes wrote Don
Quixote; but we can't find time to commit a greater misdemeanor than
this column, and there is no jail sentence for that. The only
compensation for the literary method we are forced to adopt is that
there is a great deal of "go" in it.
* * *
Replying to an extremely dear reader: Whenever we animadvert on the
human race we include ourself. We share its imperfections, and we hope
we are tinctured with its few virtues. As a race it impresses us as a
flivver; we feel as you, perhaps, feel in your club when, looking over
the members, you wonder how the dickens most of them got in.
* * *
Prof. Pickering is quoted as declaring that a race of superior beings
inhabits the moon. Now we are far from claiming that the inhabitants of
our geoid are superior to the moon folk, or any other folk in the solar
system; but the mere fact that the Moonians are able to exist in
conditions peculiar to themselves does not make them superior. The whale
can live under water. Is the whale, then, superior to, say, Senator
Johnson? True, it can spout farther, but it is probably inferior to Mr.
Johnson in reasoning power.
* * *
The man who tells you that he believes "in principles, not men,"
means--nothing at all. One would think that in the beginning God created
a set of principles, and man was without form and void.
* * *
"Lost--Pair of trousers while shopping. Finder call Dinsmore
1869."--Minneapolis Journal.
The female of the shopping species is rougher and more ruthless than the
male.
* * *
"Ancient Rome, in the height of her glory, with her lavish amusements,
Olympian games," etc.--The enraptured advertiser.
The proof reader asks us if it was an eruption of Mt. Olympus that
destroyed Pompeii.
* * *
GARDENS.
My lady hath a garden fair,
Wherein she whiles her hours:
She chides me that I do not share
Her rage for springing flowers.
I tell her I've a garden, too,
Wherein I have to toil--
The kind that Epicurus knew,
If not so good a soil.
And I must till my patch with care,
And watch its daily needs;
For lacking water, sun, and air,
The place would run to weeds.
In this the garden of the mind,
My flowers are all too few;
Yet am I well content to find
A modest bloom or two.
My lady hath a garden fair,
Or will when buds are blown:
I've but a blossom here and there--
Poor posies, but mine own.
* * *
"Very well, here is a constructive criticism," declared Col. Roosevelt,
tossing another grenade into the administration trenches. The Colonel is
our favorite constructive critic. After he has finished a bit of
construction it takes an hour for the dust to settle.
* * *
Judgment day will be a complete performance for the dramatic critics.
They will be able to stay for the last act.
* * *
Why is it that when a woman takes the measurements for a screen door she
thinks she has to allow a couple of inches to turn in?
* * *
"Woman Lights 103 Candles With One Match."
Huh! Helen, with one match, lit the topless towers of Ilium.
* * *
It may be--nay, it is--ungallant so to say, but---- Well, have you, in
glancing over the beauty contest exhibits, observed a face that would
launch a thousand ships? Or five hundred?
* * *
"Learn to Speak on Your Feet," advertises a university extension. We
believe we could tell all we know about ours in five hundred words.
* * *
GOOD NIGHT!
[From the Omaha Bee.]
Mrs. Riley gave a retiring party in honor of her husband.
* * *
At the Hotel Dwan, in Benton Harbor, "rooms may be had en suite or
connecting." Or should you prefer that they lead one into another, the
management will be glad to accommodate you.
* * *
Government census blanks read on top of sheet: "Kindly fill out
questions below." One of the questions is: "Can you read? Can you write?
Yes or No?" This reminds a Minneapolis man of the day when he was about
15 miles from Minneapolis and read on a guide post: "15 miles to
Minneapolis. If you cannot read, ask at the grocery store."
* * *
The wave of spiritualism strikes Mr. Leacock as absurd, simply absurd.
"And yet people seem to be going mad over it," he adds. What do you mean
"and yet," Stephen? Don't you mean "consequently"?
* * *
A Joliet social item mentions the engagement of Miss Lucille Muff De
Line. We don't recall her contribution.
Gilded Fairy Tales.
(_Revised and regilded for comprehension by the children of the very
rich._)
THE BABES IN THE WOOD.
I
Once upon a time there dwelt in a small but very expensive cottage on
the outskirts of a pine forest a gentleman with his wife and two
children. It was a beautiful estate and the neighborhood was the very
best. Nobody for miles around was worth less than five million dollars.
One night the gentleman tapped at his wife's boudoir, and receiving
permission to enter, he said: "Pauline, I have been thinking about our
children. I overheard the governess say to-day that they are really
bright and interesting, and as yet unspoiled. Perhaps if they had a fair
chance they might amount to something."
"Reginald," replied his wife, "you are growing morbid about those
children. You will be asking to see them next." She shrugged her
gleaming shoulders, and rang for the maid to let down her hair.
"Remember our own youth and shudder, Pauline," said the gentleman. "It's
a shame to allow Percival and Melisande to grow up in this atmosphere."
"Well," said the lady petulantly, "what do you suggest?"
"I think it would be wise and humane to abandon them. The butler or the
chauffeur can take them into the wood and lose them and some peasant may
find and adopt them, and they may grow up to be worthy citizens. At
least it is worth trying."
"Do as you please," said the lady. "The children are a collaboration;
they are as much yours as mine."
This conversation was overheard by little Melisande, who had stolen down
from her little boudoir in her gold-flowered nightdress for a peep at
her mamma, whom she had not seen for a long, long time. The poor child
was dreadfully frightened, and crept upstairs weeping to her brother.
"Pooh!" said Percival, who was a brave little chap. "We shall find our
way out of the wood, never fear. Give me your pearl necklace,
Melisande."
The wondering child dried her eyes and fetched the necklace, and
Percival stripped off the pearls and put them in the pocket of his
velvet jacket. "They can't lose us, sis," said he.
II
In the morning the butler took the children a long, long way into the
woods, pretending that he had discovered a diamond mine; and, bidding
them stand in a certain place till he called, he went away and did not
return. Melisande began to weep, as usual, but Percival only laughed,
for he had dropped a pearl every little way as they entered the wood,
and the children found their way home without the least difficulty.
Their father was vexed by their cleverness, but their mamma smiled.
"It's fate, Reginald," she remarked. "They were born for the smart set,
and they may as well fulfill their destinies."
"Let us try once more," said the gentleman. "Give them another chance."
When the servant called the children the next morning Percival ran to
get another pearl necklace, but the jewel cellar was locked, and the
best he could do was to conceal a four-pound bunch of hothouse grapes
under his jacket. This time they were taken twice as far into the wood
in search of the diamond mine; and alas! when the butler deserted them
Percival found that the birds had eaten every grape he had dropped along
the way. They were now really lost, and wandered all day without coming
out anywhere, and at night they slept on a pile of leaves, which
Percival said was much more like camping out than their summer in the
Adirondacks. All next day they wandered, without seeing sign of a road
or a château, and Melisande wept bitterly.
"I am so hungry," exclaimed the poor child. "If we only could get a few
_marrons glacés_ for breakfast!"
"I could eat a few macaroons myself," said Percival.
III
On the afternoon of the third day Percival and Melisande came to a
strange little cottage fashioned of gingerbread, but as the children had
never tasted anything so common as gingerbread they did not recognize
it. However, the cottage felt soft and looked pretty enough to eat, so
Percival bit off a piece of the roof and declared it was fine. Melisande
helped herself to the doorknob, and the children might have eaten half
the cottage had not a witch who lived in it come out and frightened them
away. The children ran as fast as their legs could work, for the witch
looked exactly like their governess, who tried to make them learn to
spell and do other disagreeable tasks.
Presently they came out on a road and saw a big red automobile belonging
to nobody in particular. It was the most beautiful car imaginable. The
hubs were set with pigeon blood rubies and the spokes with brilliants;
the tires were set with garnets to prevent skidding, and the hood was
inlaid with diamonds and emeralds. Even Percival and Melisande were
impressed. One door stood invitingly open and the children sprang into
the machine. They were accustomed to helping themselves to everything
that took their fancy; they had inherited the instinct.
Percival turned on the gas. "Hang on to your hair, sis!" he cried, and
he burnt up the road all the way home, capsizing the outfit in front of
the mansion and wrecking the automobile.
Their mamma came slowly down the veranda steps with a strange gentleman
by her side. "These are the children, Edward," she said, picking them
up, uninjured by the spill. "Children, this is your new papa."
The gentleman shook hands with them very pleasantly and said he hoped
that he should be their papa long enough to get really acquainted with
them. At which remark the lady smiled and tapped him with her fan.
And they lived happily, after their fashion, ever afterward.
LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD.
I
Once upon a time there was a little girl who was the prettiest creature
imaginable. Her mother was excessively fond of her, and saw her as
frequently as possible, sometimes as often as once a month. Her
grandmother, who doted on her even more, had made for her in Paris a
little red riding hood of velvet embroidered with pearl passementerie,
which became the child so well that everybody in her set called her
Little Red Riding-Hood.
One day her mother said to her: "Go, my dear, and see how your
grandmother does, for I hear she has been ill with indigestion. Carry
her this filet and this little pot of foie gras."
The grandmother lived in a secluded and exclusive part of the village,
in a marble cottage situated in the midst of a wooded park. Little Red
Riding-Hood got out of the motor when she came to the park, telling the
chauffeur she would walk the rest of the way. She hardly passed the
hedge when she met a Wolf.
"Whither are you going?" he asked, looking wistfully at her.
"I am going to see my grandmother, and carry her a filet and a little
pot of foie gras from my mamma."
"Well," said the Wolf, "I'll go see her, too. I'll go this way and you
go that, and we shall see who will be there first."
The Wolf ran off as fast as he could, and was first at the door of the
marble cottage. The butler informed him that Madame was not at home, but
he sprang through the door, knocking the servant over, and ran upstairs
to Madame's boudoir.
"Who's there?" asked the grandmother, when the Wolf tapped at the door.
"Your grandchild, Little Red Riding-Hood," replied the Wolf,
counterfeiting the child's voice, "who has brought you a filet and a
little pot of foie gras."
II
The good grandmother, who had eaten nothing for two days except a
mallard, with a pint of champagne, cried out hungrily, "Come in, my
dear."
The Wolf ran in, and, falling upon the old lady, ate her up in a hurry,
for he had not tasted food for a whole week. He then got into the bed,
and presently Little Red Riding-Hood tapped at the door.
The Wolf pitched his voice as high and unpleasant as he could, and
called out, "What is it, Hawkins?"
"It isn't Hawkins," replied Little Red Riding-Hood. "It is your
grandchild, who has brought you a filet and a little pot of foie gras."
"Come in, my dear," responded the Wolf. And when the child entered he
said: "Put the filet and the little pot of foie gras on the gold
tabouret, and come and lie down with me."
Little Red Riding-Hood did not think it good form to go to bed so very,
very late in the morning, but as she expected to inherit her
grandmother's millions she obediently took off her gold-flowered frock,
and her pretty silk petticoat, and her dear little diamond stomacher,
and got into bed, where, amazed at the change for the better in her
grandmother's appearance, she said to her:
"Grandmother, how thin your arms have got!"
"I have been dieting, my dear."
"Grandmother, how thin your legs have got!"
"The doctor makes me walk every day."
"Grandmother, how quiet you are!"
"This isn't a symphony concert hall, my dear."
"Grandmother, what has become of your diamond-filled teeth?"
"These will do, my dear."
And saying these words the wicked Wolf fell upon Little Red Riding-Hood
and ate her all up.
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK.
I
Once upon a time there was a very wealthy widow who lived in a marble
cottage approached by a driveway of the same stone, bordered with
rhododendrons. She had an only son, Jack--a giddy, thoughtless boy, but
very kindhearted, as many a hard-working chorus girl had reason to
remember. Jack was an idle fellow, whose single accomplishment was
driving an automobile, in which he displayed remarkable skill and
recklessness; there was hardly a day he did not run over something or
somebody. One day he bumped a very heavy workingman, whose remains
messed up the car so badly that Jack's mother lost patience with him.
"My dear," she said, "why don't you put your skill and energy to some
use? If only you would slay the giant Ennui, who ravages our country,
you would be as great a hero in our set as St. George of England was in
his."
Jack laughed. "Let him but get in the way of my car," said he, "and I'll
knock him into the middle of next month."
The boy set out gaily for the garage, to have the motor repaired, and on
the way he met a green-goods grocer who displayed a handful of beautiful
red, white, and blue beans. Jack stopped to look at what he supposed was
a new kind of poker chip, and the man persuaded the silly youth to
exchange the automobile for the beans.
When he brought home the "chips" his mother laughed loudly. "You are
just like your father; he didn't know beans, either," she said. "Dig a
hole in the tennis court, Jack, and plant your poker chips, and see what
will happen."
Jack did as he was told to do, and the next morning he went out to see
whether anything had happened. What was his amazement to find that a
mass of twisted stalks had grown out of his jackpot and climbed till
they covered the high cliff back of the tennis court, disappearing above
it.
II
Jack came of a family of climbers. His mother had climbed into society
and was still climbing. The funny thing about climbers is that they
never deceive anybody; every one knows just what they are up to. As Jack
had inherited the climbing passion he began without hesitation to ascend
the beanstalk, and when he reached the top he was as tired as if he had
spent the day laying bricks or selling goods behind a counter; but he
perked up when he beheld a fairy in pink tights who looked very much
like a coryphée in the first row of "The Girly Girl."
"Is this a roof garden?" asked Jack, looking about him curiously.
"No, kid," replied the Fairy, tapping him playfully with her spear. "You
are in the Land of Pleasure, and in yonder castle lives a horrid Giant
called Ennui, who bores everybody he catches to death."
Jack put on a brave face and lighted a cigarette. "Has he ever caught
you, little one?" he asked.
"No," she laughed, "but I'm knocking wood. Fairies don't get bored until
they grow old, or at least middle-aged."
"It's a wonder," said Jack, "that the Giant doesn't bore himself to
death some day."
"He might," said the Fairy, "if it were not for his wonderful talking
harp, which keeps harping upon Socialism, and the single tax, and the
rights of labor, and a lot of other mush; but you see it keeps Ennui
stirred up, so that he is never bored entirely stiff."
"Well," said Jack, "me for that harp, if I die for it!" And thanking
Polly Twinkletoes for her information, and promising to buy her a supper
when he got his next allowance, he sauntered toward the castle. As he
paused before the great gate it was opened suddenly by a most unpleasant
looking giantess.
"Ho! ho!" she cried, seizing Jack by the arm, "you're the young scamp
who sold me that lightning cleaner last week. I'll just keep you till
you take the spots out of my husband's Sunday pants. If you don't, he'll
knock the spots out of _you_!"
III
While the Giantess spoke she dragged Jack into the castle. "Into this
wardrobe," said she; "and mind you don't make the smallest noise, or my
man will wring your neck. He takes a nap after dinner, and then you'll
have a chance to demonstrate that grease-eradicator you sold me last
week."
The wardrobe was as big as Jack's yacht, and the key-hole as big as a
barrel, so the boy could see everything that took place without.
Presently the castle was shaken as if by an earthquake, and a great
voice roared: "Wife! wife! I smell gasoline!"
Jack trembled, remembering that in tinkering around his car that morning
he had spilled gas on his clothes.
"Be quiet!" replied the Giantess. "It's only the lightning-cleaner which
that scamp of a peddler sold me the other day."
The Giant ate a couple of sheep; then, pushing his plate away, he called
for his talking harp. And while he smoked, the harp rattled off a long
string of stuff about the equal liability of all men to labor, the
abolition of the right of inheritance, and kindred things. Jack resolved
that when he got hold of the harp he would serve it at a formal
dinner, under a great silver cover. What a sensation it would cause
among his guests when it began to sing its little song about the
abolition of the right of inheritance!
In a short time the Giant fell asleep, for the harp, like many
reformers, became wearisome through exaggeration of statement. Jack
slipped from the wardrobe, seized the harp, and ran out of the castle.
"Master! Master!" cried the music-maker. "Wake up! We are betrayed!"
Glancing back, Jack saw the Giant striding after him, and gave himself
up for lost; but at that moment he heard his name called, and he saw the
Fairy, Polly Twinkletoes, beckoning to him from a taxicab. Jack sprang
into the machine and they reached the beanstalk a hundred yards ahead of
the giant. Down the stalk they slipped and dropped, the Giant lumbering
after. Once at the bottom, Jack ran to the garage and got out his
man-killer, and when the Giant reached ground he was knocked, as Jack
had promised, into the middle of the proximate month.
Our hero married the Fairy, much against his mother's wishes; she knew
her son all too well, and she felt certain that she should soon come to
know Polly as well, and as unfavorably. Things turned out no better than
she had expected. After a month of incompatibility, and worse, Polly
consented to a divorce in consideration of one hundred thousand dollars,
and they all lived happily ever afterward.
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
"_Fay ce que vouldras._"
"FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS."
_Do what thou wilt._ Long known to fame
That ancient motto of Thélème.
To this our abbey hither bring,
Wisdom or wit, thine offering,
Or low or lofty be thine aim.
Here is no virtue in a name,
But all are free to play the game.
Here, welcome as the flow'rs of Spring,
_Do what thou wilt._
Each in these halls a place may claim,
And is, if sad, alone to blame.
Kick up thy heels and dance and sing--
To any wild conceit give wing--
Be fool or sage, 'tis all the same--
_Do what thou wilt._
* * *
That was an amusing tale of the man who complained of injuries resulting
from a loaded seegar. He knew when he smoked it that it was a trick
weed, and knew that it would explode, but he "didn't know when." He
reminds us very strongly of a parlor bolshevist.
* * *
"Man," as they sing in "Princess Ida," "is nature's sole mistake." And
he never appears more of a rummy than when some woman kills herself for
him, in his embarrassed presence. His first thought is always of
himself.
* * *
A history exam in a public school contains this delightful information:
"Patrick Henry said, 'I rejoice that I have but one country to live
for.'"
* * *
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. There are some who,
like a certain capable rounder, lately departed, have time to manage a
large business, maintain two or more domestic establishments, razz,
jazz, get drunk, and fight; while others of us cannot find time in the
four and twenty hours to do half the things we wish to achieve. Although
your orator has nothing to do but "write a few headlines and go home,"
as Old Bill Byrne says, night overtakes him with half his chores undone.
Time gallops withal.
* * *
"They know what they like."
There are exceptions. The author of "Set Down in Malice" mentions a
number, the most conspicuous being Ernest Newman. And we recall an
exception, Mr. Jimmie Whittaker, merriest of critics, who was so far
from knowing what he liked that he adopted the plan, in considering the
Symphony concerts, of praising the even numbers one week and damning
the even numbers the following week.
* * *
Like Ernest Newman, we shall never again hear the Chopin Funeral March
without being reminded of Mr. Sidgwick's summary: "Most funeral marches
seem to cheer up in the middle and become gloomy again. I suppose the
idea is, (1) the poor old boy's dead; (2) well, after all, he's probably
gone to heaven; (3) still, anyhow, the poor old boy's dead."
* * *
Our readers, we swear, know everything. One of them writes from La
Crosse that Debussy's "Canope" has nothing to do with the planet
Canopus, but refers to the ancient Egyptian city of that name. Mebbe so
(we should like proof of it), but what of it?--as Nero remarked when
they told him Rome was afire. The Debussy music does as well for the
star as for the city. It is ethereal, far away, and it leaves off in
mid-air. There is a passage in "Orpheus and Eurydice" which is wedded to
words expressing sorrow; but, as has been pointed out, the music would
go as well or better with words expressing joy.
* * *
"Lincoln," observed Old Bill Byrne, inserting a meditative pencil in the
grinder, "said you can fool all the people some of the time. But that
was in the sixties, before the Colyum had developed a bunch of
lynx-eyed, trigger-brained, hawk-swooping, owl-pouncing fans that nobody
can fool for a holy minute."
* * *
Fishing for errors in a proof-room is like fishing for trout: the big
ones always get away. Or, as Old Bill Byrne puts it, while you're
fishing for a minnow a whale comes up and bites you in the leg.
* * *
Whene'er we take our walks abroad we meet acquaintances who view with
alarm the immediate future of the self-styled human race; but we find
ourself unable to share their apprehension. We do not worry about lead,
or iron, or any other element. And human nature is elemental. You can
flatten it, as in Russia; you can bend, and twist, and pound it into
various forms, but you cannot decompose it. And so the "new order,"
while perhaps an improvement on the old, will not be so very different.
Britannia will go on ruling the waves, and Columbia, not Utopia, will be
the gem of the ocean.
* * *
"Woman's Club Will Hear Dr. Ng Poon Chew."--Minneapolis News.
We believe this is a libel on Dr. Poon.
* * *
The Greek drachma is reported to be in a bad way. Perhaps a Drachma
League could uplift it and tide it over the crisis.
* * *
THE DELIRIOUS CRITIC.
[From the Sheridan, Wyo., Enterprise.]
Replete with fine etherially beautiful melody and graceful
embellishments, it represents Mozart at his best, expressing in a form
as clear and finely finished as a delicate ivory carving that mood of
restful, sunny, impersonal optimism which is the essence of most of his
musical creations. It is like some finely wrought Greek idyl, the
apotheosis of the pastoral, perfect in detail, without apparent effort,
gently, tenderly emotional, without a trace of passionate intensity or
restless agitation, innocent and depending, as a mere babe. It is the
mood of a bright, cloudless day on the upland pastures, where happy
shepherds watch their peaceful flocks, untroubled by the storm and
stress of our modern life, a mood so foreign to the hearts and
environment of most present day human beings, that it is rarely
understood by player or hearer, and still more rarely enjoyed. It seems
flat and insipid as tepid water to the fevered lips of the young
passion-driven, ambition-goaded soul in its first stormy period of
struggle and achievement; but later, it is welcomed as the answer to
that inarticulate, but ever increasingly frequent, sign for peace and
tranquil beauty.
* * *
SOMEWHERE IN THE MICHIGAN WOODS.
Sir: Last night I disturbed the family catawollapus--née Irish--with,
"Are you asleep, Maggie?" "Yis, sor." "Too bad, Maggie; the northern
lights are out, and you ought to see them." "I'm sorry, sor, but I'm
sure I filled them all this morning." What I intended to say was that I
have taken the liberty of christening a perfectly good he-pointer pup
Jet Wimp. Hope it is not lese majesté against the revered president of
the Immortals.
Salvilinus Fontanalis.
* * *
A Sheboygan merchant announces a display of "what Dame Nature has
decreed women shall wear this fall and winter."
* * *
In considering additions to the Academy of Immortals shall Anna
Quaintance be forgot? She lives in Springfield.
* * *
A box-office man has won the politeness prize. Topsy-turvy world, did
you say?
* * *
We lamp by the rural correspondence that Mrs. Alfred Snow of Chili,
Wis., is on her way to Bismarck, N. D. It is suggested that she detour
to Hot Springs and warm up a bit.
* * *
_BLAKE COMES BACK._
_Little Ford, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee gas and bade thee speed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee cushions hard and tight,
Bumpy tires small and white;
Gave thee such a raucous voice,
Making all the deaf rejoice?
Little Ford, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?_
_Little Ford, I'll tell thee,
Little Ford, I'll tell thee.
He is callèd by thy name,
Henry Ford, the very same.
He is meek and he is mild,
Is pacific as a child.
He a child and thou a Ford,
You are callèd the same word.
Little Ford, God bless thee!
Little Ford, God bless thee!_
_B. L._
* * *
EVERYBODY CAME IN A FORD.
[From the Milwaukee Sentinel.]
Miss Evelyn Shallow, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Shallow, and Raymond
Bridger, both of Little River, were married recently at Oconto.
* * *
Considering the pictorial advertisements, A. B. Walkley finds that that
triumphant figure of the active, bustling world, the business man,
divides his day somewhat as follows: He begins with his toilet, which
seems to center in or near his chin, which is prominent, square, firm,
and smooth; even the rich, velvety lather cannot disguise it. The
business man collects safety razors; he collects collars, too. He seems
to be in the habit of calling in his friends to see how perfectly his
shirt fits at the neck. Once dressed, he goes to his office and is to be
found at an enormous desk bristling with patent devices, pleasantly
gossiping with another business man. You next find him in evening dress
at the dinner table, beaming at the waiter who has brought him his
favorite sauce. Lastly you have a glimpse of him in pajamas, discoursing
with several other business men in pajamas, all sitting cross-legged and
smoking enormous cigars. This is the end of a perfect business day.
* * *
Mr. Kipling has obtained an injunction and damages because a medicine
company used a stanza of his "If" to boost its pills. While we do not
think much of the verses, we are glad the public is reminded that the
little things which a poet dashes off are as much private property as a
bottle of pills or a washing machine.
* * *
Animals in a new Noah's Ark are made correctly to the scale designed by
a London artist who studies the beasts in the Zoo. Would you buy such an
ark for a child? Neither would we.
* * *
Social nuances are indicated by a farmer not far from Chicago in his use
of table coverings, as follows: For the family, oil cloth; for the
school teacher, turkey red; for the piano tuner, white damask.
* * *
SHE SAT APART.
Sir: We were talking across the aisle. Presently the girl who sat alone
leaned over and said: "You and the lady take this seat. I'm not
together."
A. H. H. A.
* * *
THE G. P. P.
Sir: What is the gadder's pet peeve? Mine is to be aroused by the hotel
maid who jiggles the doorknob at 8 a.m., when the little indicator shows
the room is still locked from the inside. It happened to me to-day at
the Blackhawk in Davenport.
W. S.
* * *
BEG YOUR PARDON.
W. S. writes, after a long session with his boss, that the recent
announcement he was disturbed at 8 o'clock by the rattling of his hotel
door was a typographical error committed in this office (sic), the hour
as stated by him really having been 6.30 a.m.
* * *
The manager of the Hotel Pomeroy, Barbados, W. I., warns: "No cigarettes
or cocktails served to married ladies without husband's consent."
* * *
It is years since we read "John Halifax, Gentleman," but we must dust
off the volume. The Japanese translation has a row of asterisks and the
editor's explanation: "At this point he asked her to marry him."
* * *
Gadders have many grievances, and one of them is the small-town
grapefruit. One traveler offers the stopper of a silver flask for an
authentic instance of a grapefruit served without half of the tough
interior thrown in for good measure.
* * *
If Jedge Landis has time to attend to another job, a great many people
would like to see him take hold of the Senate and establish in it the
confidence of the public. It would be a tougher job than baseball
reorganization, but it is thought he could swing it.
* * *
YES?
You may fancy it is easy,
When the world is fighting drunk,
To compile a colyum wheezy
With a lot of airy junk--
To maintain a mental quiet
And a philosophic ca'm,
And to give, amid the riot,
Not a dam.
You may think it is no trick to
Can the topic militaire,
And determinedly stick to
Jape and jingle light as air--
To be pertly paragraphic
And to jollity inclined,
In an evenly seraphic
State of mind.
When our anger justified is,
And the nation's on the brink;
When Herr Dernburg--durn his hide!--is
To be chased across the drink;
When the cabinet is meeting,
And the ultimatums fly,
And the tom-toms are a-beating
A defy;
When it's raining gall and bitters--
You may think it is a pipe
To erect a Tower of Titters
With a lot of lines o' type,
To be whimsical and wheezy,
Full of {quip and quirk and quiz.
{quibbles queer and quaint.
Do you fancy _that_ is easy?
Well--it {is.
{ain't.
* * *
The dissolution of Farmer Pierson, of Princeton, Ill., from
rough-on-rats administered, it is charged, by his wife and her gentleman
friend, is a murder case that reminds us of New England, where that
variety of triangle reaches stages of grewsomeness surpassed only by
"The Love of Three Kings." How often, in our delirious reporter days,
did we journey to some remote village in Vermont or New Hampshire, to
inquire into the passing of an honest agriculturist whose wife, assisted
by the hired man, had spiced his biscuits with arsenic or strychnine.
* * *
On the menu of the Woman's City Club: "Scrambled Brains." Do you wonder,
my dear?
* * *
We quite understand that if Mr. Moiseiwitsch is to establish himself
with the public he must play old stuff, even such dreadful things as the
Mozart-Liszt "Don Giovanni." It is with Chopin valses and Liszt
rhapsodies that a pianist plays an audience into a hall, but he should
put on some stuff to play the audience out with. Under this arrangement
those of us who have heard Chopin's Fantasie as often as we can endure
may come late, while those who do not "understand" Debussy, Albeniz, and
other moderns may leave early. The old stuff is just as good to-day as
it was twenty years ago, but some of us ancients have got past that
stage of musical development.
* * *
THE MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT.
Sir: This story was related to me by Modeste Mignon, who hesitates to
give it to the "Embarrassing Moments" editor:
"Going down Michigan avenue one windy day, I stopped to fix my stocking,
which had come unfastened. Just as my hands were both engaged a gust of
wind lifted one of my hair tabs and exposed almost the whole of my left
ear. I was never so embarrassed in my life."
Ballymooney.
* * *
THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER.
[From the White Salmon Enterprise.]
The bridal couple stood under festoons of Washington holly, and in front
of a circling hedge of flowering plants, whose delicate pink blossoms
gave out a faint echo of the keynote of the bride's ensemble.
* * *
EVERYTHING CONSIDERED, THE COMMA IS THE MOST USEFUL MARK OF PUNCTUATION.
[From the El Paso Journal.]
Prof. Bone, head of the rural school department of the Normal
University, gave an address to the parents and teachers of Eureka,
Saturday evening.
* * *
Galesburg's Hotel Custer has sprung a new one on the gadders. Bub
reports that, instead of the conventional "Clerk on Duty, Mr. Rae," the
card reads: "Greeter, Rudie Hawks."
* * *
A communication to La Follette's Magazine is signed by W.E.T.S. Nurse,
N. Y. City. What is the "S" for?
* * *
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.
[From the Walsh County, N. D., Record.]
A quiet wedding occurred Friday, when Francis A. Tardy of Bemidji,
Minn., was united in marriage to Miss Leeva Ness.
* * *
THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER; OR, IT INDEED WAS.
[From the St. Andrew's Bay, Fla., News.]
Mrs. Paddock, Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Templeton, and Mrs. Cottingham, all of
whom are visiting Mrs. Turesdel, the hostess of Monday's picnic, were
keenly appreciative of such bits of beauty as the day revealed. Florida,
herself a hostess of lavish hospitality, seemed to be more radiant, and
when night came and the boat pulled her way out into the bay, still
another surprise awaited the northerners. In the wake of the boat
shimmered a thousand, yea, a million jewels. The little waves crested
with opals and pearls. The weirdly beautiful phenomena filled the
visitors with delighted wonder as they leaned over the water and watched
the flashing colors born of the night. As the lights of our city hove
into view, the voice of Mrs. Templeton, a voice marvelously sweet, sang
"The End of a Perfect Day," as indeed it was.
* * *
A "masquerade pie supper" was given in Paris, Ill., last week. The kind
of pie used is not mentioned, but it must have been either cranberry or
sweet potato.
* * *
CONTRETEMPS IN WYOMING SOCIETY.
[From the Sheridan Post.]
No finer dressed party of men and women ever assembled together in this
city than those who took part in the ball given by the bachelors of
Sheridan to their married friends. Many of the costumes deserve mention,
but the Post man is not capable of describing them properly. The supper
and refreshments were of the kind that all appreciated, and was served
at just the right time by obliging waiters, who seemed to enter into the
spirit of the times and make every one feel satisfied. Only one
deplorable thing transpired at the dance, and it was nobody's fault. Dr.
Newell had the misfortune to lean too far forward when bowing to a lady
and tear his pants across the seams. He had filled his program, and had
a beautiful partner for each number, but he had to back off and sit
down.
* * *
MERCIFULLY SEPARATED.
Sir: A fellow-gadder is sitting opposite me at this writing table. It
seems that some old friend of his in Texas, out of work, funds, and
food, has written him for aid, and he is replying: "Glad you're so far
away, so we sha'n't see each other starve to death."
Sim Nic.
* * *
Freedom shrieked when Venizelos fell. But Freedom has grown old and
hysterical, and shrieks on very little occasion.
* * *
The attitude of the Greeks toward "that fine democrat Venizelos" reminds
our learned contemporary the Journal of the explanation given by the
ancient Athenian who voted against Aristides: he was tired of hearing
him called "the Just." It is an entirely human sentiment, one of the few
that justify the term "human race." It swept away Woodrow the Idealist,
and all the other issues that the parties set up. If it were not for the
saturation point, the race would be in danger of becoming inhuman.
* * *
The allies quarreled among themselves during the war, and have been
quarreling ever since. A world war and a world peace are much too big
jobs for any set of human heads.
* * *
ACADEMY NOTES.
Sir: If there is a school of expression connected with the Academy I
nominate for head of it Elizabeth Letzkuss, principal of the Greene
school, Chicago.
Calcitrosus.
Members of the Academy will be pleased to know that their
fellow-Immortal, Mr. Gus Wog, was elected in North Dakota.
We regret to learn that one of our Immortals, Mr. Tinder Tweed, of
Harlan, Ky., has been indicted for shooting on the highway.
* * *
TO MARY GARDEN--WITH A POSTSCRIPT.
So wonderful your art, if you preferred
Drayma to opry, you'd be all the mustard;
For you (ecstatic pressmen have averred)
Have Sarah Bernhardt larruped to a custard.
So marvelous your voice, too, if you cared
With turns and trills and tra-la-las to dazzle,
You'd have (enraptured critics have declared)
All other singers beaten to a frazzle.
So eloquent your legs, were it your whim
To caper nimbly in a classic measure,
Terpsichore (entranced reviewers hymn)
Would swoon upon her lyre for very pleasure.
If there be aught you _cannot_ do, 'twould seem
The world has yet that something to discover.
One has to hand it to you. You're a scream.
And 'tis a joy to watch you put it over.
_Postscriptum._
If there be any test you can't survive,
The present test will mean your crucifying;
But I am laying odds of eight to five
That you'll come thro' with all your colors flying.
* * *
It is chiefly a matter of temperament. And more impudence and assurance
is required to crack a safe or burglarize a dwelling than to cancel a
shipment of goods in order to avoid a loss; but one is as honest a deed
as the other. Or it would be better to say that one is as poor policy as
the other. For it is not claimed that man is an honest animal; it is
merely agreed that honesty profits him most in the long run.
* * *
ACADEMY JOTTINGS.
J. P. W.: "I present Roley Akers of Boone, Ia., as director of the
back-to-the-farm movement."
C. M. V.: "For librarian to the Immortals I nominate Mrs. Bessie Hermann
Twaddle, who has resigned a similar position in Tulare county,
California."
* * *
This world cannot be operated on a sentimental basis. The experiment has
been made on a small scale, and it has always failed; on a large scale
it would only fail more magnificently. People who are naturally kind of
heart, and of less than average selfishness, wish that the impossible
might be compassed, but, unless they are half-witted, or are paid
agitators, they recognize that the impossible is well named.
Self-interest is the core of human nature, and before that core could be
appreciably modified, if ever, the supply of heat from the sun would be
so reduced that the noblest enthusiasm would be chilled. The utmost
achievable in this sad world is an enlightened self-interest. This we
expect of the United States when the peace makers gather. Anything more
selfish would be a reproach to our professed principles. Anything less
selfish would be a reproach to our intelligence.
* * *
I SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR, IT WENT RIGHT THROUGH
MISS BURROUGHS' HAIR.
[From the Dallas Bulletin.]
We quote Miss Burroughs: "I don't think B. L. T. is so good any more--it
takes an intelligent person to comprehend his meaning half the time."
* * *
The world is running short of carbonic acid, the British Association is
told by Prof. Petrie. "The decomposition of a few more inches of
silicates over the globe will exhaust the minute fraction of carbonic
acid that still remains, and life will then become impossible." But
cheer up. The Boston Herald assures us that "there is no immediate cause
of alarm." Nevertheless we are disturbed. We had figured on the sun
growing cold, but if we are to run out of carbonic acid before the sun
winds up its affairs, a little worry will not be amiss. However,
everybody will be crazy as a hatter before long, so what does it matter?
Ten years ago Forbes Winslow wrote, after studying the human race and
the lunacy statistics of a century: "I have no hesitation in stating
that the human race has degenerated and is still progressing in a
downward direction. We are gradually approaching, with the decadence of
youth, a near proximity to a nation of madmen."
* * *
AS JOYCE KILMER MIGHT HAVE SAID.
[Kit Morley in the New York Evening Post.]
"_The Chicago Tribune owns forests of pulp wood._"
--Full-page advt.
I think that I shall never see
Aught lovely as a pulpwood tree.
A tree that grows through sunny noons
To furnish sporting page cartoons.
A tree whose fibre and whose pith
Will soon be Gumps by Sidney Smith,
And make to smile and eke _ha ha!_ go
The genial people of Chicago.
A tree whose grace, toward heaven rising,
Men macerate for advertising--
A tree that lifts her arms and laughs
To be made into paragraphs....
How enviable is that tree
That's growing pulp for B. L. T.
* * *
"Remake the World" is a large order--too large for statesmen. Two lovers
underneath the Bough may remake the world, remold it nearer to the
heart's desire--or come as near to it as possible; but not a gathering
of political graybeards. For better or worse the world is made; all we
can do is modify it here and there.
* * *
THE SECOND POST
[A Swedish lady seeks congenial employment.]
Madam: A few days ago I were happy enough to meet Mrs. J. Hansley and
she told me that you migh possible want to engauge a lady to work for
you. I am swede, in prime of like, in superb health, queite of habits,
and can handle a ordinary house. I can give references as to
characktar. If you want me would you kindly write and state wadges. Or
if you don't, would you do a stranger a favour and put me in thuch wit
any friend that want help. I hold a very good situation in a way, but I
am made to eat in the kitchen and made to feel in every way that I am a
inferior. I dont like that. I dont want a situation of that kind. They
are kind to me most sertainly in a way, but as I jused to be kind to my
favorite saddle horse. I dont want that kind of soft soap. Yours very
respecktfully, etc.
* * *
A WISCONSIN PARABLE.
[From the Fort Atkinson Union.]
A friend asks us why we keep on pounding La Follette. He says there is
no use pounding away at a man after he's dead. Maybe we are like the man
who was whaling a dead dog that had killed his sheep. "What are you
whaling that cur for?" said a neighbor. "There is no use in that; he's
dead." "Well," said the man, "I'll learn him, damn him, that there is
punishment after death."
* * *
Another way to impress upon the world the fact that you have lived in it
is to scratch matches on walls and woodwork. A banged door leaves no
record except in the ear processes of the persons sitting near the
door, whereas match scratches are creative work.
Lives of such men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Match-marks on the walls of time.
* * *
HE SHOULD.
Sir: Mr. Treetop, 6 feet 2 inches, is a porter at the St. Nicholas
Hotel, Decatur. Would he add anything to the landscape gardening
surrounding the Academy of Immortals?
W. N. C.
* * *
WHY THE EDITOR BEAT IT.
[From the Marengo Republican-News.]
Baptist Church, 7:30 p.m.--Popular evening service. Subject, "Fools and
Idiots." A large number are expected.
* * *
Speaking again of "experience essential but not necessary," it was a
gadder who observed to a fellow traveler in the smoker: "It is not only
customary, but we have been doing it right along."
* * *
"Even now," remarks an editorial colleague, "the person who says 'It is
I' is conscious of a precise effort which exaggerates the ego." No such
effort is made by one of our copyreaders, who never changes 'who' or
'whom' in a piece of telegraph copy; because, says he, "I never know
which is right."
* * *
HERE IT IS AGAIN.
[From the classified ads.]
Saleslady, attractive, energetic, ambitious hustler. Selling
experience essential but not necessary. Fred'k H. Bartlett & Co.
Her attractiveness, perchance, is also essential but not necessary.
* * *
We see by the lith'ry notes that Vance Thompson has published another
book. Probably we told you about the farmer in Queechee at whose house
Vance boarded one summer. "He told me he was going to do a lot of
writing," said the h. h. s. of t. to us, "and got me to hitch up and
drive over to Pittsfield and buy him a quart bottle of ink. And dinged
if he didn't give me the bottle, unopened, when he went back to town in
the fall."
* * *
AFTER READING HARVEY'S WEEKLY.
I love Colonel Harvey,
His stuff is so warm,
And if you don't bite him
He'll do you no harm.
I'll sit by the fire
And feed him raw meat,
And Harvey will roar me
Clear off'n my feet.
* * *
The Nobel prize for the best split infinitive has been awarded to the
framer of the new administrative code of the state of Washington, which
contains this:
"To, in case of an emergency requiring expenditures in excess of the
amount appropriated by the legislature for any institution of the state,
state officer, or department of the state government, and upon the
written request of the governing authorities of the institution, the
state officer, or the head of the department, and in case the board by a
majority vote of all its members determines that the public interest
requires it, issue a permit in writing," etc.
* * *
"'When this art reaches so high a standard the Post deems it a duty to
publicly commend it.'--Edward A. Grozier, Editor and Publisher the
Boston Post."
But ought a Bostonian to split his infinitives in public? It doesn't
seem decent.
* * *
Every now and then a suburban train falls to pieces, and the trainmen
wonder why. "What do you know about that?" they say. "It was as good as
new this morning." It never occurs to them that the slow but sure
weakening of the rolling stock is due to Rule 7 in the "Instructions to
Trainmen," which requires conductors and brakemen to close coach doors
as violently as possible. Although not required to, many passengers
imitate the trainmen. With them it is a desire to make a noise in the
world. If a man cannot attract attention in the arts and the
professions, a sure way is to bang doors behind him.
* * *
DOXOLOGY.
Praise Hearst, from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Hearst, who runs things here below.
Praise them who make him manifest--
Praise Andy L. and all the rest.
Praise Hearst because the world is round,
Because the seas with salt abound,
Because the water's always wet,
And constellations rise and set.
Praise Hearst because the grass is green,
And pleasant flow'rs in spring are seen;
Praise him for morning, night and noon.
Praise him for stars and sun and moon.
Praise Hearst, our nation's aim and end,
Humanity's unselfish friend;
And who remains, for all our debt,
A modest sweet white violet.
* * *
We like Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Kubla Khan, and many other
unfinished things, but we have always let unfinished novels
alone--unless you consider unfinished the yarn that "Q" finished for
Stevenson. And so we are unable to appreciate the periodical eruptions
of excitement over "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Were we to read it, we
dessay we should be as nutty as the Dickens fans.
* * *
Mr. Basso, second violin in the Minneapolis Orchestra, would seem to
have missed his vocation by a few seats.
* * *
MY DEAR, YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN FRED!
[From the Milwaukee Sentinel.]
In this one, the orchestra became a troupe of gayly appareled
ballerinas, whirling in splendid abandon, with Mr. Stock as première.
* * *
One lamps by the advertisements that the Fokines are to dance
Beethoven's "Moonshine" sonata. The hootch-kootch, as it were.
* * *
OFT IN THE STILLY WISCONSIN NIGHT.
Sir: California may have the most sunshine, but I'll bet Wisconsin has
the most moonshine.
E. C. M.
* * *
Did ever a presidential candidate say a few kind words for art and
literature, intimate the part they play in the civilizing of a nation,
and promise to further them by all means in his power, that the people
should not sink deeper into the quagmire of materialism? Probably not.
* * *
"Hercules, when only a baby, strangled two servants," according to a
bright history student. Nobody thought much about it in those days, as
there were plenty to be had.
* * *
Absolute zero in entertainment has been achieved. A young woman recited
or declaimed the imperishable Eighteenth Amendment in an Evanston
church.
* * *
With Jedge Landis at the head of grand baseball and Mary Garden at the
head of grand opera, the future of the greatest outdoor and indoor
sports is temporarily assured.
* * *
Rome toddled before its fall.
The Delectable River.
I.--DOCTOR MAYHEW'S SHOP.
Stibbs the Grocer zigzagged like a dragon-fly about his crowded store.
Within the hour the supplies for our woodland cruise were packed in
boxes and tagged, and ready for transportation. It was a brisk
transaction; for Stibbs it was only one incident in a busy day. Outside
the trolley clanged, and a Saturday crowd footed the main street of the
Canadian city by the falls of the Saint Mary. It was hard to realize
that solitude and a primal hush were only a few hours away.
I contrasted the activity in the store of Stibbs with the drowse that
hung over another shop in the North Country where, in earlier years, I
used to buy my supplies. Doctor Mayhew kept the shop, which flourished
until a pushing Scandinavian set up a more pretentious establishment;
after which the Doctor's shop faded away like the grin of Puss of
Cheshire. One could not buy groceries of the Doctor in a hurry; one had
no wish to. I always allowed the forenoon, as there was much foreign
gossip to exchange between items, and the world's doings to be
discussed. The Doctor was interested in the remotest subjects. The
pestilences of the Orient and the possibility of their spreading to our
shores, and eventually to the North Country, gave him much concern; the
court life at St. James's and the politics of Persia absorbed
him;--local matters interested him not at all.
"Ten pounds of flour?"... The Doctor would pause, scoop in hand; then,
abruptly reminded of a bit of unfinished business at the warehouse, he
would leave the flour trembling in the balance and shuffle off, while I
perched on the counter and swung my heels, and discussed packs with Ted
Wakeland, another pioneer, who, spitting vigorously, averred that
packing grub through the brush was all right for an Indian, but no fit
task for a white man. Through the open door I could see the gentle
swells of the Big Water washing along the crescent of the beach and
heaping the sand in curious little crescent ridges. The sun beat hotly
on the board walk. There were faint sounds in the distance, from the
Indian village up the shore and the fishing community across the bay.
Life in this parish of the Northland drifted by like the fleece of
summer's sky.
"And three pounds of rice?"
The Doctor was back at the scales, and the weighing proceeded in
leisurely and dignified fashion. Haste, truly, were unseemly. But at
last the supplies were stowed in the brown pack, there were handshakings
all round, and a word of advice from old heads, and I marched away with
a singing heart.
Outfitting in the Doctor's shop was an event, a ceremonial, a thing to
be housed in memory along with camps and trails.
II.--THE RIVER.
He who has known many rivers knows that every watercourse has an
individuality, which is no more to be analyzed than the personality of
one's dearest friend. Two rivers may flow almost side by side for a
hundred miles, separated only by a range of hills, and resemble each
other no more than two women. You may admire the one, and grant it
beauty and charm; but you will love the other, and dream of it, and
desire infinite acquaintance of it.
These differences are too subtle for definition. Superficially, two
rivers in the North Country are unlike only in this respect, that one
has cut a deep valley through the hills and flows swiftly and shallowly
to its sea, and the other has kept to the plateaus and drops leisurely
by a series of cascades and short rapids, separated by long reaches of
deep water. Otherwise their physical aspects coincide. The banks of
archaic rock are covered with a thin soil which maintains so dense a
tangle that the axe must clear a space for the smallest camp; their
overhanging borders are of cedar and alder and puckerbush and osier;
their waters are slightly colored by the juices of the swampland;
following lines of minimum resistance, they twist gently or sharply
every little way, and always to the voyager's delight, for the eye is
unprepared for a beautiful vista, as the ear for a sudden and exquisite
modulation in music.
So winds the Delectable River--
"_through hollow lands and hilly lands_"--
idly where the vale spreads out, quickly where the hills close in; black
and mysterious in the deep places, frank and golden in the shoal. In one
romantic open, where the stream flows thinly over a long stretch of
sand, the bed is of an almost luminous amber, as if its particles had
imprisoned a little of the sunlight that had fallen on them through the
unnumbered years.
The River was somewhat low when I dipped paddle in it, and the ooze at
the marge was a continuous chronicle of woodland life. Moose and deer,
bear and beaver, mink and fisher, all the creatures of the wild had
contributed to the narrative. Even the water had its tale: a line of
bubbles would show that a large animal, likely a moose, had crossed a
few minutes before our canoes rounded the bend. There were glimpses of
less wary game: ducks and herons set sail at the last moment, and
partridges, perching close at hand, cocked their foolish heads as we
went by; two otters sported on a bit of beach; trout leaped every rod
of the way.
And never a sign of man or mark of man's destructiveness; nor axe nor
fire had harmed a single tree. A journey of unmarred delight through a
valley of unending green.
III.--SMUDGE.
"This," you say, as you step from the canoe and help to fling the cargo
ashore, "this looks like good camping ground."
The place is more open than is usual, comparatively level, and a dozen
feet above the river, which, brawling over a ledge, spreads into an
attractive pool. The place also faces the west, where there is promise
of a fine sunset; a number of large birches are in sight, and an
abundance of balsam. "And," you remark, stooping to untie the tent-bag,
"there are not many flies."
Instantly a mosquito sings in your ear, and as you still his song you
recall a recent statement by the scientist Klein, that an insect's wings
flap four hundred times in a second. The mind does not readily grasp so
rapid a motion, but you accept the figures on trust, as you accept the
distances of interstellar spaces.
Very soon you discover that you were in error about the fewness of the
flies. They are all there--mosquitoes, black-flies, deer-flies, and
punkies, besides other species strictly vegetarian. So you drop the
tent-bag and build a smudge. Experience has taught you to make a small
but hot fire, and when this is well under way you kick open a rotted,
moss-grown cedar and scoop up handfuls of damp mould. This, piled on and
banked around the fire, provides a smudge that is continuous and
effective. We built smudges morning, noon, and night. Whenever a halt
was called, if only for five minutes, I reached mechanically for a strip
of birchbark and a handful of twigs. At one camping place the ring of
smudges suggested the magic fire circle in "Die Walküre." Brunhilde lay
in her tent, in a reek of smoke, while Wotan, in no humor for song,
heaped vegetable tinder upon the defending fires. More than once the
darkening forest and the steel-gray sky of a Canadian twilight have set
me humming the motives of "The Ring," and I shall always remember a
pretty picture in an earlier cruise. "Jess" was a stable boy who drove
our team to the point where roads ceased, and during a halt in the
expedition this exuberant youth reclined upon a log, and with a pipe
fashioned from a reed sought to imitate responsively the song of the
white-throated sparrow. He looked for all the world like Siegfried in
his forest.
"Smudge." It is not a poetic word--mere mention of it would distress Mr.
Yeats; but it is potent as "Sesame" to unlock the treasures of memory.
And before the laggard Spring comes round again many of us will sigh for
a whiff of yellow, acrid smoke, curling from a smoldering fire in the
heart of the enchanted wood.
IV.--"BOGWAH."
We have been paddling for more than an hour, through dark and slowly
moving water. Two or three hundred yards has been the limit of the view
ahead, as the stream swerves gracefully from the slightest rise of land,
and flows now east, now north, now east, now south again. So long a
stretch of navigable water is not common on the Delectable River, and we
make the most of it, moving leisurely, and prisoning the everchanging
picture with the imperfect camera of the eyes. Presently a too-familiar
sound is heard above the dipping of the paddles, and the Indian at the
stern announces, "Bogwah!"--which word in the tongue of the Chippewa
signifies a shallow. And as we round the next bend we see the swifter
water, the rocks in midstream, and the gently slanting line of treetops.
"Bogwah" spells work--dragging canoes over sandy and pebbly
river-bottom, or unloading and carrying around the foam of perilous
rapids. For compensation there is the pleasure of splashing ankle-deep
and deeper in the cool current, and casting for trout in the "laughing
shallow," which I much prefer to the "dreaming pool." They who choose it
may fish from boat or ledge: for me, to wade and cast is the poetry of
angling.
Assured that the "bogwah" before us extends for half a mile or more, we
decide for luncheon, and the canoes are beached on an island, submerged
in springtime, but at low water a heap of yellow sands. And I wish I
might reconstruct for you the picture which memory too faintly outlines.
Mere words will not do it, and yet one is impelled to try. "All
literature," says Mr. Arnold Bennett, in one of his stimulating essays,
"is the expression of feeling, of passion, of emotion, caused by a
sensation of the interestingness of life. What drives a historian to
write history? Nothing but the overwhelming impression forced upon him
by the survey of past times. He is forced into an attempt to
reconstitute the picture for others."
And so you are to imagine a marshy, brushy open, circular in shape, from
which the hills and forest recede for a considerable distance, and into
which a lazy brook comes to merge with the Delectable River; a place to
which the moose travel in great numbers, as hoofmarks and cropped
vegetation bear witness; a wild place, that must be wonderful in mist
and moonlight. Now it is drenched with sunrays from a vaporless sky,
and the white-throat is singing all around us--not the usual three sets
of three notes, but seven triplets. Elsewhere on the River, days apart,
I heard that prolonged melody, and although I have looked in the bird
books for record of so sustained a song, I have not found it.
V.--FINE FEATHERS.
There is a certain school of anglers that go about the business of
fishing with much gravity. You should hear the Great Neal discourse of
their profundities. Lacking that privilege, you may conceive a pair of
these anglers met beside a river, seeking to discover which of the many
insects flying about is preferred by the trout on that particular
morning. There is disagreement, or there is lack of evidence. It is
decided to catch a trout, eviscerate him, and obtain internal and
indisputable evidence. For the cast any fly is used, and when the trout
is opened it is learned that he has been feeding on a small black
insect; whereupon our anglers tie a number of flies to resemble that
insect, and proceed solemnly with their day's work. Though the trout
scorn their fine feathers, they will not fish with any fly.
With the subtleties of this school I have no sympathy. They might be of
profit on waters that are much fished, but they are wasted on the
wilderness, where the trout will rise to almost any lure. When I make an
expedition I take along two or three dozen flies, for the mere pleasure
of looking at them, and rearranging them in the fly-book; but I wet
less than half a dozen. On the Delectable River we cast only when trout
are needed for the frypan. You are to picture canoes drawn up on a
sandbar, and a ribbon of black smoke curling from a strip of birch bark
that marks the beginning of a fire. It is time to get the fish. So I set
up my rod and walk upstream perhaps a hundred yards, casting on the
current where it cuts under the farther bank. Almost every cast evokes a
trout; this one takes the tail fly, a Silver Doctor, the next one
strikes the Bucktail dropper; any other flies would serve. The largest
fish is taken on my return, from under the stern of one of the canoes.
Where trout are so plentiful and so unwary, there is no call for the
preparatory work of the evisceration school of anglers.
My reason for using a dropper fly is not to offer the trout two
counterfeit insects differing in shape or color; as commonly attached to
the leader, the dropper swims with the tail fly. "Sir," said the Great
Neal, in the manner of Samuel Johnson, "when the dropper is properly
attached, as I attach it, two aspects of the lure are presented to the
fish, the one fly moving through the water, the other dancing an inch
or so above. This, Sir, is how I tie it."
And sitting at the Oracle's feet, ye learn "all ye need to know."
VI.--THALASSA!
Trails there are that one remembers from their beginnings to their ends,
because of the variety and charm of the pictures offered along the way.
Monotony marks the trails that fade from memory; they represent hours of
marching through timber of a second growth, or skirting hills where dead
sticks stand forlorn and only the fireweed blooms. Of rememberable roads
the last stage of our journey to the Great Water is the one I have now
in mind. It is the longest carry, two miles or less, sharply down hill,
though less precipitate than the river, which, after many days of
idling, now flings itself impatiently toward the shore. We linger where
it makes its first great leap. Many have come thus far from the south,
and, looking on the shallow pool beyond, have decided that there is no
profit in going farther; or they have explored a bit and, encountering
_bogwah_, have reached the same conclusion. Who would conjecture that
past the shallows lie leagues of deep and winding waters, reserved by
nature as a reward for the adventurer who counts a glimpse of the
unknown worth all the labor of the day? We who have come from the
headwaters know that nature has as wisely screened the river's source.
Where the lake ends is a forbidding tangle of water shrubs and timber;
the outlet is an archipelago of sharp rocks, and the stream, if found,
is seen to be small and turbulent.
The last carry keeps the Delectable River in view; foam, seen through
the firs, marks its plunging flight. And then we draw away from it for a
space, and cross an open thickly strewn with great stones, a sunlit
place, where berries and a few flowers are privileged to exist. A little
time is spent here in picking up the trail, which has spilled itself
among the stones; then, the narrow footway regained, we drop as quickly
as the river, and presently our feet touch sand. We break through a
fringe of evergreens and cry out as the Greeks cried out when they saw
the sea. The lake at last!--
_The river, done with wandering,
The silver, silent shore._
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
"_Lord, what fools these mortals be._"
ARMS AND THE COLYUM.
I sing of arms and heroes, not because
I'm thrilled by what these heroes do or die for:
The Colyum's readers think they make its laws,
And I make out to give them what they cry for.
And since they cry for stuff about the war,
Since war at this safe distance not to _them_'s hell,
I have to write of things that I abhor,
And far, strange battlegrounds like Ypres and Przemysl.
War is an almost perfect rime for bore;
And, 'spite my readers (who have cursed and blessed me),
Some day I'll throw the war junk on the floor,
And write of things that really interest me:
Of books in running brooks, and wilding wings,
Of music, stardust, children, casements giving
On seas unvext by wars, and other things
That help to make our brief life worth the living.
I sing of arms and heroes, just because
All else is shadowed by that topic fearful;
But I've a mind to chuck it [Loud applause],
And tune my dollar harp to themes more cheerful.
* * *
Listen, Laura, Mary, Jessica, Dorothy, and other sweet singers! Gadder
Roy, who is toiling over the pitcher-and-bowl circuit, wishes that some
poet would do a lyric on that salvation of the traveler, Ham and Eggs.
He doubts that it can be done by anybody who has not, time out of mind,
scanned a greasy menu in a greasier hashery, and finally made it h.
and e.
* * *
WE FEARED WE HAD STARTED SOMETHING.
Sir: Should G. E. Thorpe's typewritten communications carrying the
suggestion GET/FAT precede or follow our communications which carry
EAT/ME?
E. A. T.
THEY'RE OFF!
Sir: What position in your letter file, respecting the suggestions of
GET/FAT, will my typewritten letters land, as they end thusly: "HEL/NO"?
H. E. L.
SWEETLY INEFFECTIVE.
Sir: Perhaps the reason my collection letters have so little effect
lately is that these cheerless communications always conclude with
JAM/JAR.
J. A. M.
BUT APROPOS.
Sir: All this GET/FAT excitement reminds me of the case, so old it's
probably new again, of one Simmons, who wrote letters for one Green,
and signed them "Green, per Simmons."
W. S.
SORRY. THERE WERE SEVERAL IN LINE AHEAD OF YOU.
Sir: I have been waiting, very patiently, for some one to inform you
that the sincerity of A. L. Lewis, manager of the country elevator
department of the Quaker Oats Company, is sometimes made questionable by
the initials, ALL/GAS, appearing on his business correspondence.
O. K.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Received by a clothing company.]
Dear Sirs: I received the suits you sent me but in blue not gray as I
said. Don't try to send me your refuss, I am sending them back. I ain't
color blind or a jack ass, you shouldn't treat me as that. I understand
your wife is making coats for ladies now. Have her make one (dark) for
my wife who is a stout 42 with a fer neck. Now send me what I asked for,
the old woman is perticular. The trousers you sent wouldn't slip over my
head. Ever faithful, etc.
* * *
For Academy Ghost, or Familiar Spirit, P. D. Q. nominates Miss Bessie
Spectre of Boston.
* * *
"The lake is partially frozen over and well filled with
skaters."--Janesville Gazette.
Three children sliding on the ice,
Upon a summer's day,
As it fell out, they all fell in,
The rest they ran away.
Ma Goose.
* * *
There is plenty of snap to the department of mathematics in the
Shortridge high school in Indianapolis. The head of the department is
Walter G. Gingery.
* * *
Wedded, in Chicago, Otho Neer and Lucille Dimond. Fashion your own
setting.
* * *
Oh, dear! Rollin Pease, the singer, is around again, reminding sundry
readers of the difficulty of keeping them on a knife.
* * *
"THOSE FLAPJACKS OF BROWN'S."
(_Postscriptum._)
I'll write no more verses--plague take 'em!--
Court neither your smiles nor your frowns,
If you'll only please tell how to make 'em,
Those flapjacks of Brown's.
D. W. A.
Three cupfuls of flour will do nicely,
And toss in a teaspoon of salt;
Next add baking powder, precisely
Two teaspoons, the stuff to exalt;
Of sugar two tablespoons, heaping--
(All spoons should be heaping, says Neal);
Then mix it with strokes that are sweeping,
And stir like the Deil.
Three eggs. (Tho' the missus may sputter,
You'll pay to her protest no heed.)
A size-of-an-egg piece of butter,
And milk as you happen to need.
Now mix the whole mess with a beater;
Don't get it too thick or too thin.
(And I pause to remark that this meter
Is awkward as sin.)
Of course there are touches that only
A genius like Brown can impart;
And genius is everywhere lonely,
And no one but Brown has the art.
I picture him stirring--a gentle
Exponent of modern Romance,
With his shirttails, in style Oriental,
Outside of his pants.
* * *
THE DICTATERS.
Sir: I have lost a year's growth since I went into business in answering
questions about the letters that appear after my
communications--HAM/AND.
H. A. M.
Letters from the vice-president of the Badger Talking Machine Company of
Milwaukee are signed JAS/AK. What do you make of that, Watsonius?
The following was typed at the end of a letter received t'other day:
"HEE/HA."
Recurring to the dictaters, letters from the O'Meara Paper company of
New York are tagged JEW/EM.
Irene, she works for David Meyer,
Likes her job, not peeved a bit.
But when she ends a letter she
Marks it with this sign, DAM/IT.
Ferro.
* * *
Hint to students in the School of journalism: Always begin the
description of a tumultuous scene by saying that it is indescribable,
and then proceed to describe it until the telegraph editor chokes you
off.
* * *
To our young friend who expects to operate a column: Lay off the item
about Miss Hicks entertaining Carrie Dedbeete and Ima Proone; it is
phony. But the wheeze about the "eternal revenue collector" is still
good, and timely.
* * *
"I am a cub reporter," writes W. H. D., "and am going to conduct a
column in a few weeks, I think." Zazzo? Well, you can't do better than
to start with the announcement that Puls & Puls are dentists in
Sheboygan. And you might add that if the second Puls is a son the firm
should be Puls & Fils.
* * *
Our cub reporter friend, W. H. D., who expects to run a column
presently, should not overlook the sure-fire wheeze, "Shoes shined on
the inside."
* * *
Still undiscouraged by the failure of his "shoes shined on the inside"
wheeze to get by, the new contrib hopefully sends us the laundry slogan:
"Don't kill your wife. Let us do the dirty work."
* * *
When all the world is safe for democracy, only the aristocracy of taste
will remain, and this will cover the world. There is hardly a town so
small that it does not contain at least one member. All races belong to
it, and its passwords are accepted in every capital. Its mysteries are
Rosicrucian to persons without taste. And no other aristocracy was ever,
or ever will be, so closely and sympathetically knit together.
* * *
Whether Europe and Latin America like it or not, the Monroe Doctrine
must and shall be preserved. You may remember the case of the man who
was accused of being a traitor. It was charged that he had spoken as
disrespectfully of the Monroe Doctrine as Jeffrey once spoke of the
Equator. This the man denied vigorously. He avowed that he loved the
Monroe Doctrine, that he was willing to fight for it, and, if
necessary, to die for it. All he had said was that he didn't know what
it was about.
* * *
"There will be no speeches. The entire evening will be given over to
entertainment."--Duluth News-Tribune.
At least prohibition is a check on oratory.
* * *
We have just been talking to an optimist, whose nerves have been getting
shaky. We fancy that a straw vote of the rocking-chair fleet on a
sanitarium porch would show a preponderance of optimists. What brought
them there? Worry, which is brother to optimism. We attribute our good
health and reasonable amount of hair to the fact that we never flirted
with optimism, except for a period of about five years, during which
time we lost more hair than in all the years since.
* * *
May we again point out that pessimism is the only cheerful philosophy?
The pessimist is not concerned over the so-called yellow peril--at least
the pessimist who subscribes to the theory of the degradation of energy.
Europe is losing its pep, but so is Asia. There may be a difference of
degree, but not enough to keep one from sleeping soundly o' nights. The
twentieth or twenty-first century can not produce so energetic a gang as
that which came out of Asia in the fifth century.
* * *
"If I had no duties," said Dr. Johnson, "and no reference to futurity, I
would spend my life in driving briskly in a postchaise with a pretty
woman." And we wonder whether the old boy, were he living now, would
choose, instead, a Ford.
* * *
In time of freeze prepare for thaw. And no better advice can be given
than Doc Robertson's: "Keep your feet dry and your gutters open."
* * *
There was an Irish meeting in Janesville the other night, and the press
reported that "Garlic songs were sung." And we recall another report of
a lecture on Yeats and the Garlic Revival. Just a moment, while we take
a look at the linotype keyboard....
* * *
THINGS WORTH KNOWING.
Sir: A method of helping oneself to soda crackers, successfully employed
by a traveling man, may be of interest to your boarding house readers.
Slice off a small piece of butter, leaving it on the knife, then reach
across the table and slap the cracker.
V.
* * *
By the way, Bismarck had a solution of the Irish problem which may have
been forgotten. He proposed that the Irish and the Dutch exchange
countries. The Dutch, he said, would make a garden of Ireland. "And the
Irish?" he was asked. "Oh," he replied, "the Irish would neglect the
dikes."
* * *
A city is known by the newspapers it keeps. They reflect the tastes of
the community, and if they are lacking in this or that it is because the
community is lacking. And so it is voxpoppycock to complain that a
newspaper is not what a small minority thinks it ought to be. The fault,
dear Brutus, is not in our journals, but in ourselves, that we are
underlings.
Dissatisfaction with American newspapers began with the first one
printed, and has been increasing steadily since. In another hundred
years this dissatisfaction may develop into positive annoyance.
* * *
We tried to have a sign in Los Onglaze translated into French for the
benefit of Lizy, the linotype operator who sets this column in Paris,
and who says she has yet to get a laugh out of it, but two Frenchmen who
tried their hand at it gave it up. Perhaps the compositor at the
adjacent machine can randmacnally it for Lizy. Here is the enseigne:
"Flannels washed without shrinking in the rear."
* * *
To the fair Murine: "Drink to me only with thine eyes."
* * *
"Hosiery for Easter," declares an enraptured ad writer in the Houston
Post, "reaches new heights of loveliness."
* * *
If the persons who parade around with placards announcing that this or
that shop is "unfair" were to change the legend to read, "God is
unfair," they might get a sympathetic rise out of us. We might question
the assertion that in creating men unequal the Creator was actuated by
malice rather than a sense of humor, but we should not insist on the
point.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Received by a construction company.]
Dear Sir I an writhing you and wanted to know that can I get a book from
your company which will teach me of oprating steam and steam ingean. I
was fireing at a plant not long ago and found one of your catalogs and
it give me meny good idol about steam. I have been opiratin stean for
the last 12 years for I know that there are lots more to learn about
steam and I want to learn it so I will close for this time expecting to
here from you soon.
* * *
"Since Frank Harris has been mentioned," communicates C. E. L., "it
would be interesting to a lot of folks to know just what standing he has
in literature." Oh, not much. Aside from being one of the best editors
the Saturday Review ever had, one of the best writers of short stories
in English or any other language, and one of the most acute critics in
the profession, his standing is negligible.
* * *
Our young friend who is about to become a colyumist should certainly
include in his first string the restaurant wheeze: "Don't laugh at our
coffee. You may be old and weak yourself some day."
* * *
"One sinister eye--the right one--gleamed at him over the
pistol."--Baltimore Sun.
No wonder foreigners have a hard time with the American language.
* * *
BALLADE OF THE OUBLIETTE.
_And deeper still the deep-down oubliette,
Down thirty feet below the smiling day._
--_Tennyson._
_Sudden in the sun
An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone._
--_Mrs. Browning._
Gaoler of the donjon deep--
Black from pit to parapet--
In whose depths forever sleep
Famous bores whose sun has set,
Daily ope the portal; let
In the bores who daily bore.
Thrust--sans sorrow or regret--
Thrust them through the Little Door.
Warder of Oblivion's keep--
Dismal dank, and black as jet--
Through the fatal wicket sweep
All the pests we all have met.
Prithee, overlook no bet;
Grab them--singly, by the score--
And, lest they be with us yet,
Thrust them through the Little Door.
Lead them to the awful leap
With a merry chansonette;
Push them blithely off the steep;
We'll forgive them and forget.
Toss them, like a cigarette,
To the far Plutonian floor.
Drop them where they'll cease to fret--
Thrust them through the Little Door.
Keeper of the Oubliette,
Wouldst thou have us more and more
In thine everlasting debt--
Thrust them through the Little Door.
* * *
To insure the safety of the traveling public, the Maroon Taxicab Company
is putting out a line of armored cabs. These will also be equipped with
automatic brakes, so that when a driver for a rival taxicab company
shoots a Maroon, the cab will come to a stop.
* * *
A neat and serviceable Christmas gift is a sawed-off shotgun. Carried in
your limousine, it may aid in saving your jewels when returning from the
opera.
* * *
"The entertainment committee of the Union League Club," so it says, "is
with considerable effort spending some of your money to please you." In
the clubs to which we belong there is no observable effort.
* * *
Certain toadstools are colored a pizenous pink underneath; a shade which
is also found on the cheeks of damosels and dames whom you see on the
avenue. Poor kalsomining, we call it.
* * *
When we begin to read a book we begin with the title page; but many
people, probably most, begin at "Chapter I." We have recommended books
to friends, and they have read them; and then they have said, "Tell me
something about the author." The preface would have told them, but they
do not read prefaces. Do you?
* * *
Although ongweed to the extinction point by the subject of names, we
have no right to assume that the subject is not of lively interest to
other people. So let it be recorded that George Demon was arrested in
Council Bluffs for beating his wife. Also, Miss Elsie Hugger is director
of dancing in the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. Furthermore, S. W. Henn
of the Iowa State College was selected as a judge for the National
Poultry Show. Moreover, G. O. Wildhack is in the automobile business in
Indianapolis, and Mrs. Cataract takes in washing in Peoria. Sleepy
weather, isn't it?
* * *
SUCH A ONE MIGHT HAVE DRAWN PRIAM'S CURTAIN IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, AND
TOLD HIM HALF HIS TROY WAS BURNED.
[From the Eagle Grove, Ia., Eagle.]
The Rev. Winter was pastor of the M. E. Church many years ago, at the
time it was destroyed by a cyclone. Engineer Sam Wood broke the news to
Mr. Winter gently by shouting: "Your church has all blown to hell,
Elder!"
* * *
THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER.
[From the Lewisville, Ark., Recorder.]
The evening was most propitious. The air was balmy. The fragrance of
flowers was patent in the breeze. The limpid moonlight, in a glow of
beauty, kissed the hills and valleys. While from the vines and bushes
the merry twitter of playful birds, symphonies soft and low, entranced
with other delight, the romantic party goers. Now a still other delight
was in store--some fine music and good singing, which every recipient
enjoyed to the highest note. Thanks and compliments for such a model
evening were ornate and lavish and all left truly glad that they had
been.
* * *
FULL OF HIS SUBJECT.
[From the Evansville, Ind., Courier.]
Dr. Hamilton A. Hymes, pastor of Grace Memorial Presbyterian church, has
recovered from a recent illness, caused from a carbuncle on his neck.
His subject for Sunday night will be "Is There a Hell?"
* * *
THAT TRIOLET DRIVEL.
Will you can it or no?--
That Triolet drivel.
It irritates so.
Will you can it or no?
For the habit may grow,
And the thought makes me snivel.
Will you can it or no?--
That Triolet drivel.
D. A. D. Burnitt.
Yes, we'll can it or no,
As the notion may seize us.
If a thing is de trop,
Yes; we'll can it--or no.
For we always let go
When a thing doesn't please us.
Yes, we'll can it, or--no,
As the notion may seize us.
* * *
Sir Oliver Lodge has seen so many tables move and heard so many
tambourines, that he now keeps an open mind on miracles. We hope he
believes that the three angels appeared to Joan of Arc, as that is our
favorite miracle. Had they appeared only once we might have doubted the
apparition; but, as we remember the story, they appeared three times.
* * *
Sir Oliver may be interested in a case reported to us by L. J. S. His
company had issued a tourist policy to a lady who lost her trunk on the
way to Tulsa, Okla., and who put in a claim for $800. The adjuster at
Dallas wrote:
"Assured is the famous mind reader, and one of her best stunts is
answering questions in regard to the location of stolen property, but
she was unable to be of any assistance to me."
* * *
Some of the members of the Cosmopolitan club are about as cosmopolitan
as the inhabitants of Cosmopolis, Mich.
* * *
At the request of a benedick we are rushing to the Cannery by
parcel-post Jar 617: "Don't they make a nice-looking couple!"
* * *
ENGLISH AS SHE IS MURDERED.
Sir: After Pedagogicus' class gets through with Senator Borah's
masterpiece, it might look over this legend which the Herald and
Examiner has been carrying: "Buy bonds like the victors fought."
E. E. E.
* * *
The Illinois War Savings Bulletin speaks of "personal self-interest."
This means you!
* * *
"Graduation from the worst to the best stuff," is Mr. W. L. George's
method of acquiring literary taste. Something can be said for the
method, and Mr. George says it well, and we are sorry, in a manner of
speaking, not to believe a word of it; unless, as is possible, we both
believe the same thing fundamentally. Taste, in literature and music,
and in other things, is, we are quite sure, natural. It can be trained,
but this training is a matter of new discoveries. A taste that has to be
led by steps from Owen Meredith to George Meredith, which could not
recognize the worth of the latter before passing through the former, is
no true taste. Graduation from the simple to the complex is compatible
with a natural taste, but this simple may be first class, as much music
and literature is. New forms of beauty may puzzle the possessor of
natural taste, but not for long. He does not require preparation in
inferior stuff.
* * *
Speaking of George Meredith, we are told again (they dig the thing up
every two or three years) that, when a reader for Chapman & Hall, he
turned down "East Lynne," "Erewhon," and other books that afterward
became celebrated. What of it? Meredith may not have known anything
about literature, but he knew what he liked. Moreover, he was a marked
and original writer, and as that tolerant soul, Jules Lemaitre, has
noted, the most marked and original of writers are those who do not
understand everything, nor feel everything, nor love everything, but
those whose knowledge, intelligence, and tastes have definite
limitations.
* * *
BUT WOULD IT NOT REQUIRE A GEOLOGIC PERIOD?
Sir: You are kind enough to refer to my lecture on "Literary Taste and
How to Acquire It." I venture to suggest that your summary--viz.: "It is
to read only first-class stuff," not only fails to meet the problem, but
represents exactly the view that I am out to demolish. If, as I presume,
you mean that the ambitious person who now reads Harold Bell Wright
should sit down to the works of Shakespeare, I can tell you at once that
the process will be a failure. My method is one of graduation from the
worst to the best stuff.
W. L. George.
* * *
We do not wish to crab W. L. George's act, "Literary Taste and How to
Acquire It," but we know the answer. It is to read only first-class
stuff. Circumstances may oblige a man to write second-class books, but
there is no reason why he should read such.
* * *
THE STORM.
(_By a girl of ten years._)
It lightnings, it thunders
And I go under,
And where do I go,
I wonder.
I go, I go--
I know.
Under the covers,
That's where I go.
The little poet of the foregoing knew where she was going, which is more
than can be said for many modern bards.
* * *
THE EIGHTH VEIL.
(_By J-mes Hun-k-r._)
There was a wedding under way. From the bright-lit mansion came the
evocations of a loud bassoon. Ulick Guffle, in whom the thought of
matrimony always produced a bitter nausea, glowered upon the house and
spat acridly upon the pave. "Imbeciles! Humbugs! Romantic rot!" he
raged.
Three young men drew toward the scene. Ulick barred their way, but two
of the trio slipped by him and escaped. The third was nailed by Guffle's
glittering eye. Ulick laid an ineluctable hand upon the stranger's arm.
"Listen!" he commanded. "Matrimony and Art are sworn and natural foes.
Ingeborg Bunck was right; there are no illegitimate children; all
children are valid. Sounds like Lope de Vega, doesn't it? But it isn't.
It is Bunck. Whitman, too, divined the truth. Love is a germ; sunlight
kills it. It needs l'obscurité and a high temperature. As Baudelaire
said--or was it Maurice Barrès?--dans la nuit tous les chats sont gris.
Remy de Gourmont..."
The wedding guest beat his shirtfront; he could hear the bassoon
doubling the cello. But Ulick continued ineluctably. "Woman is a sink of
iniquity. Only Gounod is more loathsome. That Ave Maria--Grand Dieu! But
Frédéric Chopin, nuance, cadence, appoggiatura--there you have it. En
amour, les vieux fous sont plus fous que les jeunes. Listen to
Rochefoucauld! And Montaigne has said, C'est le jouir et non le posséder
qui rend heureux. And Pascal has added, Les affaires sont les affaires.
As for Stendhal, Flaubert, Nietzsche, Edgar Saltus, Balzac, Gautier,
Dostoievsky, Rabelais, Maupassant, Anatole France, Bourget, Turgenev,
Verlaine, Renan, Walter Pater, Landor, Cardinal Newman and the Brothers
Goncourt..."
Ulick seized his head with both hands, and the wedding guest seized the
opportunity to beat it, as the saying is. "Swine!" Ulick flung after
him. "Swine, before whom I have cast a hatful of pearls!" He spat even
more acridly upon the pave and turned away. "After all," he growled,
"Stendhal was right. Or was it Huysmans? No, it was neither. It was
Cambronne."
* * *
Though there has been little enough to encourage it, the world is
growing kinder; at least friendliness is increasing. Every other day we
read of some woman living pleasantly in a well appointed apartment,
supplied with fine raiment and an automobile, the fruit of Platonism.
"No," she testifies, "there was nothing between us. He was merely a
friend."
* * *
What heaven hath cleansed let no man put asunder. Emma Durdy and Raymond
Bathe, of Nokomis, have been j. in the h. b. of w.
* * *
THE TRACERS ARE AT WORK.
Sir: Please consult the genealogical files of the Academy and advise me
if Mr. Harm Poppen of Gurley, Nebraska, is a lineal descendant of the
w. k. Helsa Poppen, famous in profane history.
E. E. M.
* * *
Our opinion, already recorded, is that if Keats had spent fifteen or
twenty minutes more on his Grecian Urn, all of the stanzas would be as
good as three of them. And so we think that if A. B. had put in, say, a
half hour more on her sonnet she would not have rhymed "worldliness" and
"moodiness." Of the harmony, counterpoint, thoroughbass, etc., of verse
we know next to nothing--we play on _our_ tin whistle entirely by
ear--but there are things which we avoid, perhaps needlessly. One of
these is the rhyming of words like utterly, monody, lethargy, etc.;
these endings seem weak when they are bunched. Our assistants will
apprehend that we are merely offering a suggestion or two, which we hope
they will follow up by exploring the authorities.
* * *
Music like Brahms' Second Symphony is peculiarly satisfying to the
listener. The first few measures disclose that the composer is in
complete control of his ideas and his expression of them. He has
something to say, and he says it without uncertainty or redundancy. Only
a man who _has_ something to say may dare to say it only once.
* * *
Those happy beings who "don't know a thing about art, but know what they
like," are restricted to the obvious because of ignorance of form; their
enjoyment ends where that of the cultivated person begins. Take music.
The person who knows what he likes takes his pleasure in the tune, but
gets little or nothing from the tune's development; hence his favorite
music is music which is all tune.
We recall a naïve query by the publisher of a magazine, at a musicale in
Gotham. Our hostess, an accomplished pianist, had played a Chopin
Fantasia, and the magazine man was expressing his qualified enjoyment.
"What I can't understand," said he, "is why the tune quits just when
it's running along nicely." This phenomenon, no doubt, has mystified
thousands of other "music lovers."
* * *
A Boston woman complains that school seats have worn out three pairs of
pants (her son's) in three months. "Is a wheeze about the seat of
learning too obvious?" queries Genevieve. Oh, quite too, my dear!
* * *
Mr. Frederick Harrison at 89 observes: "May my end be early, speedy, and
peaceful! I regret nothing done or said in my long and busy life. I
withdraw nothing, and, as I said before, am not conscious of any change
in mind. In youth I was called a revolutionary; in old age I am called
a reactionary; both names alike untrue.... I ask nothing. I seek
nothing. I fear nothing. I have done and said all that I ever could have
done and said. There is nothing more. I am ready, and await the call."
A very good prose version of Henley's well known poem. As for regretting
nothing, a man at forty would be glad to unsay and undo many things. At
seventy, and decidedly at eighty-nine, these things have so diminished
in importance that it is not worth while withdrawing them.
* * *
A DAY WITH LORD DID-MORE.
"_Mr. Hearst is the home brew; no other hope._"
--_The Trib._
At his usual hour Lord Did-More rose--
Renewed completely by repose--
His pleasant duty to rehearse
Of oiling up the universe.
Casting a glance aloft, he saw
That, yielding to a natural law,
The sun obediently moved
Precisely as he had approved.
If mundane things would only run
As regularly as the Sun!
But Earth's affairs, less nicely planned,
Require Lord Did-More's guiding hand.
This day, outside Lord Did-More's door,
There waited patiently a score
Of diplomats from far and near
Who sought his sympathetic ear.
Each brought to him, that he might scan,
The latest governmental plan,
And begged of him a word or two
Approving what it hoped to do.
Lord Did-More nodded, smiled or frowned,
Some word of praise or censure found,
Withheld or added his "O. K."
And sent the ministers away.
These harmonized and sent away,
Lord Did-More finished up his day
By focusing his cosmic brain
On our political campaign.
And night and morning, thro' the land,
The public prints at his command
Proclaimed, in type that fairly burst,
The doughty deeds of Did-More Hearst.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[From a genius in Geneseo, Ill.]
Dear sir: I am the champion Cornhusker I have given exhibitions in
different places and theater managers and moveing picture men have asked
me why I dont have my show put into moves (Film). I beleave it would
make a very interesting Picture. We could have it taken right in the
Cornfield and also on the stage. It would be very interesting for farmer
boys and would be a good drawing card in small towns. I beleave we could
make 1000 feet of it by showing me driveing into the field with my extra
made wagon. then show them my style and speed of husking and perheps let
a common husker husk a while. I could also give my exibition on the
stage in a theater includeing the playing of six or eight different
Instruments. For instence when I plow with a traction engine or tresh I
also lead bands and Orchestra's.
* * *
There is a stage in almost everybody's musical education when Chopin's
Funeral March seems the most significant composition in the world.
* * *
The two stenogs in the L coach were discussing the opera. "I see," said
one, "that they're going to sing 'Flagstaff.'" "That's Verdi's latest
opera," said the other. "Yes," contributed the gentleman in the adjacent
seat, leaning forward; "and the scene is laid in Arizona."
* * *
Mr. Shanks voxpops that traffic should be relieved, not prevented, as
"the automobile is absolutely important in modern business life." Now,
the fact is that the automobile has become a nuisance; one can get about
much faster and cheaper in the city on Mr. Shanks' w. k. mare. Life
to-day is scaled to the automobile, whereas, as our gossip Andy Rebori
contends, it ought to be scaled to the baby carriage. Many lines of
industry are short of labor because this labor has been withdrawn for
the care of automobiles.
* * *
"Do you remember," asks a fair correspondent (who protests that she is
only academically fair), "when we used to read 'A Shropshire Lad,' and
A. E., and Arthur Symons, and Yeats? And you used to print so many of
the beautiful things they wrote?" Ah, yes, we do remember; but that, my
dear, was a long, long time ago, in the period which has just closed, as
Bennett puts it. How worth while those things used to seem, and what
pleasant days those were. Men say that they will come again. But men
said that Arthur would come again.
* * *
Our method: We select only things that interest us, assuming that other
people will be interested; if they are not--why, chacun à son goût, as
the cannibal king remarked, adding a little salt. We printed "The Spires
of Oxford" a long time ago because it interested us exceedingly.
* * *
A valued colleague quotes the emotional line--
"This is my own, my native land!"--
as palliation, if not justification, for the "simple, homely, and
comprehensive adjuration, 'Own Your Own Home.'" We acknowledge the
homeliness and comprehensiveness, but we deny the value of poetic
testimony. Said Dr. Johnson:
"Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru,"
which, De Quincey or Tennyson declared, should have run: "Let
observation with extended observation observe mankind extensively."
Poets and tautology go walking like the Walrus and the Carpenter.
* * *
BOLSHEVISM OF LONG AGO.
"A radical heaven is a place where every man does what he pleases, and
there is a general division of property every Saturday night."--George
S. Hillard (1853).
* * *
_LULLABY._
_In Woodman, Wis., the Hotel Lull
Is where a man may rest his skull.
All care and fret is void and null
When one puts up at Hotel Lull.
Ah, might I wing it as a gull
Unto the mansion kept by Lull--
By W. K. Lull, the w. k. Lull,
Who greets the guests at Hotel Lull._
* * *
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." But if, miraculously, it happens
in Chicago, it can, despite the poet's word, "pass into nothingness."
The old Field Museum, seen beneath a summer moon, when the mist is on
the lake, is as beautiful as anything on the earth's crust. Not to
preserve the exterior were a sin against Beauty, which is the
unforgivable sin.
* * *
"LEMME UP, DARLING! LEMME UP!"
[From the Detroit Free Press.]
My advertisement of Feb. 24 was error. I will be responsible for my
wife's debts.
Leo Tyo.
* * *
"I'll make the Line some day or jump into Great Salt Lake," warns
C. W. O. Pick out a soft spot, friend. We jumped into it one day and
sprained an ankle.
Alice in Cartoonland.
I.
"Hello!" said the Hatter. "I haven't seen you for a long time."
"No," said Alice; "I've been all over--in Wonderland, in Bookland, in
Stageland, and forty other lands. People must be tired of my adventures.
Where am I now? I never know."
"In Cartoonland," said the Hatter.
"And what are _you_ doing here?" inquired Alice.
"I'm searching for an original cartoon idea," replied the Hatter. "Would
you like to come along?"
"Ever so much," said Alice.
"The first thing we have to do is to get across that chasm," said the
Hatter, pointing.
Alice saw a huge legend on the far wall of the chasm, and spelled it
out--"O-b-l-i-v-i-o-n."
"Yes, Oblivion," said the Hatter. "That's where they dump defeated
candidates and other undesirables. Come on, we can cross a little below
here."
He indicated a thin plank that lay across the Chasm of Oblivion.
"Will it hold us?" said Alice.
"It has held the G. O. P. Elephant and the Democratic Donkey, and all
sorts of people and things. Let's hurry over, as here comes the
Elephant now, with Mr. Taft riding it, and the plank _might_ give way."
II.
"By the way," said the Hatter, "here is my hat store."
There were only two kinds in the window--square paper caps and high silk
hats. Alice had never seen paper caps before.
"They're worn by the laboring man," said the Hatter; "but you never see
them outside of Cartoonland. The plug hats are for Capitalists. I also
keep whiskers; siders for Capital and ordinary for Labor."
"O, there's a railroad train!" said Alice, suddenly.
"No use taking that train," said the Hatter; "it doesn't go. Did you
ever see an engine like that outside Cartoonland? And even if it did
work we shouldn't get very far, as the rock Obstruction is always on the
track."
"I'd just as soon walk," said Alice.
III.
"Mercy! there's a giant!" exclaimed Alice.
"Don't be alarmed," said the Hatter; "he's perfectly good natured."
"What an awful-looking creature!" said Alice.
"He's awfully out of drawing," said the Hatter, critically; "but, then,
almost everything in Cartoonland is. It's the idea that counts."
"You said you were searching for an original idea," Alice reminded him.
"But I don't expect to find one," the Hatter replied. "You see, it
wouldn't be any use; nobody would understand it. People like the old
familiar things, you know."
"Still, we might happen on one," said Alice. "Let's walk along."
IV.
Suddenly a door opened, and a great quantity of rubbish was swept
briskly into the street.
"That's the New Broom," said the Hatter. "There's been another election.
Evidently the Democrats won, as there goes the Donkey, waving his ears
and hee-hawing."
"Oh, is that a fruit store?" asked Alice.
"No; the Republican headquarters," replied the Hatter. "That huge
cornucopia you see is a symbol of Prosperity. Prosperity in Cartoonland
is always represented by a horn of plenty with a pineapple in the
muzzle. You've heard the expression, 'The pineapple of prosperity.'"
"No," said Alice, "but I've heard about the 'pineapple of politeness.'"
"That," said the Hatter, "is something else again."
V.
Presently they came to a collection of factories, the tall chimneys of
which poured out smoke in great volume.
"Those are the Smoking Stacks of Industry," said the Hatter.
"What do they manufacture here?" asked Alice.
"Cartoonatums," said the Hatter. "A cartoonatum," he explained, "is a
combination of wheels, rods, cogs, hoppers, cranks, etc., which
sometimes looks like a sausage grinder and sometimes like a
try-your-weight machine. It couldn't possibly go, any more than the
locomotives in Cartoonland."
"Why don't the Cartoonlanders have machines that _can_ go?" inquired
Alice.
"That," replied the Hatter, "would require a little study and
observation."
VI.
As Alice and the Hatter walked along they passed many curious things,
such as Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, the skin of a Tiger nailed to a barn
door, St. George and the Dragon, Father Knickerbocker, barrels of
political mud, a huge serpent labeled "Anarchy," a drug store window
full of bottles of Political Dope and boxes of Political Pills, an
orchard of Political Plum Trees, and other objects which the Hatter said
were as old as the hills. "I'm afraid there's nothing to hold us here,"
he declared.
Alice's attention was suddenly attracted by a little girl in a thin and
ragged dress who, with an empty basket on her arm, was gazing wistfully
at the goodies in a bakeshop window.
"She represents Poverty," said the Hatter. "When she isn't staring at a
bakeshop she's looking at a proclamation by the ice trust, or something
like that."
Alice spoke to the child and learned that she was one of a large family.
Her father, she said, was a New York cartoonist who one day had been
visited by an Original Idea.
"Where is he?" cried the Hatter excitedly.
"He dropped dead!" replied the child, weeping bitterly.
"Good night!" said the Hatter, and walked away.
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
_Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli._
--_Juvenal._
Question:
Who is this Juvenal wheezer?
Readers inquire every day.
Give us a line on the geezer--
What is he trying to say?
Do you expect us to get stuff
That is clear over our bean?
What is that "_Quicquid_, et cet." stuff?
What does the gibberish mean?
Reply:
If you're too lazy to look for
Juvenal's name in the Dic,
Why should _I_ go to the book for
Such a cantankerous kick?
Still, to avoid all dissension,
And my good nature to prove,
I am quite willing to mention
One or two things about Juve.
Juve was a Roman humdinger,
Writer of satires and sich.
He was consid'rable stinger--
Rare were his sallies and rich.
High his poetic position,
Lofty his manner and brow;
Lived in the time of Domitian;--
That's all I think of just now.
As for that "_Quicquid_, and so forth,"
I have but space to advise
If you'd decipher it go forth,
Look in the Dic and be wise.
Make it a point, in your reading,
Always to look up what's new.
That is a simple proceeding:
Why not adopt it? _I_ do.
* * *
IT HAS BEEN DONE.
Sir: Broke friend wife's favorite Victrola record. Told her about it.
She came back with, "Well, that's the only record you ever broke." Do
you think she was bawling me out or was she paying me a compliment?
E. P. P.
* * *
"Will the Devil complete the capture of the modern church?" inquires the
Rev. Mr. Straton of New York. Why is it assumed that the Old Boy is
attempting to capture it? People go to the Devil; the Devil doesn't have
to chase after them. The notion that Old Nick, is always around drumming
up business is an example of the inordinate vanity of man.
* * *
Dean Jones of Yale is credited with this definition
of freedom of speech: "The liberty to say
what you think without thinking what you say."
* * *
"ON SUCH A NIGHT..."
[From the Bethany, Mo., Clipper.]
After the serving of light refreshments the young ladies repaired to the
third floor and "tripped the light fantastic" while music waved eternal
wands. And then the whole company flocked in and enjoyed the beauties of
this grand home, lingering and chatting, with the enchanted spell of the
glorious evening still strong upon each one, until the crescent moon had
veiled her face and the vain young night trembled over her own beauty.
And then with expressed regrets that the hours had flown so rapidly the
guests bade a fair good night to their charming hostess.
* * *
TEMPERATURE.
An idea pushed along to us by L. O. K. has no doubt been seriously
considered by the Congress. It is to move the tubes of all thermometers
up an inch on the scale every fall, and down an inch in the spring. This
would make our winter temperature much more endurable, and our summer
temp. delightful.
* * *
LET US PERISH, RATHER, BY DEGREES.
Sir: Before the Congress adopts the idea of L. O. K. to move the tubes
of all thermometers up an inch on the scale every fall and down an inch
in the spring, I rush to inquire how shall we, who possess only a two
inch thermometer, on which an inch covers at least 70 degrees, be able
to withstand the extremes of climate? May I not suggest that the
Congress be petitioned to make the move by degrees instead of inches,
and thus avoid great suffering?
L. J. R.
* * *
You may have noted--nearly everybody else did--that Jean Paige and
Albert Smith were married in Paris, Ill., "at the farm residence of Mr.
and Mrs. Wigfall O'Hair." The Academy of Immortals attended in a body.
* * *
Commuters discuss many interesting topics, including the collection of
garbage. Mac was reminded of a Michigan lady of his acquaintance who,
with a new maid, was trying to pull off a very correct luncheon. In the
midst of it the maid appeared and said, "Oh, Mrs. Kennedy, the garbage
man wants a dime." The hostess, without batting an eye, replied: "We are
having company to-day. Better get a quarter's worth."
* * *
"'My mind is open on the question of garbage disposal,' Alderman Link
declared."
You know what he means.
* * *
HYMN OF HATE.
(_Reprinted at request of Mr. Hoover._)
Cranberry pie, or apricot--
We love them not, we hate them not.
Of all the victuals in pot or plate,
There's only one that we loathe and hate.
We love a hundred, we hate but one,
And that we'll hate till our race is run--
BREAD PUDDING!
It's known to you all, it's known to you all,
It casts a gloom, and it casts a pall;
By whatso name they mark the mess,
You take one taste and you give one guess.
Come, let us stand in the Wailing Place,
A vow to register, face to face:
We will never forego our hate
Of that tasteless fodder we execrate--
BREAD PUDDING!
Cranberry pie, or apricot--
Some folks like 'em, and some folks not.
They're not so bad if they're made just right,
Tho' they don't enkindle our appetite.
But _you_ we hate with a lasting hate,
And never will we that hate abate:
Hate of the tooth and hate of the gum,
Hate of palate and hate of tum,
Hate of the millions who've choked you down,
In country kitchen or house in town.
We love a thousand, we hate but one,
With a hate more hot than the hate of Hun--
BREAD PUDDING!
* * *
Since prohibition came in, says the Onion King, Americans have taken to
eating onions. As Lincoln prophesied, this nation is having a new breath
of freedom.
* * *
Asked what the racket was all about, the inspired waiter at the Woman's
Athletic Club replied, "It's the Vassar illumini."
* * *
In a soi-disant democracy "personal liberty" is an empty phrase,
bursting with nothingness. Personal liberty is to be enjoyed only under
a benevolent autocracy. It is contained wholly in the code of King
Pausole:
"I.--Ne nuis pas à ton voisin.
"II.--Ceci bien compris, fais ce qu'il te plaît."
* * *
There are many definitions of "optimist" and "pessimist." As good as
another is one that the Hetman of the Boul Mich Cossacks is fond of
quoting: "An optimist is a man who sees a great light where there is
none. A pessimist is a man who comes along and blows out the light."
* * *
"Two-piano playing is more or less of a sport, as the gardeners say,"
observes Mr. Aldrich in the New York Times. And we are reminded of
Philip Hale's review of a two-piano recital. "We have heard these two
gentlemen separately without being greatly stirred," he said in effect,
"but their combination was like bringing together the component parts
of a seidlitz powder."
* * *
Writes H. D., at present in Loz Onglaze: "Alphonse Daudet says that the
sun is the real liar, that it alone is responsible for all the
exaggerations of its favorite children of the south." And you know what
the sun does to Californians.
* * *
The Paris decision suggests a neat form letter for collection lawyers:
"We hope that you will not place us under the necessity of envisaging
the grave situation which will be created if you persist in failing to
meet this obligation."
* * *
FOR WHICH MUCH THANKS.
Sir: The Heraminer relates that James K. Hackett has refused to play the
title rôle in "Mary, Queen of Scots." Gosh, but this is a relief!
G. D. C.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[An order for a picture.]
Dear Sirs: I am sending you two photos and $5. I want you to have this
work done as perfect as possible, there is a little alteration which I
want made, which you will see as follows. Take the man from the single
picture, which is my father, and paint him standing behind my mother
which is setting in the chair on the grupe picture, or put him setting
in another chair beside the girl on the same picture whichever you think
will look the best to make a good picture, but I want the four persons
in one big good picture. You will see that the picture has a redish
flair, please try to get the others without any of that, also you will
see that our eyes in the grupe picture is raised too high, please fix
them looking natural, also put our eyebrows thick and natural, and make
our faces as pleasant looking as possible, also you will notice in the
picture that the girls dress is not sitting good from the waist down,
please fix that setting smoothly as the breeze was blowing so hard in
the yard that I could not keep my skirt setting in good shape around me,
so please rectefy all these foults which I mention and make me a good
picture as I want it to keep in memory of my family as we are now; you
may put it in rich brown or sepia pastel whichever you think suits the
picture the best, let the photoes be enlarged but full stature the same
as the origenal.
* * *
A FIG FOR CEREMONY!
[From the East Peoria Post.]
New Year's Day our young friends, Miss Hattie Cochran and Mr. Elias
King, without any ceremony at all were united in the bonds of holy
wedlock.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Received by the Chief of Police of Wichita, Kas.]
Der Sir: I am writing you to know if you have seen any thing of my wife
in Wichita. She run off from me and a feller told me he seen her in
Wichita having a big time. She is kinder Red Headed tolerable tall and
has got a prety Bust in fact she is perfectly made up and you mite know
of her by a Thing she has got tattooed on her rite thigh kindly in front
of her leg. I think they aimed it for a Hart with L. M. in it but they
kinder made a bum job of it and it is hard to make out what it is. If
you here of her let me know it at wounced and I will come rite up fur
her fur I want to See her bad. eny thing you let me no Surtenly will be
appreciate. Yours truly, (Name on File).
P. S.--I may come rite to Wichita myself and see if I can find her, but
you keep a look out fur her.
* * *
... What may interest you is that one of the Fords was owned by A. F.
Fender.
* * *
OPEN THE GATES!
Sir: That sound of hoof-beats heralds the arrival, to join the
Immortals, of Royal Ryder, a mounted copper in San Francisco.
G. Gray Shus.
* * *
Thanks to fifteen or twenty observant travelers for the info that the
manager of the drug department of the Alexander Drug Co. in Omaha is
George Salzgiver.
* * *
MISTER TOBIN, EDUCATOR.
A gentle, kindly man is he,
The soul of generosity;
Our little ones he gladly gives
The right to split infinitives.
The boys and girls who go to school
Approve of Mister Tobin's rule.
They find no cause to make complaint
At learning words like das't and ain't.
Two negatives has every boy,
And uses them with pride and joy
And every girl has utmost skill
In interchanging shall and will.
Those noble boys and girls decry
The priggish use of "It is I."
If you should ask, "Who was with he?"
They'd answer simply, "It was me."
Pantaletta.
* * *
It is not nice of readers to try to take advantage of our innocence.
M. L. J., for example, writes out the valve-handle wheeze in longhand
and assures us that "it is an exact copy of a letter received by a stove
manufacturing company in St. Louis, from a customer in Arkansas."
* * *
VARIANT OF THE VALVE-HANDLE WHEEZE.
(_Received by a drug concern._)
Gentlemen: Your postal received, regarding an order which you sent us
and which you have not, as yet, received.
Upon referring to our records, we fail to find any record of ever having
received the order in question. The last order received from your firm
was for a pair of flat cylindrical lenses to match broken sample you
enclosed. This was taken care of the same day as received and sent on to
you, properly addressed. We would suggest that you enter tracer with the
postoffice department in endeavor to locate the package.
Regretting that it is necessary for us to give you this information, we
remain, etc.
P. S. Since writing the above, the order in question was received at
this office--this morning.
* * *
THE VALVE-HANDLE SNEEZE.
Sir: The handle on the valve is missing, and I can't turn off the
radiator. The room was hot, and I've had to "open wide the windows,
open wide the door." The resultant draft has just brought a series of
"kerchoos" out of me. Valve-handle sneezes, I called them.
Sim Nic.
* * *
Miss Emily Davis weds Mrs. Charles Parmele.--Wilmington, N. C.,
Dispatch.
Why don't the men propose, mama, why don't the men propose?
* * *
THE SANDS OF TIME.
Whenever I observe a quartette of commuters at cards I regret that the
hours I gave to mastering whist were not given instead to the study of
Greek.
* * *
"The military salute," says our neighbor on the left, "is a courtesy of
morale when it proceeds from one fighting man to another." This was
impressed in 1918 upon a colored recruit who was hauled up for not
saluting his s. o. His explanation was, "Ah thought you and me had got
so well acquainted Ah didn't have to salute you no mo'."
* * *
THE TRUTH AT LAST!
Sir: Socrates and Epictetus did not learn Greek at 81--they were Greeks.
It was the Roman Cato who began to study Greek at 80.
C. E. C.
* * *
Now that we all know it was neither Socrates nor Epictetus who learned
Greek at 81 (because, you see, being Greeks they did not have to study
the language), you may like to know something about Julius Cæsar. He
was, narrates a high school paper, "the noblest of English kings. He
learned Latin late in life in order to translate an ecclesiastical work
into the vernaculary of the common people."
* * *
We are reminded by our learned friend, W. F. Y., that Socrates began at
64 to study English, but had to give it up as a bad job. "The fact," he
says, "is interestingly set forth in Montefiori's 'Eccentricities of
Genius.'"
* * *
The attitude of our universities and other quasi-educational
institutions toward Greek is that 81 is the proper age for beginning the
study of it.
* * *
Breathing defiance of the Eighteenth Amendment, Jay Rye and Jewel
Bacchus were married in Russellville, Ark., last Sunday.
* * *
The Wetmore Shop, on Belmont avenue, advertises "Everything for the
baby."
* * *
Sir: I feel that the time has come to call your attention to a letter
received from C. A. Neuenhahn, of St. Louis. It concludes CAN/IT.
A. E. W.
* * *
Persons who cannot compose 200 words of correct and smooth running
English will write to a newspaper to criticize a "long and labored
editorial." A labored editorial is one with which a reader does not
agree.
* * *
THINK OF IT!
Take any life you choose and study it.
Take Edgar Lee Masters':
He is a lawyer and a poet;
Or perhaps it is best to call him
A lawyer-poet,
Or a poet who was never much at law,
Or t'other way around if you prefer.
Whichever way 'tis put, the fact remains
He wrote a poem that now sells
For fifty cents plus four beans.
Think of it!
Four dollars and fifty cents,
Or, if you prefer,
$4.50.
And Elenor Murray did not have a cent on her
When they found her body on the banks
Of the Squeehunk river.
And the poem is out of stock at half the stores.
And Villon starved and Keats, Keats--
Where am I? I don't know.
Yseult Potts.
* * *
The headline, "U. S. to Seize Wet Doctors," has led many readers to
wonder whether the government will get after the nurses next.
* * *
We have always been in sympathy with President Wilson's idea of
democracy. He expressed it perfectly when he was president of Princeton.
"Unless I have entire power," said he, "how can I make this a democratic
college?"
* * *
The complete skeptic is skeptical about skepticism; and there is one day
in the round of days, this one, when he may lay aside his glasses,
faintly tinted blue, and put on instead, not the rose-colored specs of
Dr. Pangloss, but a glass that blurs somewhat the outlines of men and
things; and these he may wear until midnight. The only objects which
this glass does not blur are children. Seen through blue, or rose, or
white, children are always the same. They have not changed since
Bethlehem.
* * *
A very good motto for any family is that which the Keiths of Scotland
selected a-many years ago: "They say. What say they? Let them say." It
might even do for the top of this Totem-Pole of Tooralay.
* * *
A frequent question since the war began is, "Why are there so many damn
fools in the faculties of American universities?" Chancellor Williams
of Wooster turns light on the mystery. Eminent educators who are also
damn fools are hypermorons, who are intellectual but not truly
intelligent. He says of these queer beings:
"The hypermoron may laugh in imitation of others, but he has no original
humor and very little original wit. The cause for this is that original
wit and humor require unusual combinations of factors; but the very
nature of the hypermoron is that he does not arrange and perceive such
combinations. When the hypermoron does cause laughter from some speech
or action, usually he resents it. But when a normal man unconsciously
does or says something laughable, he himself shares in making sport of
himself. Though at times amiable, the hypermoron invariably takes
himself so seriously as in a long acquaintance to become tiresome."
* * *
THE ENRAPTURED SOCIETY EDITOR.
[From the Charlotte, Ky., Chronicle.]
The lovely and elegant home of that crown prince of hospitality, the big
hearted and noble souled Ab. Weaver, was a radiant scene of enchanting
loveliness, for Cupid had brought one of his finest offerings to the
court of Hymen, for the lovable Miss Maude, the beautiful daughter of
Mr. Weaver and his refined and most excellent wife, who is a lady of
rarest charms and sweetest graces, dedicated her life's ministry to Dr.
James E. Hobgood, the brilliant and gifted and talented son of that ripe
scholar and renowned educator, the learned Prof. Hobgood, the very able
and successful president of the Oxford Female college.
* * *
THE MISCHIEVOUS MAKE-UP MAN.
[From the Markesan, Wis., Herald.]
It is a wise man who knows when he has made a fool of himself.
A baby boy was born to Mr. and Mrs. Emil Zimmerman of Mackford
yesterday.
* * *
WHY THE MAKE-UP MAN LEFT TOWN.
[From the Grinnell Review.]
Born, April 19, to Professor and Mrs. J. P. Ryan, a daughter.
This experience suggests that simple scientific experiments performed by
college students would furnish a very interesting program of
entertainment in any community.
* * *
COOL, INDEED!
[From the Tuttle, N. D., Star.]
At the burning of a barn in Steele recently, our superintendent
displayed some nerve and pluck. Miss Sherman did not wait for the men to
get there but hastened to the barn without stopping to dress, and in
bare feet untied the horses before they had become unmanageable thus
saving them with little trouble. There is not a man, we venture to say,
in all Steele but would have stopped to put on his pants before
venturing out into the crisp air, but she did not, her whole thought
being of the dumb animals imperiled, and it was, indeed, a nervy and
cool-headed performance.
* * *
_RHYMED DEVOTION._
[Robert Louis Stevenson to his wife.]
_When my wife is far from me
The undersigned feels all at sea._
_R. L. S._
_I was as good as deaf
When separate from F._
_I am far from gay
When separate from A._
_I loathe the ways of men
When separate from N._
_Life is a murky den
When separate from N._
_My sorrow rages high
When separate from Y._
_And all things seem uncanny
When separate from Fanny._
* * *
Lacking the equipment of the monk in Daudet's tale, an amateur distiller
is gauging his output with an instrument used for testing the fluid in
his motor car's radiator. "Yesterday," reports P. D. P., "he confided to
me that he had some thirty below zero stuff."
* * *
Fish talk to each other, Dr. Bell tells the Geographic society; a
statement which no one will doubt who has ever seen a pair of goldfish
in earnest conversation.
* * *
According to Dr. Eliot, Americans are more and more becoming subject to
herd impulses, gregarious impulses, common emotions, and he is
considerably annoyed. Heaven be praised if what he says be true! He
would have individuality released; which is precisely what we do not
want. Americans are not individuals, and they are not free; but they
think they are. Therefore is America, in these troublous times, an
island in chaos, where civilization, like Custer, will make its last
stand.
* * *
Doctors disagree as to whether 70 degrees is the proper temperature for
an apartment. This will intrigue a friend of ours who, preferring 60
degrees himself, is obliged to maintain a temperature of almost 80
because of his mother-in-law.
* * *
"Women," says Dr. Ethel Smyth, of London (perhaps you know Ethel),
"women have undoubtedly invaluable work to do as composers." Quite so.
And any time they are ready to begin we'll sit up and take notice.
* * *
Sh-h-h! On Main street in Buffalo, near the Hotel Iroquois, you can have
"Tattooing Done Privately Inside."
* * *
Shall we not revise Shakespeare:
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty on the Boul.
* * *
A NEW FIRM IN FISH.
[From the Kearney Neb., Democrat.]
Fresh Smoked Finn & Haddies at Keller's Market.
* * *
Our interest in baseball has waned, but we still can watch workmen on a
skyscraper throwing and catching red-hot rivets.
* * *
The dinosaur, having two sets of brains (as we once pointed out in
imperishable verse), was able to reason _a priori_ and _a posteriori_
with equal facility. But what we started to mention was an ad in the
American Lumberman calling for "a good all around yellow pine office
man of broad wholesale experience, well posted on both ends."
* * *
Among the new publications of Richard G. Badger we lamp, "Nervous
Children: Their Prevention and Management."
* * *
Unrelieved pessimism rather shocks us. In spite of everything we are
willing to look on the bright side. We are willing to agree that, in
some previous incarnation, we may have inhabited a crookeder world than
this.
* * *
The valued News, of New York, dismisses lightly the fear that the
Puritan Sabbath will be restored. Ten or twenty years ago people
dismissed as lightly the fear that Prohibition would be saddled on the
country. On his way to the compulsory Wednesday-evening prayer meeting,
a few years hence, the editor of the News will recall his cheerful and
baseless prediction in 1920.
* * *
Fired by liquor, men maltreat their wives. These wretches deserve public
flogging; hanging were a compliment to some of them. On the other hand,
men made emotional by liquor have conceived an extravagant fondness for
their wives. We have not read about liquor floating the matrimonial bark
over the shallows of domestic discord; yet men who have fared homeward
with unsteady footsteps under the blinking stars, know that in such
moments they are much more humane than in sober daylight; they are
appalled by their own unworthiness, and thinking of their wives moves
them almost to tears--quite, not infrequently. They resolve to become
better husbands and fathers. The spirit of the wine in them captains "an
army of shining and generous dreams," an army that is easily routed, an
army that the wife too often puts to flight with an injudicious
criticism. It is said that since Prohibition came in the cases of
cruelty to wives have increased greatly in number. We do not disbelieve
this. Bluebeard was a dry.
* * *
WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE HE WANTS?
[Received by Farm Mechanics.]
Gentlemen: Will you please send me a specimen copy of the Farm
Mechanics. I would like a sample of the Farm Mechanics very much. I
sincerely trust that you will mail me a sample copy of Farm Mechanics as
I want to see a specimen of your Farm Mechanics very much. Yours very
truly, etc.
* * *
Although Mrs. Elizabeth Hash has retired from the hotel business, Mrs.
Peter Lunch has undertaken to manage the Metropole cafeteria in Fargo,
N. D.
* * *
POEMS OF SENTIMENT AND REFLECTION.
Sioux Falls
[From the Sioux Falls Press.]
What if we don't have palaces,
With damp and musty walls?
We have the great Sioux River,
And greater yet, Sioux Falls.
We don't have to go abroad,
God's beauties just to see,
But stay at home
And take a trip
Around Sioux Falls with me.
We confess a fondness for verse like the foregoing,
and hope some day to find a poem as good
as that masterpiece--
"I've traveled east, I've traveled west,
I've been to the great Montana,
But the finest place I've ever seen
Is Attica, Indiana."
Another popular pome of sentiment and reflection, heard by L. M. G. in
Wisconsin lumber camps, is--
"I've traveled east, I've traveled west,
As far as the town of Fargo,
But the darndest town I ever struck
Is the town they call Chicargo."
* * *
"USELESS VERBIAGE."
[From an abstract of title.]
"That said Mary Ann Wolcott died an infant, 2 or 3 years old, unmarried,
intestate, and that she left no husband, child, or children."
* * *
INGENIOUS CALIFORNIA PARADOX.
[From the Oakland Post.]
The Six-Minute Ferry route across the bay will take only eighteen to
twenty minutes.
* * *
ALMOST.
Sir: S. Fein has put his name on the door of his orange-colored taxicab.
Can you whittle a wheeze out of that?
R. A. J.
* * *
Knut Hamsun, winner of the Nobel prize for literature, used to be a
street-car conductor in Chicago. This is a hint to column conductors.
Get a transfer.
The Witch's Holiday.
A TALE FOR CHILDREN ONLY.
I.
Matters had gone ill all the day; and, to cap what is learnedly called
the perverseness of inanimate things, it came on to rain just as the
Boy, having finished his lessons, was on the point of setting out for a
romp in the brown fields.
"Isn't it perfectly mean, Mowgli?" he complained to his dog. The water
spaniel wagged a noncommittal tail and stretched himself before the wood
fire with a deep drawn sigh. The rain promised to hold, so the Boy took
down a book and curled up in a big leather chair.
It was a very interesting book--all about American pioneers, trappers,
and Indians; and although the writer of it was a German traveler, no
American woodsman would take advantage of a worthy German globe trotter
and tell him things which were not exactly so. For example, if you and a
trapper and a dog were gathered about a campfire, and the dog were
asleep and dreaming in his sleep, and the trapper should affirm that if
you tied a handkerchief over the head of a dreaming dog and afterwards
tied it around your own head, you would have the dog's dream,--if the
trapper should tell you this with a perfectly serious face, you
naturally would believe him, especially if you were a German traveler.
The Boy got up softly and began the experiment. Mowgli opened an
inquiring eye, stretched himself another notch, and fell asleep again.
His master waited five minutes, then unloosed the handkerchief and
knotted it under his own chin.
For a while Mowgli's slumbers were untroubled as a forest pool, his
breathing as regular as the tick-tock of the old wooden clock under the
stair. Out of doors the rain fell sharply and set the dead leaves
singing. The wood fire dwindled to a glow. Tick-tock! tick-tock! drummed
the ancient timepiece. The Boy yawned and settled deeper in the leather
chair.
Tick-tock! Tick-tock!
Mowgli was breathing out of time. He was twitching, and making funny
little smothered noises, which, if he were awake, would probably be
yelps. Something exciting was going on in dreamland.
Tick-tock! Tick----
+Hullo!+ There goes a woodchuck!
II.
The Boy gave chase across the fields, only to arrive, out of breath, at
the entrance to a burrow down which the woodchuck had tumbled. He had
not a notion where he was. He seemed to have raced out of the world that
he knew into one which was quite unfamiliar. It was a broad valley
inclosed by high hills, through which a pleasant little river ran; and
the landscape wore an odd aspect--the hills were bluer than hills
usually are, the trees were more fantastically fashioned, and the waving
grass and flowers were more beautiful than one commonly sees.
"Good morning, young sir!"
On the other side of the stream stood a tall man wrapped in a cloak and
leaning with both hands upon a staff. He was well past the middle years,
as wrinkles and a beard turned gray gave evidence; but his eyes were
youthful and his cheeks as ruddy as a farm lad's. His clothing was worn
and dust-laden, but of good quality and unpatched, and there was an air
about him that said plainly, "Here is no common person, I can tell you."
"You are wondering who I may be," he observed. "Well, then, I am known
as the Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare."
"A queer sort of knight, this!" thought the Boy.
"And you--may I ask whither you are bound?" said the stranger. "We may
be traveling the same road."
The Boy made answer that he had set forth to chase a woodchuck, and
that having failed to catch it he had no better plan than to return
home.
At the word "home" the Knight put on a melancholy smile, and cutting a
reed at the river edge he fashioned it into a pipe and began to play. A
wonderful tune it was. Tom the Piper's Son knew the way of it, and to
the same swinging melody the Pied Piper footed the streets of Hamelin
town; for the burden of the tune was "Over the Hills and Far Away," and
the Boy's feet stirred at the catch of it.
"That," said the Knight, "is the tune I have marched to for many a year,
and a pretty chase it has led me." He put down the pipe. "Knocking about
aimlessly does very well for an old man, but youth should have a
definite goal."
The Boy did not agree with this. With that magic melody marching in his
head it was hey for the hills and the westering sun, and the pleasant
road to Anywhere.
"What lies yonder?" he queried, pointing to a deep notch in the skyline.
"The Kingdom of Rainbow's End," replied the Knight. "It is an agreeable
territory, and you would do very well to journey thither. The King of
the country is no longer young, and as he has nothing to say about
affairs of state, or anything else for that matter, he spends his time
tramping about from place to place, in much the same fashion as
myself."
"And who governs while he is away?"
"+She!+" said the Knight solemnly--"+She That Bosses Everybody!+"
III.
"You see," said the Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare, "the King made a
grave mistake some years ago. It is a foolish saying that when a man
marries his troubles begin; but it is the law of Rainbow's-End that when
a man marries he may chloroform his mother-in-law or not, just as he
pleases. But if he forfeit the right he may never again claim it, and
the deuce take him for a soft-hearted simpleton."
The Boy thought it a barbarous law and so declared.
"There is something to be said for it," returned the Knight. "A
mother-in-law is like the little girl with the little curl. It so
happens that the King's mother-in-law is a very unpleasant old party,
and the King made a sad mess of it when he threw the chloroform bottle
out of the window."
"Tell me about Rainbow's-End," the Boy entreated. "Is there a beautiful
Princess, with many suitors for her hand?"
"The Princess Aralia is a very pretty girl, as princesses go." The
Knight opened a locket attached to a long gold chain and exhibited an
exquisite miniature. "I don't mind saying," said he, "that the Princess
Aralia and I are on very good terms, and a word from me will procure you
a cordial reception. The question is, how shall we set about it? You
can't present yourself at court as you are; you must have a horse and a
fine costume, and all that sort of thing."
"Perhaps there's a good fairy in the neighborhood," said the Boy
hopefully.
The Knight shook his head. "Not within a dozen leagues. But stop a
bit--it is just possible that Aunt Jo can manage the matter. Aunt Jo is
the sister of my wife's mother, and one of the cleverest witches in the
country. She stands very high in her profession and is thoroughly
schooled in every branch of deviltry; and with the exception of my
wife's mother, I can think of no person whose society is less desirable.
But one day in each year she takes a day off, during which she is as
affable and benevolent an old dame as you can possibly imagine; really,
you would never know it was the same person. These annual breathing
spells do her a world of good, she tells me; for incessant wickedness is
just as monotonous and wearisome as unbroken goodness."
"And to-day is the Witch's holiday?"
"Yes, it so happens; and I always make it a point to spend the night at
her cottage if I am in this part of the country."
The Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare rose and put his cloak about his
shoulders, and with the Boy set forward through the valley.
IV.
Presently they came to the Witch's cottage, snuggled away in a hollow
and hidden from the road by a tangle of witch hazel shrubs. The Boy
rather expected a dark, forbidding hut of sinister outlines, but here
was as pretty a cabin as ever you saw, weathered a pleasing gray, with
green blinds and a tiny porch overrun with Virginia-creeper.
The Knight strode boldly up the path, the Boy following less
confidently. No one answering the summons at the porch, they tried the
kitchen door. It was open, and they stepped inside. The Witch was not at
home, but evidently she was not far away, for a fire was crackling in
the stove and a kettle singing over the flames. An enormous black cat
got up lazily from the hearth and rubbed himself against the visitors
with a purr like a small dynamo.
With the familiarity of a relative the Knight led the way about the
house. One door was locked. "This," said he, "is Aunt Jo's dark room, in
which she develops her deviltry. This"--opening the door of a little
shed--"is the garage."
The Boy peeped in and saw two autobroomsticks.
"The small green one is her runabout. The big red one is a touring
broomstick, high power and very fast; you can hear her coming a mile
off."
They returned to the sitting room, and the Boy became greatly taken with
Aunt Jo's collection of books. Some of these were: "One Hundred and One
Best Broths," "Witchcraft Self-Taught," "The Black Art--Berlitz Method,"
and "Burbank's Complete Wizard." The Boy took down the "Complete
Wizard," but he was not able to do more than glance at the absorbing
contents before the clicking of the gate announced that the Witch had
returned.
Aunt Jo was a sprightly dame of more than seventy years, very thin, but
straight and supple, and with hair still jet black. Her eyes were
gray-green or green-gray, as the light happened to strike them; her
cheeks were hollow, and a long sharp chin slanted up to meet a long
sharp nose. Ordinarily, as the Knight had hinted, she was no doubt an
unholy terror, but to-day she was in the best of humors, and her eyes
twinkled with good nature.
"I just stepped out," she explained, "to carry some jelly and cake to
one of my neighbors, a woodcutter's wife. The poor woman has been ill
all the summer! Mercy! if I haven't had a day of it!" She dropped into
a chair, brushing a fly from the tip of her nose with the tip of her
tongue. "How is everything in Rainbow's-End?" she asked. "I suppose +She+
is as bad as ever."
"Worse," replied the Knight, fetching a sigh. "And +She+ never takes a day
off, as you do."
"Well, Henry, it's your own fault, as I've told you a thousand times. If
you hadn't been so soft-hearted-- But mercy! that's no way to be talking
on my holiday."
"So!" said the Boy to himself. "This wandering knight is the King of
Rainbow's-End and the father of the Princess. I have a friend at court
indeed."
V.
"And how is the Princess Aralia?" asked the Witch. "As pretty as ever, I
suppose, and with no prospect of a husband, thanks to her grandmother
and the silly tasks she sets for the suitors."
"That brings us to the business of our young friend here," said the
Knight of the Dusty Thoroughfare. "He wishes to present himself at
court, and is in great need of a horse and wardrobe."
"You've come to the wrong shop for horses and fine feathers," said the
Witch. "Those things are quite out of my line."
The Boy looked his disappointment.
"The best I can do," said Aunt Jo kindly, "is to give you a letter to a
Mr. Burbank, an excellent wizard of my acquaintance. He has recently
invented a skinless grape and a watermelon that is all heart, and is
quite the cleverest man in the business. Such a trifle as changing a pig
into a horse will give him no trouble whatever. Have you seen my garden,
Henry?"
"No, but I should like to," said the Knight rising.
"Meanwhile," said the Witch, "I will start the supper if our young
friend will fetch the wood."
The Boy responded with such cheerful readiness that Aunt Jo patted him
on the cheek and said: "You're the lad for the Princess Aralia, and have
her you shall if Aunt Jo can bring it about. And now go out in the
garden and pick me a hatful of Brussels sprouts."
It was impossible to imagine a more appetizing supper than that which
the three sat down to. Everything was prepared to a nicety, and the
Knight could not say enough in praise of the raised biscuits and home
made currant jell. As for the doughnuts, "Such doughnuts can't be made
without witchcraft, Jo," he declared.
"Nonsense!" said the old lady. "I don't put a thing into them that any
good cook doesn't use. Making doughnuts always was an art by itself. You
must both take some with you when you go."
After supper the Knight wiped the dishes while the Witch washed them,
Aunt Jo declaring it a shame that a man so domestically inclined should
be compelled to wander from one end of the rainbow to the other just
because of a foolish tender-heartedness in days gone by. While the pair
discussed this fruitful topic the Boy dipped into the fascinating
chapters of the "Complete Wizard."
"Time for bed," announced the Knight an hour later; and he added for the
Boy's ear: "We must make an early start in the morning."
"I for one shall sleep soundly," Aunt Jo declared. "I've run my legs off
to-day, as I never use a broomstick on my holiday."
She conducted her guests to a tiny bedchamber above stairs. "I will
leave a bag of doughnuts on the table, Henry," said she, "as I suppose
you will be off before I am up. Good-night!"
When she had gone below the Knight said: "We must be moving with the
first streak of day. Aunt Jo's holiday ends with sun-up, and you would
find her a vastly different old party, I can tell you."
VI.
"I don't think I should be afraid of her," said the Boy.
The Knight chuckled, and without further speech got into bed and was
soon wrapped in a deep slumber. Next to a clear conscience and the open
road, a good bed at night is something to set store by.
But the Boy could not sleep for the exciting pictures that danced in his
head, and he was impatient for the morning light, that he might be on
his way to Rainbow's-End. The moon peeped in the window; the breeze made
a pleasant sound in the poplar trees; from somewhere came the music of a
little brook. To all these gentle influences the Boy finally yielded.
He was awakened by a plucking at his sleeve.
"Time to be moving," said the Knight in a hoarse whisper. "We can put on
our shoes after we leave the house."
They crept down the stair, which creaked in terrifying fashion, but a
gentle snoring from the Witch's bedroom reassured them. After they had
tiptoed out of the house and gained the road they discovered that they
had forgotten the bag of doughnuts. The Knight declared that he would
not return for a million doughnuts, but the Boy, remembering how
delicious they tasted, stole back to the door and lifted the latch
softly. Aunt Jo was still snoring, but, just as he laid hold of the
doughnuts, Pluto the cat came leaping in from the kitchen, and the Boy
had barely time to put the door between its sharp claws and himself. He
ran down the path, vaulted the gate, and looked about for the Knight.
Away down the road was a rapidly diminishing figure.
The Boy was a good runner, and he was fast overtaking the Knight, when
the latter, who had been casting anxious glances over his shoulder as he
ran, suddenly plunged into the bushes at one side of the road. The Boy
thought it wise to follow his example.
And not a moment too soon. A small whirring sound grew louder and
louder, and Aunt Jo went whizzing by on her high power autobroomstick,
leaving in her wake a horrible reek of gasoline and brimstone. But not
the Aunt Jo of the evening before. Her green eyes flashed behind the
goggles, and her face was something dreadful to behold. On her shoulder
perched Pluto, every hair erect, and spitting fire.
The Boy gasped, and hoped he had seen the last of the terrible hag, when
the whirring noise announced that she was coming back. She stopped her
broomstick directly opposite the hiding-place and began cutting small
circles in the air, the while peering sharply about.
As the Boy plunged into the thicket, he fell. As he lay there, something
cold pressed against his hand.
It was Mowgli's nose. The dog's eyes questioned his master, who had
cried out in his sleep.
"Oh, Mowgli!" he exclaimed, taking the spaniel by his shaggy ears, "did
you dream _all_ that wonderful dream? Or did you stop at the woodchuck
hole? What a shame, Mowgli, if there shouldn't really be a Knight of the
Dusty Thoroughfare, and a Princess Aralia and a Witch who makes
wonderful doughnuts!"
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
"_Nous ne trouvons guère de gens de bon sens que ceux qui sont de notre
avis._"
--_La Rochefoucauld._
"THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE."
Old Amicus Pop
Is the friend of the Wop,
The friend of the Chink and the Harp,
The friend of all nations
And folk of all stations,
The friend of the shark and the carp.
He sits in his chair
With his feet on the table,
And lists to the prayer
Of Minerva and Mabel,
Veritas, Pro Bono, Taxpayer, and the rest,
Who wail on his shoulder and weep on his breast.
Old Amicus Pop
Is the solace and prop
Of all who are weary of life.
He straightens the tangles
And jangles and wrangles
That breed in this city of strife.
Whatever your "beef,"
You may pour him an earful;
Unbottle your grief
Be it ever so tearful.
Oh, weep all you wish--he is there with the mop.
Bring all of your troubles to Amicus Pop.
* * *
When we think of the countless thousands who peruse this Cro'-nest of
Criticism, a feeling of responsibility weighs heavily upon us, and
almost spoils our day. Frezzample, one writes from St. Paul: "We have
twenty confirmed readers of the Line in this 'house.'" The quotation
marks disturb us. Can it be a sanitarium?
* * *
Most of the trouble in this world is caused by people who do not know
when they are well off. The Germans did not know when they were well
off. Your cook, who left last week, as little apprehended her good
fortune. Nor will the Filipinos be happy till they get it.
* * *
Those who stand in awe of persons with logical minds will be reassured
by Henry Adams' pertinent reflection that the mind resorts to reason for
want of training. His definition of philosophy is also reassuring:
"Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems."
* * *
Among those who have guessed at the meaning of "the freedom of the seas"
was Cowper:
"Without one friend, above all foes,
Britannia gives the world repose."
* * *
Maxwell Bodenheim has published a book of poems, and the critics allow
that Max Boden's brays are bonnie.
* * *
IF YOU MUST KISS, KISS THE DOCTOR.
[From "How to Avoid Influenza."]
Avoid kissing, as this habit readily transmits influenza. If physician
is available, it is best to consult him.
* * *
QUICK, WATSON, THE PLUMBER!
[From the Cedar Rapids Gazette.]
Mrs. T. M. Dripps gave a dinner Friday in honor of Mrs. D. L. Leek of
South Dakota.
* * *
"Kind Captain, I've important information." Mr. Honkavaarra runs an
automobile livery in Palmer, Mich.
* * *
"The first child, Lord Blandford, was born in 1907; the second was born
in 1898."--Chicago American.
This so annoyed the Duke, that a reconciliation was never possible.
* * *
When your friend points with pride to a picture that, in your judgment,
leaves something to be desired, or when he exhibits the latest addition
to his family, you may be perplexed to voice an opinion that will
satisfy both him and your conscience. An artist friend of ours is never
at a loss. If it is a picture, he exclaims, "Extraordinary!" If it is an
infant, he remarks, "_There +is+ a baby!_"
He might add, with the English wit, "one more easily conceived than
described."
* * *
The advantages of a classical education are so obvious that the
present-day battle in its behalf seems a waste of energy. Frezzample,
without a classical education how could you appreciate the fact that Mr.
Odessey is now running a Noah's Ark candy kitchen in St. Peter, Wis.?
* * *
One may believe that the "gift of healing" is nothing more than the
application of imaginary balm to non-existent disease, but if one says
so he gets into a jolly row with people who consider an open mind
synonymous with credulity. Our own state of mind was accurately
described by Charles A. Dana: "I don't believe in ghosts," said he, "but
I've been afraid of them all my life."
* * *
The congregation will rise and sing:
Bill Bryan's heart is a-mouldering in the grave,
But his lungs go marching on.
* * *
The astronomer Hamilton "made an expedition to Dublin to substitute a
semi-colon for a colon"; but, reports J. E. R., "my wife's brother's
brother-in-law's doctor charged him $600 for removing only part of a
colon."
* * *
Few readers realize how much time is expended in making certain that
commas are properly distributed. Thomas Campbell walked six miles to a
printer's to have a comma in one of his poems changed to a semi-colon.
* * *
Following a bout with the gloves, a Seattle
clubman is reported "in a state of comma." A
doctor writes us that infection by the colon bacillus
can be excluded, but we should say that what
the patient needs is not a doctor but a proof
reader.
* * *
"She played Liszt's Rhapsodie No. 2 with remarkable speed," relates the
Indianapolis News. In disposing of Liszt's Rhapsodies it is all right to
step on the accelerator, as the sooner they are finished the better.
* * *
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY CLIMATE, AND FORGIVE US OUR DROPS IN
TEMPERATURE!
[From the Pasadena Star-News.]
To put it in another form of expression, Mother Nature maintains poise
and evenness of temper in this state far better than in most regions on
this terrestrial ball. If you haven't thanked God to-day that you are
privileged to live in California it is not yet too late to do so. Make
it a daily habit. The blessing is worth this frequent expression of
gratitude to the All High.
* * *
VARIANT OF A MORE OR LESS WELL KNOWN STORY.
[From the Exeter, Neb., News.]
Whoever took the whole pumpkin pie from Mrs. W. H. Taylor's kitchen the
night of the party was welcome to it as the cat had stepped in it twice
and it could not be used. Many thanks for the pan, she says.
* * *
THE WORLD'S GREATEST WINTER RESORT.
"_Because of high temperatures and chinooks
Medicine Hat is menaced with an ice famine._"
They bask in the sunshine and purr like a cat,
The fortunate people of Medicine Hat.
Its climate is balmy in spite of the lat.;
You have a wrong notion of Medicine Hat.
At Christmas they sit on their porches and chat,
For it never gets chilly in Medicine Hat.
The Medicine Hatters all spoil for a spat
With any defamer of Medicine Hat;
They're ready and anxious to go to the mat
With any one scoffing at Medicine Hat.
The birds never migrate--they know where they're at,
For it always is summer in Medicine Hat.
No day that you can't use a heliostat;
Sunlight is eternal in Medicine Hat.
They're swatting the fly and the skeeter and gnat,
As frost never kills them in Medicine Hat.
His nature is skeptic, he's blind as a bat
Who can't see the beauties of Medicine Hat.
All jesting is flatulent, futile, and flat
That libels the climate of Medicine Hat.
Away with the knockers who knock it, and drat
The jokers who joke about Medicine Hat.
In short, it's the one, the ideal habitat.
Boy! buy me a ticket to Medicine Hat!
* * *
According to the Milford Herald a young couple were married "under the
strain of Mendelssohn's wedding march."
* * *
THE VILLAGE OMAR LOSES HIS OUTFIT.
[From the Fort Dodge Messenger.]
Lost--Grass rug and ukulele between Shady Oaks and Fort Dodge. Finder
notify Messenger.
* * *
"Thelander-Eckblade Wedding Solomonized," reports the Batavia Herald.
Interesting and unusual.
* * *
"TWEET! TWEET!" GOES THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER.
[From the Sterling Gazette.]
The wedding party wended its way to the grove south of the river and
there, in a lovely spot, where pleasant hours of courtship have been
passed, the wedding ceremony was performed. No stately church edifice
built by man, no gilded altar, no polished pews nor polished floors were
there; no stately organ or trained choir; there was an absence of
ushers, bridesmaids and parson heavily gowned. No curious crowd thronged
without the portal. In place of this display and grandeur they were
surrounded by an edifice of nature's planting--the stately forest tree,
while the green sward of the verdant grove furnished a velvety carpet.
There, in this beautiful spot, where the Creator ordained such events to
occur, the young couple, true lovers of the simple life, took upon
themselves the vows which united them until "death itself should part."
The rustle of the leaves in the treetop murmured nature's sweet
benediction, while the bluebird, the robin, and the thrush sang a
glorious doxology.
* * *
Wedded, in Clay county, Illinois, Emma Pickle and Gay Gerking. A wedding
gift from Mr. Heinz or Squire Dingee would not be amiss.
* * *
A SPLENDID RECOVERY.
[Waukesha, Wis., item.]
Mr. and Mrs. J. Earl Stallard are the proud parents of an eight pound
boy, born at the Municipal hospital this morning. Mr. Stallard will be
able to resume his duties as county agricultural agent by to-morrow.
* * *
HOW FAST THE LEAVES ARE FALLING!
[From the Waterloo Courier.]
Frank Fuller, night operator at the Illinois Central telegraph office,
has been kept more than busy to-day, all because of a ten pound boy who
arrived at his home last evening. Mr. Fuller has decided that he will
spend all of his evenings at his home in the future.
* * *
HOW SOON IT GETS DARK THESE DAYS!
[From the Pillager, Minn., Herald.]
That stork is a busy bird. It left a 10-lb baby girl at Ned Mickles last
Thursday night. Ned is a neighbor of Cy Deaver.
* * *
_UPON JULIA'S ARCTICS._
_Whenas galoshed my Julia goes,
Unbuckled all from top to toes,
How swift the poem becometh prose!
And when I cast mine eyes and see
Those arctics flopping each way free,
Oh, how that flopping floppeth me!_
* * *
"We are all in the dark together," says Anatole France; "the only
difference is, the savant keeps knocking at the wall, while the
ignoramus stays quietly in the middle of the room." We used to be
intensely interested in the knocking of the savants, but as nothing ever
came of it, we have become satisfied with the middle of the room.
* * *
A GOOD MOTTO.
I was conversing with Mr. Carlton the Librarian, and he quoted from
memory a line from Catulle Mendès that seemed to me uncommonly
felicitous: "La vie est un jour de Mi-Carême. Quelques-uns se masquent;
moi, je ris."
* * *
In his declining years M. France has associated himself with the bunch
called "Clarté," a conscious group organized by Barbusse, the object of
which is the "union of all partisans of the true right and the true
liberty." How wittily the Abbé Coignard would have discussed "Clarté,"
and how wisely M. Bergeret would have considered it! Alas! it is sad to
lose one's hair, but it is a tragedy to lose one's unbeliefs.
* * *
Chicago, as has been intimated, rather broadly, is a jay town; but it is
coming on. A department store advertises "cigarette cases and holders
for the gay sub-deb and her great-grandmother," also "a diary for 'her'
if she leads an exciting life."
* * *
We infer from the reviews of John Burroughs' "Accepting the Universe"
that John has decided to accept it. One might as well. With the
reservation that acceptance does not imply approval.
* * *
It is possible that Schopenhauer wrote his w. k. essay on woman after a
visit to a bathing beach.
* * *
We heard a good definition of a bore. A bore is a man who, when you ask
him how he is, tells you.
* * *
The sleeping sickness (not the African variety) is more mysterious than
the flu. It will be remembered that two things were discovered about the
flu: first, that it was caused by a certain bacillus, and, second, that
it was not caused by that bacillus. But all that is known about the
sleeping sickness is that it attacks, by preference, carpenters and
plumbers.
* * *
Slangy and prophetic Mérimée, who wrote, in "Love Letters of a Genius":
"You may take it from me that ... short dresses will be the order of the
day, and those who are blessed with natural advantages will be at last
distinguished from those whose advantages are artificial only."
* * *
Happy above all other writing mortals we esteem him who, like Barrie,
treads with sure feet the borderland 'twixt fact and faery, stepping now
on this side, now on that. One must write with moist eyes many pages of
such a fantasy as "A Kiss for Cinderella." There are tears that are not
laughter's, nor grief's, but beauty's own. A lovely landscape may bring
them, or a strain of music, or a written or a spoken line.
* * *
All we can get out of a Shaw play is two hours and a half of mental
exhilaration. We are, inscrutably, denied the pleasure of wondering what
Shaw means, or whether he is sincere.
* * *
WHY THE MAKE-UP FLED.
[From the Dodge Center Record.]
Mr. and Mrs. Umberhocker returned yesterday from an over Sunday visit
with their son and family in Minneapolis.
They are in hopes to soon land them in jail as they did the hog thieves,
who were to have a hearing but waved it and trial will be held later.
* * *
"It isn't hard to sit up with a sick friend when he has a charming
sister," reports B. B. But if it were a sick horse, Venus herself would
be in the way.
* * *
"Saving the penny is all right," writes a vox-popper to the Menominee
News, "but saving the dollar is 100 per cent better." At least.
* * *
_MUSIC HATH CHAHMS._
_What opus of Brahms' is your pet?--
A concerto, a trio, duet,
Sonate No. 3
(For Viol. and P.),
Or the second piano quartette?_
Sardi.
_Our favorite Brahms? We're not sûr,
For all are so classique et pur;
But we'll mention an opus
With which you may dope us--
One Hundred and Sixteen, E dur._
* * *
BRAHMS, OPUS 116.
I care for your pet, One Sixteen
(Your choice proves your judgment is keen);
But in E, you forget, see,
It has two intermezzi;
Please, which of these twain do you mean?
Sardi.
Which E? Can you ask? Must we tell?
Doth it not every other excel--
The ineffable one,
Of gossamer spun,
The ultimate spirituelle.
* * *
A candid butcher in Battle Creek advertises "Terrible cuts."
* * *
Another candid merchant in Ottumwa, Ia., advises: "Buy to-day and think
to-morrow."
* * *
MUSIC HINT.
Sir: P. A. Scholes, in his "Listener's Guide to Music," revives two good
laughs--thus: "A fugue is a piece in which the voices one by one come in
and the people one by one go out." Also he quotes from Sam'l Butler's
Note Books: "I pleased Jones by saying that the hautbois was a clarinet
with a cold in its head, and the bassoon the same with a cold in its
chest." The cor anglais suffers slightly from both symptoms. Some
ambitious composer, by judicious use of the more diseased instruments,
could achieve the most rheumy musical effects, particularly if, à la
Scriabin, he should have the atmosphere of the concert hall heavily
charged with eucalyptus.
E. Pontifex.
* * *
"I will now sing for you," announced a contralto to a woman's club
meeting in the Copley-Plaza, "a composition by one of Boston's noted
composers, Mr. Chadwick. 'He loves me.'" And of course everybody thought
George wrote it for _her_.
* * *
"Grand opera is, above all others, the highbrow form of
entertainment."--Chicago Journal.
Yes. In comparison, a concert of chamber music appears trifling and
almost vulgar.
* * *
At a reception in San Francisco, Mrs. Wandazetta Fuller-Biers sang and
Mrs. Mabel Boone-Sooey read. Cannot they be signed for an entertainment
in the Academy?
* * *
We simply cannot understand why Dorothy Pound, pianist, and Isabelle
Bellows, singer, of the American Conservatory, do not hitch up for a
concert tour.
* * *
Richard Strauss has been defined as a musician who was once a genius.
Now comes another felicitous definition--"Unitarian: a Retired
Christian."
* * *
Dr. Hyslop, the psychical research man, says that the spirit world is
full of cranks. These, we take it, are not on the spirit level.
* * *
The present physical training instructor in the Waterloo, Ia.,
Y. W. C. A. is Miss Armstrong. Paradoxically, the position was formerly
held by Miss Goodenough. These things appear to interest many readers.
* * *
THE HUNTING OF THE PACIFIST SNARK.
(_With Mr. Ford as the Bellman._)
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
"Just the place for a Snark, I declare!"
And he anchored the _Flivver_ a mile up the river,
And landed his crew with care.
He had bought a large map representing the moon,
Which he spread with a runcible hand;
And the crew, you could see, were as pleased as could be
With a map they could all understand.
"Now, listen, my friends, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wherever you go,
The warranted pacifist Snarks.
The first is the taste, which is something like guff,
Tho' with gammon 'twill also compare;
The next is the sound, which is simple enough--
It resembles escaping hot air.
The third is the shape, which is somewhat absurd,
And this you will understand
When I tell you it looks like the African bird
That buries its head in the sand.
The fourth is a want of the humorous sense,
Of which it has hardly a hint.
And last, but not least, this marvelous beast
Is a glutton for getting in print.
Now, Pacifist Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet I deem it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums----" The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For Jane Addams had fainted away.
* * *
Concerning his reference to "Demosthenes' lantern," the distinguished
culprit, Rupert Hughes, writes us that of course he meant Isosceles'
lantern. The slip was pardonable, he urges, as he read proof on the line
only seven times--in manuscript, in typescript, in proof for the
magazine, in the copy for the book, in galley, in page-proof, and
finally in the printed book. And heaven only knows how many proofreaders
let it through. "Be that as it may," says Rupert, "I am like our famous
humorist, Archibald Ward, who refused to be responsible for debts of his
own contracting. And, anyway, I thank you for calling my attention to
the blunder quietly and confidentially, instead of bawling me out in a
public place where a lot of people might learn of it."
* * *
SORRY WE MISSED YOU.
Sir:... There were several things I wanted to say to you, and I proposed
also to crack you over the sconce for what you have been saying about us
Sinn Feiners. I suppose you're the sort that would laugh at this story:
He was Irish and badly wounded, unconscious when they got him back to
the dressing station, in a ruined village. "Bad case," said the docs.
"When he comes out of his swoon he'll need cheering up. Say something
heartening to him, boys. Tell him he's in Ireland." When the lad came to
he looked around (ruined church on one side, busted houses, etc., up
stage, and all that): "Where am I?" sez he. "'S all right, Pat; you're
in Ireland, boy." "Glory be to God!" sez he, looking around again. "How
long have yez had Home Rule?"
Tom Daly.
* * *
OUR BOYS.
[From the Sheridan, Wyo., Enterprise.]
Our boys are off for the borders
Awaiting further orders
From our president to go
Down into old Mexico,
Where the Greaser, behind a cactus,
Is waiting to attack us.
* * *
The skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crispèd
and sere, as I sat in the porch chair and regarded our neighbor's patch
of woodland; and I thought: The skies may be ashen and sober, and the
leaves may be crispèd and sere, but in a maple wood we may dispense with
the sun, such irradiation is there from the gold of the crispèd leaves.
Jack Frost is as clever a wizard as the dwarf Rumpelstiltzkin, who
taught the miller's daughter the trick of spinning straw into gold. This
young ash, robed all in yellow--what can the sun add to its splendor?
And those farther tree-tops, that show against the sky like a tapestry,
the slenderer branches and twigs, unstirred by wind, having the
similitude of threads in a pattern--can the sun gild their refinèd gold?
How delicate is the tinting of that cherry, the green of which is fading
into yellow, each leaf between the two colors: this should be described
in paint.
No, I said; in a hardwood thicket, in October, though it were the misty
mid region of Weir, one would not know the sun was lost in clouds. At
that moment the sun adventured forth, in blazing denial. It was as if
the woodland had burst into flame.
* * *
As a variation of the story about the merchant who couldn't keep a
certain article because so many people asked for it, we submit the
following: A lady entered the rural drugstore which we patronize and
said, "Mr. Blank, I want a bath spray." "I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones," sezze,
"but the bath spray is sold."
* * *
_IN A DEPARTMENT STORE._
_Customer--"I want to look at some tunics."_
_Irish Floorwalker--"We don't carry musical instruments."_
* * *
That Tennessee congressman who was arrested charged with operating an
automobile while pifflicated, would reply that when he voted for
prohibition he was representing his constituents, not his private
thirst. Have we not, many times, in the good old days in Vermont, seen
representatives rise with difficulty from their seats to cast their vote
for prohibition? One can be pretty drunk and still be able to articulate
"Ay."
* * *
A new drug, Dihydroxyphenylethylmethylamine, sounds as if all it needed
was a raisin.
* * *
The Gluck aria, which Mme. Homer has made famous, was effectively cited
by the critic Hanslick to show that in vocal music the subject is
determined only by the words. He wrote:
"At a time when thousands (among whom there were men like Jean Jacques
Rousseau) were moved to tears by the air from 'Orpheus'--
'J'ai perdu mon Eurydice,
Rien n'égale mon malheur,'
Boyé, a contemporary of Gluck, observed that precisely the same melody
would accord equally well, if not better, with words conveying exactly
the reverse, thus--
'J'ai trouvé mon Eurydice,
Rien n'égale mon bonheur.'
"We, for our part, are not of the opinion that in this case the
composer is quite free from blame, inasmuch as music most assuredly
possesses accents which more truly express a feeling of profound sorrow.
If however, from among innumerable instances, we selected the one
quoted, we have done so because, in the first place, it affects the
composer who is credited with the greatest dramatic accuracy; and,
secondly, because several generations hailed this very melody as most
correctly rendering the supreme grief which the words express."
* * *
Arthur Shattuck sued for appreciation in Fond du Lac the other evening,
playing, according to the Reporter, "a plaintiff melody with great
tenderness." The jury returned a verdict in his favor without leaving
their seats.
* * *
Reports of famine in China have recalled a remark about its excessive
population. If the Chinese people were to file one by one past a given
point the procession would never come to an end. Before the last man of
those living to-day had gone by another generation would have grown up.
* * *
"Say it with handkerchiefs," advertises a merchant in Goshen, Ind. That
is, if the idea you wish to convey is that you have a cold in your
head.
* * *
THE SOIL OF KANSAS.
[From the Kansas Farmer.]
Formed by the polyps of a shallow, summer sea; fixed by the subtile
chemistry of the air, and comminuted by the Æolian geology of the Great
Plains, the soil of Kansas has been one of man's richest possessions.
Why prose? The soil of Kansas, the Creator's masterpiece, invites to
song. Frinstance--
Formed by the polyps of a summer sea,
Fixed by the subtile chemistry of air,
Ground by Æolian geology,
The soil of Kansas is beyond compare!
* * *
THE GOOD OLD DAYS.
Sir: An old stage hand at the Eau Claire opry house was talking. "No,
sir, you don't see the actors to-day like we used to. Why, when Booth
and Barrett played here you could hear them breathe way up in the fly
gallery."
E. C. M.
* * *
"WHAT THE LA HELLE!"
[From the Kankakee Republican.]
He helped tramp the old Hindenburg line, but this time, beating it on
the strains of "Allons enfant de la Patrie le Jour de Gloire est de
Triomphe et Arrivee!"
* * *
Here is a characteristic bit of Vermontese that we picked up. A native
was besought to saw some wood, but he declined. The owner of the wood
offered double price for the sawing, and still the native declined. He
was pressed for a reason, and this was it: "Damned if I'll humor a man."
* * *
"It is not moral. It is immoral," declared an editorial colleague; and a
reader is reminded of Lex Iconles, the old Greek baker of Grammer's Gap,
Ark., who used to display in his window the enticing sign: "Doughnuts.
Different and yet not the same."
* * *
The mind of man is subject to many strange delusions, and one of these
is that the stock market has a bottom.
* * *
The manufacturer of a certain automobile advertises that his vehicle
"will hold five ordinary people." And, as a matter of fact, it usually
does.
* * *
The Westminster Gazette headlines "The Intolerable Dullness of Country
Life in Ireland." And Irene wonders what they would call excitement.
* * *
An advertisement of dolls mentions, superfluously, that "some may not
last the day." One does not expect them to.
* * *
The London Mendicity Society estimates that £100,000 is given away
haphazard every year to street beggars, and that the average beggar
probably earns more than the average working man. There is talk of the
beggars forming a union. A beggars' strike would be a fearsome thing.
* * *
I want to be a diplomat
And with the envoys stand,
A-wetting of my whistle in
A desiccated land.
The London Busman Story.
_I.--As George Meredith might have related it._
"Stop!" she signalled.
The appeal was comprehensible, and the charioteer, assiduously obliging,
fell to posture of checking none too volant steeds.
You are to suppose her past meridian, nearer the twilight of years,
noteworthy rather for matter than manner; and her visage, comparable to
the beef of England's glory, well you wot. This one's descent was
mincing, hesitant, adumbrating dread of disclosures--these expectedly
ample, columnar, massive. The day was gusty, the breeze prankant;
petticoats, bandbox, umbrella were to be conciliated, managed if
possible; no light task, you are to believe.
"'Urry, marm!"
The busman's tone was patiently admonitory, dispassionate. A veteran in
his calling, who had observed the ascending and descending of a myriad
matrons, in playful gales.
"'Urry, marm!"
The fellow was without illusions; he had reviewed more twinkling columns
than a sergeant of drill. Indifference his note, leaning to ennui. He
said so, bluntly, piquantly, in half a dozen memorable words, fetching
yawn for period.
The lady jerked an indignant exclamation, and completed, rosily
precipitate, her passage to the pave.
_II.--As Henry James might have written it._
We, let me ask, what are we, the choicer of spirits as well as the more
frugal if not the undeservedly impoverished, what, I ask, are we to do
now that the hansom has disappeared, as they say, from the London
streets and the taxicab so wonderfully yet extravagantly taken its
place? Is there, indeed, else left for us than the homely but hallowed
'bus, as we abbreviatedly yet all so affectionately term it--the 'bus of
one's earlier days, when London was new to the unjaded sensorium and
"Europe" was so wonderfully, so beautifully dawning on one's so avid and
sensitive consciousness?
And fate, which has left us the 'bus--but oh, in what scant and shabby
measure!--has left us, too, the weather that so densely yet so
congruously "goes with it"--the weather adequately enough denoted by the
thick atmosphere, the slimy pavements, the omnipresent unfurled umbrella
and the stout, elderly woman intent upon gaining, at cost of whatever
risk or struggle, her place and portion among the moist miscellany to
whom the dear old 'bus-- But perhaps I have lost the thread of my
sentence.
Ah, yes--that "stout, elderly woman"; so superabundant whether as a
type or as an individual; so prone--or "liable"--to impinge tyrannously
upon the consciousness of her fellow-traveller, and in no less a degree
upon that of the public servant, who, from his place aloft, guides, as
it is phrased, the destinies of the conveyance. It was, indeed, one of
the most notable of these--a humble friend of my own--who had the
fortune to make the acute, recorded, historic observation which, with
the hearty, pungent, cursory brevity and point of his class and
_métier_--the envy of the painstaking, voluminous analyst and artist of
our period-- But again I stray.
She was climbing up, or climbing down, perplexed equally, as I gather,
by the management of her _parapluie_ and of her--_enfin_, her
petticoats. The candid anxiety of her round, underdone face, as she so
wonderfully writhed to maintain the standard of pudicity dear--even
vital--to the matron of the British Isles appealed--vividly, though
mutely--to the forbearance that, seeing, would still seem _not_ to see,
her foot, her ankle, her _mollet_--as I early learned to say in Paris,
where, however, so exigent a modesty is scarcely ... well, scarcely.
"Madam," the gracious fellow said in effect, "_ne vous gênez pas_." Then
he went on to assure her briefly that he was an elderly man; that he had
"held the ribbons," as they phrase it, for several years; that many
were the rainy days in London; that each of these placed numerous
women--elderly or younger--in the same involuntary predicament as that
from which she herself had suffered; and that so far as he personally
was concerned he had long since ceased to take any extreme delight in
the-- _Bref_, he was charming; he renewed my fading belief--fading, as I
had thought, disastrously but immitigably--in the capacity of the
Anglo-Saxon for _esprit_; and I am glad indeed to have taken a line or
so to record his _mot_.
_III.--As finally elucidated by Arnold Bennett._
Maria Wickwyre, of the Five Towns, emerged from muddy Bombazine Lane and
stood in the rain and wind at Pie Corner, eighty-four yards from the
door of St. Jude's chapel, in the Strand. She was in London! Yes, she
was on that spot, she and none other. It might have been somewhere else;
it might have been somebody else. But it wasn't. Wonderful! The miracle
of Life overcame her.
She had arms. Two of them. They were big and round, like herself. One
held a large parcel ("package" for the American edition); the other, an
umbrella. She also had two legs. She stood on them. If they had been
absent, or if they had weakened, she would have collapsed. But they
held her up. Ah, the mysteries of existence! More than ever was she
conscious of her firm, strong underpinning. Maria waved her umbrella and
her parcel and stopped a 'bus. The driver was elderly, wrinkled,
weatherbeaten. Maria got in and rode six furlongs and some yards to
Mooge Road, and then she stopped the 'bus to get out.
If she was conscious of her upper members and their charges, she was
still more conscious of her lower ones. If she had her parcel and her
umbrella to think about, she also had her stockings and petticoats to
consider. The wind blew, the rain drizzled, the driver looked around,
wondering why Maria didn't get out and have done with it.
"If he should see them!" she gasped. (You know what she meant by
"them.") Her round, broad face mutely implored the 'busman to look the
other way.
He wearily closed his eyes. He had been rumbling through the Strand for
thirty years. "Lor', mum," he said, "legs ain't no treat to me!"
Maria collapsed, after all, and took the 4:29 for home that same
afternoon.
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
_Hew to the Line, let the quips fall where they may._
APRILLY.
Whan that Aprillè with hise shourès soote
The droghte of March had percèd to the roote,
I druv a motor thro' Aprillè's bliz
Somme forty mile, and dam neere lyke to friz.
* * *
Harriet reports the first trustworthy sign of spring: friend husband on
the back porch Sunday morning removing last year's mud from his golf
shoes.
* * *
Old Doc Oldfield of London prescribes dandelion leaves, eggs, lettuce,
milk, and a few other things for people who would live long, and a
Massachusetts centenarian offers, as her formula, "Don't worry and don't
over-eat." But we, whose mission is to enlighten the world, rather than
to ornament it, are more influenced by the experiment of Herbert
Spencer. Persuaded to a vegetarian diet, he stuck at it for six months.
Then reading over what he had written during that time, he thrust the
manuscript into the fire and ordered a large steak with fried potatoes
and mushrooms.
* * *
"SPRING HAS COME..."
The trees were rocked by April's blast;
A frozen robin fell,
And twittered, as he breathed his last,
"Lykelle, lykelle, lykelle."
* * *
BYRON WROTE MOST OF THIS.
[From the Monticello Times.]
Julf Husman, who has been busy for the past several months, building a
fine new house and barn, celebrated their completion with a barn dance
Wednesday night. "The beauty and chivalry" of Wayne and adjoining
townships attended, and did "chase the glowing hours with flying feet,"
with as much enthusiasm and pleasure as did the guests "When Belgium's
capital had gathered then and bright the lamps shone over fair women and
brave men."
* * *
A CANNERY DANCE.
[From the Iowa City Press.]
"Fair women and brave men" circled hither and thither in the maze of the
stately waltz and the festal two-step, and the dainty slippers kept
graceful time with the strains of the exceptionally fine music of the
hour. Lovely young women, with roses in their cheeks and their hair,
caught the reflection of the radiant electric lights and the glory of
the superb decorations, and their natural pulchritude was enhanced in
impressiveness thereby. The "frou frou" of silks and satins; the
enchanting orchestral offerings; the brilliant illuminations; the
alluring decorations, and the intoxication of the dance made the event
one of the most markedly successful in the history of the university.
* * *
FOR THE LAST DAY OF MARCH.
Just before you go to bed,
Push the clock an hour ahead.
Little Mary.
* * *
Don't forget to set the time locks on your safes ahead an hour.
Otherwise you'll be all mixed up.
* * *
At Ye Olde Colonial Inn, according to the Aurora Beacon-News, a special
"Table de Haute" dinner was served last Sunday. And the Gem restaurant
in St. Louis tells the world: "Our famous steaks tripled our seating
capacity."
* * *
CHANCES, 2; ERRORS, 2.
Sir: While in the Hotel Dyckman I noted a sign recommending the 85c
dinner in the "Elizabethian Room." After a search I found the place,
duly labeled "Elizabethean Room."
D. K. M.
* * *
Just what does the trade jargon mean, "Experience essential but not
necessary"? We see it frequently in the advertising columns.
* * *
A variant of the form, "experience essential but not necessary," is used
by the Racine Times-Call, as follows:
"Wanted, secretary-treasurer for a local music corporation; must also
have a knowledge of music, but not essential."
* * *
As curious as the advertising form, "experience essential but not
necessary," is the form used by the Daily News: "Responsible for no
debts contracted by no other than myself."
* * *
The provincialism indicated by the title of the pop song, "Good bye,
Broadway! Hello, France!" reminds us of the headline in a New York paper
some years ago: "Halley's Comet Rushing on New York."
* * *
"The love, the worship of truth is the most essential thing in
journalism," says the editor of Le Matin. Or, as the ads read, "love of
truth essential but not necessary."
* * *
The Hopkinsville, Ky., News is a Negro paper, and its motto is: "Man is
made of clay, and like a meerschaum pipe is more valuable when highly
colored."
* * *
From the letter of a colored gentleman of leisure, apropos of his wife's
suit for divorce: "P. S.: Also, honey, i hope while others have your
company i may have your heart." Here is a refrain for a sentimental
song.
* * *
SMACK! SMACK!
Sir: May I suggest that the matrimonial bureau of the Academy take steps
to introduce Miss Irene V. Smackem of Washington, D.C., and Mr.
Kissinger of Fergus Falls, Minn.? They would make a perfect pair.
Kaye.
* * *
_MARCH._
_With heart of gold and yellow frill,
Arcturus, like a daffodil,
Now dances in the field of gray
Upon the East at close of day;
A joyous harbinger to bring
The many promises of spring!_
W.
* * *
If no one else cares, the compositor and proof reader will be interested
to know that Ignacy Seczupakiewicz brought suit in Racine against
Praxida Seczupakiewicz.
* * *
Referring to Beethoven's anniversary, Ernest Newman remarks that "a
truly civilized community would probably celebrate a centenary by
prohibiting all performances of the master's works for three or five
years, so that the public's deadening familiarity with them might wear
off. That would be the greatest service it could do him."
* * *
Newman, by the way, is a piano-player fan, contending that when the
principles of beautiful tone production are understood, mechanical means
will probably come nearer to perfection than the human hand. Mr. Arthur
Whiting, considering the horseless pianoforte some time ago, was also
enthusiastic. The h. p. is entirely self-possessed, and has even more
platform imperturbability than the applauded virtuoso. "After a few
introductory sounds, which have nothing to do with the music, and
without relaxing the lines of its inscrutable face, the insensate artist
proceeds to show its power. Its security puts all hand playing to shame;
it never hesitates, it surmounts the highest difficulties without
changing a clutch."
* * *
Dixon's Elks were entertained t'other evening by the Artists Trio, and
the Telegraph observes that "one of the remarkable facts concerning
this company is that while they are finished artists they nevertheless
are delightful entertainers."
* * *
We seldom listen to a canned-music machine, but when we do we realize
the great educational value of the discs. They advise us (especially the
records of singing comedians) what to avoid.
* * *
The prejudices against German music will deprive many gluttons for
punishment of the opportunity to hear "Parsifal." We remember one lady
who was concerned because Dalmorés stood for a long time with his back
to the audience. "Why does he have to do that?" she asked her companion.
"Because," was the answer, "he shot the Holy Grail."
* * *
At a concert in Elmira, N. Y., according to the Telegram, William
Kincade sang "Tolstoi's Good Bye." Some one sings it every now and then.
* * *
Among the forty-six professors removed from the universities of Greece
were, we understand, all those holding the chair of Greek. Another blow
at the classics.
* * *
LITERATURE.
A great deal of very good writing has been done by invalids, but it is
not likely that anybody ever produced a line worth remembering while
suffering with a plain cold.
* * *
We were saying to our friend Dr. Empedocles that we kept our enthusiasms
green by never taking anything very seriously. "That's interesting,"
said he: "I, too, have kept my enthusiasm fresh, and I have always taken
everything seriously." The two notions seemed irreconcilable, but we
presently agreed that by having a great number and variety of
enthusiasms one is not likely to ride any of them to death. We all know
persons who wear out an enthusiasm by taking it as solemnly as they
would a religious rite.
* * *
We were sure that the headline, "Mint at Chicago Greatly Needed, Houston
Says," would inspire more than one reader to remark that the mint is the
least important part of the combination.
* * *
We are reminded of the experience of a friend who has a summer place in
Connecticut. At church the pastor announced a fund for some war charity,
and asked for contributions. Our friend sent in fifty dollars, and a few
days later inquired of the pastor how much money had been raised,
"Fifty-five dollars and seventy-five cents," was the answer. The pastor
had contributed five dollars.
* * *
SONG.
[In the manner of Laura Blackburn.]
_I quested Love with timid feet,
And many qualms and perturbations--
Hoping yet fearing we should meet,
Because I knew my limitations._
_When Love I spied I fetched a sigh--
A sigh a Tristan might expire on:
"I must apologize," said I,
"For not resembling Georgie Byron."_
_Love laughed and said, "You know I'm blind,"
And pinched my ear, the little cutie!
"Her heart and yours shall be entwined,
Tho' you were twice as shy on beauty."_
* * *
Throwing self-interest to the winds, a Chicago sweetshop advertises:
"That we may have a part in the effort to bring back normal conditions
and reduce the high cost of living, our prices on chocolates and
bon-bons are now one dollar and fifty cents per pound."
* * *
Persons who are so o. f. as to like rhyme with their poetry may discover
another reason for their preference in the following passage, which
Edith Wyatt quotes from Oscar Wilde:
"Rime, that exquisite echo which in the Muse's hollow hill creates and
answers its own voice; rime, which in the hands of the real artist
becomes not merely a material element of material beauty, but a
spiritual element of thought and passion also, waking a new mood, it may
be, or stirring a fresh train of ideas, or opening by mere sweetness and
suggestion of sound some golden door at which the Imagination itself had
knocked in vain; rime which can turn man's utterance to the speech of
gods"--
* * *
We promised Miss Wyatt that the next time we happened on the parody of
Housman's "Lad," we would reprint it; and yesterday we stumbled on it.
Voila!--
THE BELLS OF FROGNAL LANE.
They sound for early Service
The bells of Frognal Lane;
And I am thinking of the day
I shot my cousin Jane.
At Frognal Lane the Service
Begins at half-past eight,
And some folk get there early
While others turn up late.
But, come they late or early,
I ne'er shall be again
The careless chap of days gone by
Before I murdered Jane.
* * *
We have been looking over "Forms Suggested for Telegraph Messages,"
issued by the Western Union. While more humorous than perhaps was
intended, they fall short of the forms suggested by Max Beerbohm, in
"How Shall I Word It?" As for example:
LETTER IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WEDDING PRESENT.
Dear Lady Amblesham,
Who gives quickly, says the old proverb, gives twice. For this reason I
have purposely delayed writing to you, lest I should appear to thank you
more than once for the small, cheap, hideous present you sent me on the
occasion of my recent wedding. Were you a poor woman, that little bowl
of ill-imitated Dresden china would convict you of tastelessness merely;
were you a blind woman, of nothing but an odious parsimony. As you have
normal eyesight and more than normal wealth, your gift to me proclaims
you at once a Philistine and a miser (or rather did so proclaim you
until, less than ten seconds after I had unpacked it from its wrappings
of tissue paper, I took it to the open window and had the satisfaction
of seeing it shattered to atoms on the pavement). But stay! I perceive a
flaw in my argument. Perhaps you were guided in your choice by a
definite wish to insult me. I am sure, on reflection, that this is so.
_I shall not forget._
Yours, etc.
Cynthia Beaumarsh.
PS. My husband asks me to tell you to warn Lord Amblesham to keep out of
his way or to assume some disguise so complete that he will not be
recognized by him and horsewhipped.
PPS. I am sending copies of this letter to the principal London and
provincial newspapers.
* * *
We hope that Max Beerbohm read far enough in Bergson to appreciate what
Mr. Santayana says of that philosopher. He seems to feel, wrote G. S.
(we quote from memory), that all systems of philosophy existed in order
to pour into him, which is hardly true, and that all future systems
would flow out of him, which is hardly necessary.
* * *
To a great number of people all reasoning and comment is superficial
that is not expressed in the jargon of sociology and political economy.
Expand a three-line paragraph in that manner and it becomes profound.
* * *
SING A SONG OF SPRINGTIME.
Sing a song of springtime, things begin to grow;
Four and twenty bluebirds darting to and fro;
When the morning opened the birds began to sing.
Wasn't that a pretty day to set before a king!
The King was on the golf links, chopping up the ground;
The Queen was in the garden, planting seeds around.
When the King returned, after many wasted hours,
"Don't ever say," the Queen exclaimed, "that you are fond of flowers."
* * *
Mike Neckyoke drives a taxi in Rhinelander, Wis., and you have only one
guess at what he used to drive.
* * *
From Philadelphia comes word of the nuptials of Mr. Tunis and Miss
Fisch. Tunis, we leapingly conclude, is the masculine form!
* * *
We have the card of another chimney sweep, who is "sole agent for wind
in chimneys and furnaces." His name is MacDraft, which may be another
nom de flume.
* * *
The anti-fat brigade may be intrigued to learn that Mr. George Squibb of
Wareham, Eng., sought death in the sea at Swanage, but was unable to
stay under the water because of his corpulence.
* * *
Not long ago a mule broke a leg by kicking a man in the head, and this
week a horse broke a leg in the same way; in each case the man was not
seriously injured. Is this merely luck, or is evolution modifying the
human coco?
* * *
More building is the solution of the unemployment problem. The
unemployed are never so occupied and contented as when watching the
construction of a sky-scraper.
* * *
Her publishers having announced that Ellen Glasgow has "gone into
leather," Keith Preston explains that going into leather is "like
receiving the accolade, taking the veil, or joining the American Academy
of Arts and Letters." And we suppose that when one goes into ooze
leather, or is padded, one may be said to be fini.
* * *
A FEW MORE "BEST BAD LINES."
Why leapest thou,
Why leapest thou
So high within my breast?
Oh, stay thee now,
Oh, stay thee now,
Thou little bounder, rest!
--Ruskin (at 12).
Something had happened wrong about a bill,
Which was not drawn with true mercantile skill,
So to amend it I was told to go
To seek the firm of Clutterbuck & Co.
--George Crabbe.
But let me not entirely overlook
The pleasure gathered from the rudiments
Of geometric science.
--Wordsworth.
Israel in ancient days
Not only had a view
Of Sinai in a blaze,
But heard the Gospel too.
--Cowper.
Flashed from his bed the electric message came;
He is no better; he is much the same.
--A Cambridge prize poem.
* * *
A household hinter advises that "if the thin white curtains blow into
the gas and catch fire sew small lead weights into the seams." Before
doing this, however, it would be wise to turn in an alarm.
* * *
The orchestra was playing too loud to suit the manager, so he complained
to the leader. "The passage is written in forte," said the latter.
"Well, make it about thirty-five."
* * *
SEIZE HIM, SCOUTS!
Sir: I submit for the consideration of the new school of journalism the
following, recently perpetrated by an aspiring young journalist:
"Information has been received that Mrs. Blank, who was spending a
vacation of several weeks in Colorado, was killed in an automobile
accident over long distance telephone by her husband."
Calcitrosus.
* * *
"THAT'S GOOD."
Sir: A man and three girls were waiting for the bus. The driver slowed
up long enough to call, "Full house!" "Three queens!" responded the
waiting cit, and turned disgustedly away.
X. T. C.
* * *
WHY BANK CLERKS ARE TIRED.
Sir: Voice over the telephone: "Please send me two check books."
B. C.: "Large or small?"
V. o. t. t.: "Well, I don't write such very large checks, but sometimes
they amount to a hundred dollars."
Jane.
* * *
"Why not make room for daddy?" queries the editor of the Emporia
Gazette, with a break in his voice. Daddy, we hardly need say, is the
silently suffering member of the household who hasn't a large closet all
to himself, with rows of, shiny hooks on which to hang his duds.
Ah, yes, why not make room for daddy? It is impossible to contemplate
daddy's pathetic condition without bursting into tears. Votes for women?
Huh! Hooks for men!
* * *
"NATION-WIDE."
How anybody can abide
That punk expression, "nation-wide"--
How one can view unhorrified
That vile locution, nation-wide,
I cannot see. I almost died
When first I spotted nation-wide.
On every hand, on every side,
On every page, is nation-wide.
To everything it is applied;
No matter what, it's nation-wide.
The daily paper's pet and pride:
They simply dote on nation-wide.
It seems if each with t'other vied
To make the most of nation-wide.
No doubt the proof-room Argus-eyed
Approves the "style" of nation-wide.
My colleagues fall for it, but I'd
Be damned if I'd use nation-wide.
It gets my goat, and more beside,
That phrase atrocious, nation-wide.
Abomination double-dyed,
Away, outrageous "nation-wide"!
* * *
Speaking of local color, B. Humphries Brown and Bonnie Blue were wedded
in Indianapolis.
* * *
Married, in Evansville, Ind., Ellis Shears and Golden Lamb. Something
might be added about wool-gathering.
* * *
Embarrassed by the riches of modern literature at our elbow, we took
refuge in Jane Austen, and re-read "Mansfield Park," marvelling again at
its freshness. They who hold that Mark Twain was not a humorist, or that
he was at best an incomplete humorist, have an argument in his lack of
appreciation of Jane Austen.
* * *
One of the most delightful things about the author of "Mansfield Park"
that we have seen lately is an extract from "Personal Aspects of Jane
Austen," by Miss Austen-Leigh. "Each of the novels," she says, "gives a
description, closely interwoven with the story and concerned with its
principal characters, of error committed, conviction following, and
improvement effected, all of which may be summed up in the word
'Repentance.'"
* * *
Almost as good is Miss Austen-Leigh's contradiction of the statement
that sermons wearied Jane. She quotes the author's own words: "I am
very fond of Sherlock's Sermons, and prefer them to almost any." What a
lot of amusement she must have had, shooting relatives and friends
through the hat!
* * *
Was there ever a character more delightfully detestable than Mrs.
Norris? Was there ever another character presented, so alive and
breathing, in so few pen strokes? Jane Austen had no need of
psychoanalysis.
* * *
As for William Lyons Phelps' remark, which a contrib has quoted, that
"too much modern fiction is concerned with unpleasant characters whom
one would not care to have as friends," how would you like to spend a
week-end with the characters in "The Mayor of Casterbridge"? With the
exception of the lady in "Two on a Tower," and one or two others, Mr.
Hardy's characters are not the sort that one would care to be cast away
with; yet will we sit the night out, book in hand, to follow their
sordid fortunes.
* * *
"What I want to know is," writes Fritillaria, "whether you think Jane
Austen drew Edmund and Fanny for models, or knew them for the
unconscionable prigs they are. I am collecting votes." Well, we think
that Jane knew they were prigs, but nevertheless had, like ourself, a
warm affection for Fanny. Fanny Price, Elizabeth Bennet, and Anne (we
forget her last name) are three of the dearest girls in fiction.
* * *
We are reminded by F. B. T. that the last name of the heroine of
"Persuasion" was Elliott. Anne is our favorite heroine--except when we
think of Clara Middleton.
* * *
Space has been reserved for us in the archæological department of the
Field Museum for Pre-Dry wheezes, which should be preserved for a
curious posterity. We have filed No. 1, which runs:
"First Comedian: 'Well, what made you get drunk in the first place?'
Second Comedian: 'I didn't get drunk in the first place. I got drunk in
the last place.'"
* * *
Our budding colyumist (who, by the way, has not thanked us for our
efforts in his behalf) will want that popular restaurant gag: "Use one
lump of sugar and stir like hell. We don't mind the noise."
* * *
"What," queries R. W. C., "has become of the little yellow crabs that
floated in the o. f. oyster stew?" Junsaypa. We never found out what
became of the little gold safety pins that used to come with neckties.
* * *
An innovation at the Murdock House in Shawano, Wis., is "Bouillon in
cups," instead of the conventional tin dipper.
* * *
By the way, has any candid merchant ever advertised a Good Riddance
Sale?
* * *
Much has been written about Mr. Balfour in the last twelvemonth; and Mr.
Balfour himself has published a book, a copy of which we are awaiting
with more or less impatience. Mr. Balfour is not considered a success as
a statesman, because he has always looked upon politics merely as a
game; and Frank Harris once wrote that if A. B. had had to work for a
living he might have risen to original thought--whatever that may imply.
* * *
What we have always marveled at is Balfour's capacity for mental
detachment. In the first year of the war he found time to deliver,
extempore, the Gifford lectures, and in the next year he published
"Theism and Humanism." It is said, of course, that he had a great gift
for getting or allowing other people to do his work in the war council
and the admiralty; but that does not entirely explain his brimming mind.
* * *
"There is a fine old man," as one of our readers reported his Irish
gardener as saying of A. B. "Did you know Mr. Balfour?" he was asked.
"Did I know him?" was the reply. "Didn't I help rotten-egg him in
Manchester twinty-five years ago!"
* * *
Col. Fanny Butcher relates that the average reader who patronizes the
New York public library prefers Conan Doyle's detective stories to any
others. Quite naturally. There is more artistry in Poe, and the tales
about the Frenchman, Arsène Lupin, are ten times more ingenious than
Doyle's; but Doyle has infused the adventures of Sherlock Holmes with
the undefinable something known as romance, and that has preserved them.
The great majority of detective stories are merely ingenious.
* * *
Col. Butcher says she uses "The Crock of Gold" to test the minds of
people. A friend of ours employs "Zuleika Dobson" for the same purpose.
What literary acid do _you_ apply?
* * *
Our compliments to Mrs. Borah, who possesses a needed sense of humor.
"If," she is reported as saying to her husband, "if it were not for the
pleasures of life you might enjoy it."
* * *
A librarian confides to us that she was visited by a young lady who
wished to see a _large_ map of France. She was writing a paper on the
battlefields of France for a culture club, and she just couldn't find
Flanders' Fields and No Man's Land on any of the maps in her books.
* * *
A sign, reported by B. R. J., in a Cedar Rapids bank announces: "We loan
money on Liberty bonds. No other security required." Showing that here
and there you will find a banker who is willing to take a chance.
* * *
The first object of the National Parks association is "to fearlessly
defend the national parks and monuments against assaults of private
interests." May we not hope that the w. k. infinitive also may be
preserved intact?
* * *
A missionary from the Chicago Woman's Club lectured in Ottawa on better
English and less slang, and the local paper headed its story: "Bum
Jabber Binged on Beezer by Jane With Trick Lingo."
* * *
Young Grimes tells us that he would like to share in the advantages of
Better Speech weeks, but does not know where to begin. We have started
him off with the word "February." If at the end of the week he can
pronounce it Feb-ru-ary we shall give him the word "address."
* * *
"This, being Better English week, everyone is doing their best to
improve their English."--Quincy, Mich., Herald.
Still, Jane Austen did it.
* * *
BETTER ENGLISH IN THE BEANERY.
Waiter: "Small on two--well!"
Chef: "Small well on two!"
Tip.
* * *
HAPPY THOUGHT.
This world is so full of a number of singers,
We need not be bluffed any longer by ringers.
The Magic Kit.
A FAIRY TALE FOR SYMPATHETIC
ELDERS.
I.
Once upon a time, not far removed from yesterday, there lived a poor
book reviewer named Abner Skipp. He was a kindly man and an excellent
husband and a most congenial soul to chat with, for he possessed a store
of information on the most remote and bootless subjects drawn from his
remarkable library--an accumulation of volumes sent to him for review,
and which he had been unable to dispose of to the dealers in second-hand
books. For you are to understand that too little literary criticism is
done on a cash basis. Occasionally a famous author, like Mr. Howells, is
paid real money to write something about Mr. James, or Mr. James is
substantially rewarded for writing about Mr. Howells, and heads of
departments and special workers are handsomely remunerated; but the
journeyman reviewer is paid in books; and these are the source of his
income.
Thus, every morning in the busy season, or perhaps once a week when
trade was dull, Abner Skipp journeyed from the suburbs to the city with
his pack of books on his back, and made the rounds of the second-hand
shops, disposing of his wares for whatever they would fetch. Novels,
especially what are known as the "best sellers," commanded good prices
if they were handled, like fruit, without delay; but they were such
perishable merchandise that oftentimes a best seller was dead before
Abner could get it to market; and as he frequently reviewed the same
novel for half a dozen employers, and therefore had half a dozen copies
of it in his pack, the poor wretch was sadly out of pocket, being
compelled to sell the dead ones to the junkman for a few pennies.
Abner Skipp was an industrious artisan and very skillful at his trade;
working at top speed, he could review more than a hundred books in a day
of eight hours. In a contest of literary critics held in Madison Square
Garden, New York, Abner won first prize in all three events--reviewing
by publisher's slip, reviewing by cover, and reviewing by title page.
But shortly after this achievement he had had the misfortune to sprain
his right arm in reviewing a new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica,
which accident so curtailed his earning power that he fell behind in a
money way, and was compelled to mortgage his home. But Abner Skipp was a
cheerful, buoyant soul; and as his arm grew better and he was again able
to wield the implements of his trade, he set bravely to work to mend his
broken fortunes.
II.
If Abner Skipp had had nothing but popular novels to review he would
assuredly have perished of starvation, but frequently he received a
medical work, or a history, or a volume of sportive philosophy by
William James, or some such valuable work, which he could sell for a
round sum. There was always plenty to do--all the best magazines
employed him, and twice in the year--a month in spring and a month in
fall--books came to him in such numbers that the expressman dumped them
into the house through a shute like so many coals.
Mrs. Skipp assisted her husband all she could, but being a frail little
woman she was able to work on only the lightest fiction. Angelica, the
oldest daughter, cleared the book bin of a good deal of poetry and gift
books, and even Grandpa Skipp was intrusted with a few juveniles.
But none of the family was more helpful than little Harold, who, after
school time, worked side by side with his father, trimming the ready
made review slips which publishers send out with books, and seeing that
the paste pot never got empty or the paste too thick. Harold, as his
father often proudly observed, was a born book reviewer. From infancy it
was observed that the outside of a book always interested him more than
the inside, and once when his school teacher directed him to write a
sentence containing the word "book," he wrote: "The book is attractively
bound and is profusely illustrated."
One evening, in the very busiest week of the busy season, little
Harold's was the only bright face at the supper table. Abner Skipp had
had a bad day in the city; Mrs. Skipp and Angelica were exhausted from
reviewing and household cares, and Grandpa was peevish because Abner had
taken the "Pea Green Fairy Book" away from him and given him instead a
"Child's History of the Congo Free State."
"What is the matter, Abner?" his wife asked him when the others of the
family had retired. "Does your arm hurt you again?"
"No, wife," replied Abner Skipp. "My arm does not trouble me; I have
handled only the lightest literature for the last fortnight. Alas! it is
the same old worry. The interest on the mortgage will be due again next
week, and in spite of the fact that the cellar is so full of books that
I can scarcely get into it, we have not a dollar above the sum required
to meet our monthly bills."
III.
"Alas!" exclaimed the hapless Abner Skipp, next morning, "it seems as if
nothing was being published this fall except popular novels, and I
obtained an average of less than twenty cents on the last sackload I
took to town, not counting the dead ones which I sold to the junkman."
"If only there were some way of keeping them alive for a few days
longer!" said Mrs. Skipp. "If one could only stimulate the heart action
by injecting strychnine!"
"Or even embalm them," said Abner, sharing his wife's grewsome humor.
"But no; it is impossible to deceive a second-hand bookseller. He seems
to know to the minute when a novel is dead, and declines to turn his
shop into a literary morgue." The poor man sighed. "If my employers
would send me a few volumes of biography, or an encyclopedia, or a set
of Shakespeare, we could easily meet the interest on the mortgage."
"I wish, Abner, that I could be of more help to you," said Mrs. Skipp.
"If I could break myself of the habit of glancing at the last chapter of
a novel before reviewing it, I could do ever so many more. Angelica is
even more thoughtless than I. The poor child declares that some of the
stories look so interesting that she forgets her work completely and
actually begins to read them. As for Grandpa, he always was a great
reader, and consequently has no head at all for reviewing."
"If Harold were a few years older----" mused Abner. "But there, wife, we
must not spend in vain repining the scant hours allotted to us for
sleep. Perhaps the expressman will bring us some scientific books
to-morrow. Quite a number were on Appletree's fall list."
Abner Skipp kissed his wife affectionately, and presently the house was
dark and still. Mrs. Skipp, worn out by the day's work, went quickly to
sleep; but Abner, haunted by the mortgage, passed a restless night.
Several times he fancied he heard a noise in the cellar, as if the
expressman were dumping another ton of books into the bin. At last, just
before dawn, there came a loud thump, as if a volume of Herbert
Spencer's Autobiography had fallen to the floor. Getting out of bed
quietly so that his weary wife should not be disturbed, Abner went to
the cellar stairway and listened.
A clicking sound was distinctly audible, and a faint light gleamed
below.
IV.
Cautiously descending the stair, Abner Skipp came upon so strange a
sight that with difficulty he restrained himself from crying out his
astonishment. Little Harold was seated before a queer mechanism, which
resembled a typewriter, spinning wheel, and adding machine combined,
engaged in turning the tons of books around him into reviews, as the
miller's daughter spun the straw into gold, in the ancient tale of
"Rumpelstiltzkin."
"Child, what does this mean?" cried the bewildered Abner Skipp.
"Father," replied Harold, "I am lifting the mortgage. Not long ago I saw
among the advertisements in the Saturday Home Herald an announcement of
a Magic Kit for book reviewers, with a capacity of 300 books per hour.
Fortunately I had enough money in my child's bank to pay the first
installment on this wonderful outfit which came to-day. Is it not a
marvelous invention, father? Even Grandpa could work it!" Trembling with
eagerness Abner Skipp bent over the Magic Kit, while little Harold
explained the working of the various parts.
To review a book all that was necessary was to press a few keys, pull a
lever or two, and the thing was done. Reviewing by publisher's slip was
simplicity itself; the slips were dropped into a hopper, and presently
emerged neatly gummed to sheets of copy paper; and if an extract from
the book were desired, a page was quickly torn out and fed in with the
slip. Reviewing by title page was almost as rapid. The operator
type-wrote the title, author's name, publisher, price, and number of
pages, and then pulled certain levers controlling the necessary words
and phrases, such as--
"This latest work is not likely to add to the author's reputation"; or--
"The book will appeal chiefly to specialists"; or--
"An excellent tale to while away an idle hour"; or--
"The book is attractively bound and is profusely illustrated."
"Father," said little Harold, his face glowing, "to-morrow we will hire
a furniture van and take all these books to the city."
"My boy," cried Abner Skipp, folding his little son in his arms, "you
are the little fairy in our home. Surely no other could have done this
job more neatly or with greater dispatch; and no fairy wand could be
more wonder-working than this truly Magic Kit."
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
_"Fay ce que vouldras."_
TO B. L. T.
(_Quintus Horatius Flaccus loquitur._)
Maecenas sprang from royal line,
You spring a Line diurnal.
(Perhaps my joke is drawn too fine
For readers of your journal.)
But what I started out to say,
Across the gulf of ages,
Is that, in our old Roman day,
My patron paid me wages.
No barren wreath of fame was mine
When Mac approved my stuff,
But casks of good Falernian wine,
And slaves and gold enough.
And last, to keep the wolf away
And guard my age from harm,
He gave me in his princely way
My little Sabine farm.
But now, forsooth, your merry crew--
_O Tempora! O Mores!_--
What do they ever get from you--
Your Laura, Pan, Dolores?
They fill the Line with verse and wheeze,
To them your fame is due.
What do they ever get for these?
Maecenas? Ha! Ha! _You?_
So as I quaff my spectral wine,
At ease beside the Styx,
Would I contribute to the Line?
Nequaquam! Nunquam! Nix!
Campion.
* * *
Our compliments to Old Man Flaccus, whose witty message reminds us to
entreat contribs to be patient, as we are snowed under with offerings.
For a week or more we have been trying to horn into the column with some
verses of our own composing.
* * *
BRIGHT SAYINGS OF MOTHER.
My respected father came to breakfast on New Year's Day remarking that
he had treated himself to a present by donning a new pair of suspenders,
whereupon mother remarked: "Well braced for the New Year, as it were!"
C. T. S.
* * *
After some years of editing stories of events in high society, a
gentleman at an adjacent desk believes he has learned the chief duty of
a butler. It is to call the police.
* * *
"THAT STRAIN AGAIN--IT HAD A DYING SNORT."
Sir: Speaking of soft music and the pearly gates, S. T. Snortum is owner
and demonstrator of the music store at St. Peter, Minnesota.
S. W. E.
* * *
Warren, O., has acquired a lady barber, and dinged if her name isn't
Ethel Gillette.
* * *
No doubt the Manistee News-Advocate has its reason for running the "hogs
received" news under the heading "Hotel Arrivals."
* * *
"I see by an announcement by the Columbia Mills that window shades are
down," communicates W. H. B. "Can it be that the Columbia Mills people
are ashamed of something?" Mebbe. Or perhaps they are fixing prices.
* * *
"For the lovamike," requests the Head Scene-Shifter, "keep the Admirable
Crichton out of the Column. We have twenty-five presses, and it takes a
guard at each press to prevent it from appearing Admiral Crichton."
* * *
Pittsburgh Shriners gave a minstrel show the other night, and the
inspired reporter for the Post mentions that "an intermission separated
the two parts and broke the monotony."
* * *
A Bach chaconne is on the orchestra programme this week. Some one
remarked that he did not care for chaconnes, which moved us to quote
what some one else (we think it was Herman Devries) said: "Chaconne à
son goût."
* * *
"Pond and Pond Donate $500 to Union Pool Fund."--Ann Arbor item.
Quite so.
* * *
If we had not been glancing through the real estate notes we should
never have known that Mystical Schriek lives in Evansville, Ind.
* * *
From the Illinois Federal Reporter: "Village of Westville vs. Albert
Rainwater. Mr. Rainwater is charged with violation of the ordinance in
regard to the sale of soft drinks." Can Al have added a little hard
water to the mixture?
* * *
MEMORY TESTS FOR THE HOME.
Sir: Friend wife was naming authors of various well known novels, as I
propounded their titles. Follows the result:
Me: "The Last Days of Pompeii." She: "Dante."
"Les Miserables." "Huguenot."
"Adam Bede." "Henry George."
"Vanity Fair." "Why, that's in Ecclesiastes."
"Ben Hur." "Rider Haggard."
"The Pilgrim's Progress." "John Barleycorn."
"Don Quixote." (No reply.)
"Waverly." "Oh, did Waverly write that?"
"Anna Karenina." "Count Leon Trotsky."
J. C.
* * *
We see by the Fargo papers that Mrs. Bernt Wick gave a dinner recently,
and we hope that Miss Candle, the w. k. night nurse, was among the
guests.
* * *
LEVI BEIN' A GOOD SPORT.
Sir: Levi Frost, the leading druggist of Milton Falls, Vt., set a big
bottle of medicine in his show window with a sign sayin' he'd give a
phonograph to anybody who could tell how many spoonfuls there was in the
bottle. Jed Ballard was comin' downstreet, and when he seen the sign he
went and he sez, sezzee, "Levi," sezzee, "if you had a spoon big enough
to hold it all, you'd have just one spoonful in that bottle." And, by
Judas Priest, Levi give him the phonograph right off.
Hiram.
* * *
"Basing his sermon on the words of Gesta Romanorum, who in 1473 said,
'What I spent I had, what I kept I lost, what I gave I have,' the Rev.
Albert H. Zimmerman," etc.--Washington Post.
As students of the School of Journalism ought to know, the philosopher
Gesta Romanorum was born in Sunny, Italy, although some historians claim
Merry, England, and took his doctor's degree at the University of
Vivela, in Labelle, France. His Latin scholarship was nothing to brag
of, but he was an ingenious writer. He is best known, perhaps, as the
author of the saying, "Rome was not built in a day," and the line which
graced the flyleaf of his first edition, "Viae omniae in Romam
adducunt."
* * *
"It is a great misfortune," says Lloyd George, "that the Irish and the
English are never in the same temper at the same time." Nor is that
conjuncture encouragingly probable. But there is hope. Energy is
required for strenuous rebellion, and energy is converted into heat and
dissipated. If, or as, the solar system is running down, its stock of
energy is constantly diminishing; and so the Irish Question will
eventually settle itself, as will every other mess on this slightly
flattened sphere.
* * *
Whenever you read about England crumbling, turn to its automobile Blue
Book and observe this: "It must be remembered that in all countries
except England and New Zealand automobiles travel on the wrong side of
the road."
* * *
The first sign of "crumbling" on the part of the British empire that we
have observed is the welcome extended to the "quick lunch." That may get
'em.
* * *
_LOST AND FOUND._
[Song in the manner of Laura Blackburn.]
_Whilst I mused in vacant mood
By a wild-thyme banklet,
Love passed glimmering thro' the wood,
Lost her golden anklet._
_Followed I as fleet as dart
With the golden token;
But she vanished--and my heart,
Like the clasp, is broken._
_Such a little hoop of gold!
She ... but how compare her?
Till Orion's belt grow cold
I shall quest the wearer._
_Next my heart I've worn it since,
More than life I prize it,
And, like Cinderella's prince,
I must advertise it._
* * *
Would you mind contributing a small sum, say a dollar or two, to the
Keats Memorial Fund. We thought not. It is a privilege and a pleasure.
The object is to save the house in which the poet lived during his last
years, and in which he did some of his best work. The names of all
contributors will be preserved in the memorial house, so it would be a
nice idea to send your dollar or two in the name of your small child or
grandchild, who may visit Hampstead when he grows up. Still standing
in the garden at Hampstead is the plum tree under which Keats wrote,
"Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down."
* * *
Americans who speak at French should confine their conversation to other
Americans similarly talented. They should not practise on French people,
whose delicate ear is no more proof against impure accent than a stone
is proof against dripping water. The mistake which English speaking
people make is assuming that French is merely a language, whereas, even
in Paris, the speaking of it as much as accomplishment as singing, or
painting on china. Many gifted Frenchmen, like M. Viviani, Anatole
France, and some other Academicians, speak French extremely well, but
even these live in hope of improvement, of some day mastering the
finest shades of nasality and cadence, the violet rays of rhythm.
* * *
Mr. Masefield, the poet, does not believe that war times nourish the
arts. The human brain does its best work, he says, when men are happy.
How perfectly true! Look at ancient Greece. She was continually at war,
and what did the Grecians do for art? A few poets, a few philosophers
and statesmen, a few sculptors, and the story is told. On the other
hand, look at England in Shakespeare's time. The English people were
inordinately happy, for there were no wars to depress them, barring a
few little tiffs with the French and the Spanish, and one or two
domestic brawls. The human brain does its best work when men are happy,
indeed. There was Dante, a cheery old party. But why multiply instances?
* * *
Having read a third of H. M. Tomlinson's "The Sea and the Jungle," we
pause to offer the uncritical opinion that this chap gets as good
seawater into his copy as Conrad, and that, in the item of English, he
can write rings around Joseph.
* * *
Like others who have traversed delectable landscapes and recorded their
impressions, in memory or in notebooks, we have tried to communicate to
other minds the "incommunicable thrill of things": a pleasant if
unsuccessful endeavor. When you are new at it, you ascribe your failure
to want of skill, but you come to realize that skill will not help you
very much. You will do well if you hold the reader's interest in your
narrative: you will not, except by accident, make him see the thing you
have seen, or experience the emotion you experienced.
* * *
So vivid a word painter as Tomlinson acknowledges that the chance
rewards which make travel worth while are seldom matters that a reader
would care to hear about, for they have no substance. "They are no
matter. They are untranslatable from the time and place. Such fair
things cannot be taken from the magic moment. They are not provender for
notebooks."
* * *
He quotes what the Indian said to the missionary who had been talking to
him of heaven. "Is it like the land of the musk-ox in summer, when the
mist is on the lakes, and the loon cries very often?" These lakes are
not charted, and the Indian heard the loon's call in his memory; but we
could not better describe the delectable lands through which we have
roamed. "When the mist is on the lakes and the loon cries very often."
What traveler can better that?
* * *
Old Bill Taft pulled a good definition of a gentleman t'other day. A
gentleman, said he, is a man who never hurts anyone's feelings
unintentionally.
* * *
Mr. Generous is the claim agent for the New Haven railroad at New
Britain, Conn., but a farmer whose cow wandered upon the rails tells us
that he lost money by the settlement.
* * *
William Benzine, who lives near Rio, Wis., was filling his flivver tank
by the light of a lantern when-- But need we continue?
* * *
Our notion of a person of wide tastes is one who likes almost everything
that isn't popular.
* * *
Speaking of the Naval Station, you may have forgotten the stirring
ballad which we wrote about it during the war. If so--
YEO-HEAVE-HO!
It was a gallant farmer lad
Enlisted in the navy.
"Give me," said he, "the deep blue sea,
The ocean wide and wavy!"
A sailor's uniform he'd don,
And never would he doff it.
He packed his grip, and soon was on
His way to Captain Moffett.
In cap of white and coat of blue
He labored for the nation,
A member of the salty crew
That worked the Naval Station.
He soon became the best of tars,
A seaman more than able,
By sweeping streets, and driving cars,
And waiting on the table.
He guarded gates, and shoveled snow,
And worked upon the highway.
"_All_ lads," said he, "should plough the sea,
And would if I had _my_ way."
Week-end he took a trolley car,
And to the city hied him,
Alongside of another tar
Who offered for to guide him.
The train rolled o'er a trestle high,
The river ran below him.
"Well, I'll be blamed!" our tar exclaimed,
And grabbed his pal to show him.
"Yes, dash my weeping eyes!" he cried.
"That's water, sure, by gravy!
The first blue water I have spied
Since joining of the navy!"
* * *
Now, "landsmen all," the moral's plain:
Our navy still is arming,
And if you'd plough the well known main,
You'd best begin by farming.
If you would head a tossing prow
Among our navigators,
Get up at morn and milk the cow,
And yeo-heave-ho the 'taters.
Do up your chores, and do 'em brown,
And learn to drive a flivver;
And some day, when you go to town,
You'll see the raging river.
* * *
The speaker of the House of Commons, who, "trembling slightly with
emotion," declared the sitting suspended, needs in his business the calm
of the late Fred Hall. While Mr. Hall was city editor of this journal of
civilization an irate subscriber came in and mixed it with a reporter.
Mr. Hall approached the pair, who were rolling on the floor, and,
peering near-sightedly at them, addressed the reporter: "Mr. Smith, when
you have finished with this gentleman, there is a meeting at the Fourth
Methodist church which I should like to have you cover."
* * *
In his informing and stimulating collection of essays, "On Contemporary
Literature," recently published, Mr. Stuart P. Sherman squanders an
entire chapter on Theodore Dreiser. It seems to us that he might have
covered the ground and saved most of his space by quoting a single
sentence from Anatole France, who, referring to Zola, wrote: "He has no
taste, and I have come to believe that want of taste is that mysterious
sin of which the Scripture speaks, the greatest of sins, the only one
which will not be forgiven."
* * *
"What is art?" asked jesting Pilate. And before he could beat it for his
chariot someone answered: "Art is a pitcher that you can't pour anything
out of."
* * *
It is much easier to die than it is to take a vacation. A man who is
summoned to his last long voyage may set his house in order in an hour:
a few words, written or dictated, will dispose of his possessions, and
his heirs will gladly attend to the details. This done, he may fold his
hands on his chest and depart this vexatious life in peace.
* * *
It is quite another matter to prepare for a few weeks away from town.
There are bills to be paid; the iceman and the milkman and the
laundryman must be choked off, and the daily paper restrained from
littering the doorstep. There is hair to be cut, and teeth to be
tinkered, and so on. In short, it takes days to stop the machinery of
living for a fortnight, and days to start it going again. But, my dear,
one must have a change.
* * *
JUST A REHEARSAL.
[From the Elgin News.]
Mr. and Mrs. Perce left immediately on a short honeymoon trip. The
"real" honeymoon trip is soon to be made, into various parts of
Virginia.
* * *
LAME IN BOTH REGISTERS?
[From the Decatur Review.]
Dr. O. E. Williams, who is conducting revival services in the First
United Brethren church, spoke to a large audience on Friday night on
"Lame in Both Feet." Mrs. Williams sang a solo in keeping with the
sermon.
* * *
FLORAL POME.
(_Sign on Ashland Ave.: "Vlk the Florist."_)
For flowers fragrant, sweet as milk,
Be sure to call on Florist Vlk.
Roses, lilies, for the folks
Can be purchased down at Vlk's.
Of bouquets there is no lack
At the flower shop of Vlk.
Orchids, pansies, daisies, phlox,
All are sold at Florist Vlk's.
A wondrous place, a shop de luxe
Is this here store of William Vlk's.
F. E. C. Jr.
* * *
The Boston aggregation, by the way (a witty New Yorker, a musician,
informed us), is sometimes referred to as the Swiss Family Higginson and
the Bocheton Symphony orchestra.
* * *
Touching on musical criticism, a Chicago writer who visited St. Louis to
report a music festival had a few drinks before the opening concert. His
telegraphed review began: "Music is frozen architecture."
* * *
Aside from his super-mathematics, Dr. Einstein is understandable. He
prefers Bach to Wagner, Shakespeare to Goethe, and he would rather walk
in the valleys than climb the mountains.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Example of pep and tact.]
Dear Sir: We absolutely cannot understand why you do not buy stock in
the ---- proposition or why we have not heard from you in reference to
our letter. A man in your position should be able to invest some of his
earnings into a proposition that should turn out a big success. It seems
to us that the more rotten a proposition is the better the people will
buy.
Now if you can explain this as to why the people bite on the many and
poor schemes that are out to the public as there has been in the last
six months, the information would be more than gladly received by us.
Let's get away from all this bunk stuff and think for ourselves and put
your money in a real live proposition such as the ----.
After you invest your money in our business, do not fail to submit our
proposition to some of your friends, so as to put this proposition over
the top just as soon as possible.
May this letter act on you and try to improve your thought on investing
your money with us, for we stand as true and honest as we can in order
to make money for our clients.
Trusting that you will mail your check or money order to us at your very
earliest convenience while the security is still selling at par, $10 per
share, or a letter from you stating your reason for not doing so, we
are, respectfully yours, etc.
* * *
In dedicating her autobiography to her husband, Mrs. Asquith quotes
Epictetus: "Have you not received powers, to the limit of which you will
bear all that befalls? Have you not received magnanimity? Have you not
received courage? Have you not received endurance?" Mr. Christopher
Morley thinks the gentleman needs them, but we are not so sure. It is
said that when Margot mentioned to him the large sum she was to receive
for the book, Mr. Asquith remarked, "I hope, my dear, that it isn't
worth it."
* * *
As many know, Mr. Humphry Ward is a person of importance in his line. An
American couple in London invited him to dine with them at their hotel,
and concluded the invitation with the line, "If there is a Mrs. Ward, we
should like to have her come, too."
* * *
In the Review of Reviews, Mr. Herbert Wade entitles his interview with
Prof. Michelson, "Measuring the Suns of the Solar System." Wonder how he
explained it to the Prof?
* * *
"She left a note saying she would do the next worst thing to suicide....
She went to Cleveland but decided to return."
Try South Bend.
* * *
"He decided that life was not worth living after that, so he came to
South Bend."--South Bend Tribune.
Stet!
* * *
WHY THE DOG LEFT TOWN.
[From the Newton, Ia., News, Dec. 2.]
Warning--A resident of North Newton went home from work Saturday night
and as he went in the front door a man went out the back door. This
party had better leave town, for I know who he is and am after him.
W. H. Miller.
[From the same paper, Dec. 5.]
I have since discovered that it was a neighbor's dog that bounded out of
the back door as I came in the front door the other night. My wife had
gone to a neighbor's and left the back door ajar, hence a big dog had no
trouble getting in.
W. H. Miller.
* * *
"'I don't see why we go to England for nincompoops when we have men like
Prof. Grummann here at home,' remarked Fred L. Haller."--Omaha Bee.
We trust Mr. Haller called up the Professor and explained what he meant.
* * *
_THE PASSIONATE PURE FOOD EXPERT TO HIS LOVE._
_Come live with me, my own pure love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
In passion unadulterated
And bliss that isn't benzoated._
_Love's purest formula we'll spell:
Our joys will never fail to jell.
The honeyed kisses we imprint
Will show of glucose not a hint._
_Your Wiley will your food prepare,
And cook a meal to curl your hair;
And every morning you shall have a
Rare cup of genuine Mocha-Java._
_And you shall have a buckwheat cake
Better than mother used to make,
And sirup from the maple wood--
Not a vile sorghum "just as good."_
_The eggs, the bacon, and the jam
Shall he as pure as Mary's lamb;
And nothing sans a pure-food label
Shall grace your matutinal table._
_Oh, hearken to your Harvey's suit,
And 'ware the phony substitute.
If pure delights your mind may move,
Come live with me and be my Love._
* * *
Prof. Brown of Carlton College complains that college faculties are
concerned with the mental slacker and the laggard, that they have geared
their machinery to the sluggard's pace. True enough, but not only true
of educational institutions. In a democracy everything is geared to the
pace of the weak.
"As for authors," sighs Shan Bullock, "their case is fairly hopeless.
But I recognize that in the new democracy even average intellect has no
place at present. The new democracy is on trial. Until it has proven
definitely whether it sides with cinemas or ideals, there is not even a
living for men who once held an honored place in the scheme of things.
That is a dark saying, but I think it is true."
* * *
We thought the doubtful honor was possessed by the United States, but
M. Cambon declares that there is no other country where people take so
little interest in foreign politics as they do in France.
* * *
A nervy Frenchman, M. Bourgeois, has translated "The Playboy of the
Western World." You can imagine with what success. "God help me,
where'll I hide myself away and my long neck naked to the world?"
becomes "Dieu m'aide, où vais-je me cacher et mon long cou tout nu?"
* * *
The President of the Chicago Chapter of the Wild Flower Preservation
Society wrote to the Department of Agriculture for a certain Bulletin on
Forestry and another one on Mushrooms for the book table at their
Exhibition in the Art Institute. In due time arrived 250 copies of "How
to make unfermented grape juice" and 250 copies of "Hog Cholera."
Anybody want them?
* * *
OH, DON'T YOU REMEMBER SWEET MARY, BEN BOLT?
"What has become of Mary MacLane?" asks a reader. We don't know, at this
moment, but we remember--what is more important--a jingle by the late
lamented Roz Field:
"She dwelt beside the untrodden ways,
Among the hills of Butte,
A maid whom no one cared to love,
And no one dared to shoot."
* * *
The Montmartre crowd had a ticket in the Paris municipal election. The
design on the carte d'electeur was a windmill, with the legend below,
"Bien vivre et ne rien faire." This would do nicely for our city hall
push.
* * *
Is there another person in this wicked world quite so virtuous as a
chief of police on the day that he takes office?
* * *
INDIFFERENCE.
Said B. L. T. to F. P. A.,
"How shall I end the Line to-day?"
"It's immaterial to me,"
Said F. P. A. to B. L. T.
M. L. H.
Let it, then, go double.
Mr. Dubbe's Program Study Class.
(ACCOMPANYING THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA CONCERTS.)
Reported by Miss Poeta Pants.
I.--THE NEAPOLITAN SIXTH.
Mr. Criticus Flub-Dubbe's program study class began the season yesterday
afternoon with every member present and keenly attentive. After a
preparatory sketch of old Italian music, Mr. Dubbe told us about the
Neapolitan Sixth, which, he said had exercised so strong an influence on
music that, if Naples had never done anything else, this alone would
have insured to the city fame in history.
"The Neapolitan Sixth," said Mr. Dubbe, "is so called because the
composers of the Neapolitan school of opera were the first to introduce
it freely. D. and A. Scarlatti were at the head of the school and were
well-known musicians. Bach, who was not so well known, also used this
sixth."
"Which used it first?" asked Mrs. Givu A. Payne.
"Bach, of course," replied Mr. Dubbe. "Bach used everything first."
"Dear old Bach!" exclaimed Miss Georgiana Gush.
"The Neapolitan Sixth," continued Mr. Dubbe, "is usually found in the
first inversion; hence the name, the sixth indicating the first
inversion of the chord."
"How clever!" said Mrs. Gottem-Allbeat.
"It is an altered chord, the altered tone being the super-tonic. The
real character of the chord is submediant of the subdominant key; that
is, it is a major chord, and the use of such a major chord in the solemn
minor tonalities is indicative of the superficiality of the Italian
school--a desire for a change from the strict polyphonic music of the
times. Even the stern Bach was influenced."
"The Italians are so frivolous," said Mrs. Boru-Stiffe.
"A reign of frivolity ensued," went on Mr. Dubbe. "Not only was Italian
music influenced by this sixth, but Italian art, architecture,
sculpture, even material products. Take, for example, Neapolitan
ice-cream. Observe the influence of the sixth. The cream is made in
three color tones--the vanilla being the subdominant, as the chord is of
subdominant character; the strawberry being the submediant, and the
restful green the lowered supertonic or altered tone."
"What is the pineapple ice?" asked Miss Gay Votte.
"The pineapple ice is the twelfth overtone," replied Mr. Dubbe.
"There doesn't seem to be anything that Mr. Dubbe doesn't know,"
whispered Mrs. Fuller-Prunes to me with a smile.
I should say there wasn't!
After the lecture we had a lovely hand-made luncheon. Miss Ellenborough
presided at the doughnuts and Mrs. G. Clef poured. It was such a helpful
hour.
II.
"You remember," said Mr. Dubbe, "that Herr Weidig, in his lecture on the
wood winds, gave a double bassoon illustration from Brahms' 'Chorale of
St. Anthony,' which you are to hear to-day. But Herr Weidig neglected to
mention the most interesting point in the illustration--that the
abysmal-toned double bassoon calls attention to the devil-possessed
swine, St. Anthony being the patron saint of swine-herds. I want you to
listen carefully to this swine motive. It is really extraordinary." Mr.
Dubbe wrote the motive on the blackboard and then played it on his
double bassoon, which, he said, is one of the very few in this country.
"The bassoon," said Mr. Dubbe, "was Beethoven's favorite instrument. I
go further than Beethoven in preferring the double bassoon. Among my
unpublished manuscripts are several compositions for this instrument,
and my concerto for two double bassoons is now in the hands of a Berlin
publisher.
"But to recur to the Brahms chorale. You should know that it makes the
second best variations in existence. The best are in the Heroic
Symphony. The third best are Dvorák's in C major."
"C. Major--that's the man who wrote 'Dorothy Vernon,'" giggled Miss Vera
Cilly.
"I am not discussing ragtime variations," said Mr. Dubbe, severely.
"Not knocking anybody," whispered Miss Gay Votte.
"Another interesting point in connection with this week's program,"
resumed Mr. Dubbe, "is the river motive in Smetana's symphonic poem,
'The Moldau.' Three flutes represent (loosely speaking; for, as I have
often told you, music cannot represent anything) the rippling of the
Moldau, a tributary of the Danube. If the composer had had a larger
river in mind he would have used nine flutes. If this composition of
Smetana's seems rather unmusical, allowance must be made for him, as the
poor man was deaf and couldn't hear how bad his own music was."
"Wasn't Beethoven deaf?" asked Miss Sara Band.
"Only his physical ears were affected," replied Mr. Dubbe. "Smetana's
soul ears were also deaf."
At the close of the lecture Miss Ellenborough gave us a surprise in the
way of raised doughnuts made in the form of a G clef. Mrs.
Gottem-Allbeat poured.
III.
There was an ominous flash in Dr. Dubbe's eye when he arose to address
the class. "We have this week," he began, "a program barbarous enough to
suit the lovers of ultra-modern music. There is Saint-Saëns' overture,
'Les Barbares,' to begin with. This is as barbaric as a Frenchman can
get, and is interesting chiefly as a study of how not to use the
trumpets. But for sheer barbarity commend me to Hausegger's
'Barbarossa.' Here we find the apotheosis of modern exaggeration.
Hausegger strove to make up for inimportant themes by a profuse use of
instruments. Only one theme, which occurs in the third movement, is of
any account, and that is an imitation of an old German chorale. In this
most monotonously muted of tone-poems the composer forgot to mute one
instrument--his pen."
"My! but Dr. Dubbe is knocking to-day," whispered Miss Sara Band.
"The thing is in C major and opens with a C major chord," continued Dr.
Dubbe. "That is the end of the C major; it never returns to that key.
This is modern music. Take the third movement. It opens with a
screeching barbershop chord. A little later ensues a prize fight
between two themes, which continues until one of them is knocked out. In
this edifying composition, also, snare drum sticks are used on the
kettle drums. More modern music. Bah!"
I have never seen Dr. Dubbe so irritated.
"Let us turn to something more cheerful," resumed Dr. Dubbe; and seating
himself at the piano he played the Schubert C minor impromptu. "On the
second page," he said, "where the key becomes A flat major, occurs a
harmony which looks and sounds like a foreign chord. Treated
harmonically it is a second dominant formation, and should read C flat,
D natural, A flat, diminished seventh of the key of the dominant.
Schubert does not, however, use it harmonically, otherwise the B natural
would read C flat. These notes are enharmonic because, though different,
they sound the same."
"How clear!" exclaimed Miss Gay Votte.
"But Schubert, instead of progressing harmonically, goes directly back
into the tonic of A flat major."
"How careless of him!" said Mrs. Givu A. Payne.
"Schubert uses it in its natural position. If the enharmonic C flat were
used the chord would then be in its third inversion. Each diminished
seventh harmony may resolve in sixteen different ways."
"Mercy!" murmured Mrs. Fuller-Prunes. "How much there is to know."
Dr. Dubbe passed his hand across his brow as if wearied. "I shall never
cease to regret," he said, "that Schubert did not write C flat. It would
have been so much clearer."
After the lecture Miss Ellenborough gave us another surprise--doughnuts
made in the shape of flats. Dr. Dubbe ate five, saying that D flat major
was his favorite key.
I rode down in the elevator with him and he repeated his remark that
Schubert had unnecessarily bemuddled the chord.
"I am sure you made it very plain," I said. "We all understand it now."
"Do you, indeed?" he replied. "That's more than I do."
Of course he was jesting. He understands everything.
IV.
Dr. Dubbe was in his element yesterday. The trinity of B's--Bach,
Beethoven, and Brahms--or, as Dr. Dubbe put it, the "trinity of
logicians," was much to his taste: a truly Gothic program.
"But what a contrast is the second half," said Dr. Dubbe. "In the first
we have the Kings of absolute music. In his youth Beethoven strayed from
the path (for even he must sow his musical wild oats), but in his
maturer years he produced no music that was not absolute. But in the
second half we have Berlioz and program music."
"I thought program music was music suitable for programs," said Mrs.
Givu A. Payne.
"Berlioz," continued Dr. Dubbe, "instituted the 'musical reform' in
Germany--the new German school of Liszt and Wagner. Berlioz's music is
all on the surface, while Brahms' music sounds the depths. He uses the
contra-bassoon in about all of his orchestral compositions (you will
hear it to-day), and most of his piano works take the last A on the
piano. If his bass seems at times muddy it is because he goes so deep
that he stirs up the bottom."
"How clear!" exclaimed Miss Gay Votte.
"Take measure sixty-five in Berlioz's 'Dance of the Sylphs,'" said Dr.
Dubbe. "The spirits hover over Faust, who has fallen asleep. The 'cellos
are sawing away drowsily on their pedal point D (probably in sympathy
with Faust), and what sounds like Herr Thomas tuning the orchestra is
the lone A of the fifth. The absent third represents the sleep of Faust.
This is a trick common to the new school. Wagner uses it in 'Siegfried,'
in the close of the Tarnhelm motive, to illustrate the vanishing
properties of the cap. In measure fifty-seven of the Ballet you will
find a chord of the augmented five-six, a harmony built on the first
inversion of the diminished seventh of the key of the dominant, with
lowered bass tone, and which in this instance resolves into the dominant
triad. Others claim that this harmony is a dominant ninth with root
omitted and lowered fifth."
"It has always seemed so to me," said Mrs. Fuller-Prunes. But I don't
believe she knows a thing about it.
"I think it's all awfully cute," said Miss Georgiana Gush.
"The harmony," resumed Dr. Dubbe, frowning, "really sounds like a
dominant seventh, and may be changed enharmonically into a dominant
seventh and resolve into the Neapolitan sixth. This is all clear to you,
I suppose?"
"Oh, yes," we all replied.
Dr. Dubbe then analyzed and played for us Brahms' First Symphony, after
which Miss Ellenborough served doughnuts made in the shape of a Gothic
B. We all had to eat them--one for Bach, one for Beethoven, and one for
Brahms.
V.
Dr. Dubbe did not appear enthusiastic over this week's program. I guess
because there was no Bach or Brahms on it. But we enjoyed his lecture
just the same.
"Raff was the Raphael of music," said Dr. Dubbe. "He was handicapped by
a superabundance of ideas, but, unlike Raphael, he did not constantly
repeat himself. This week we will have a look at his Fifth Symphony,
entitled 'Lenore.'"
"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Georgiana Gush, "that's the one the hero of 'The
First Violin' was always whistling."
"As you all know," said Dr. Dubbe, "this symphony is based on Bürger's
well-known ballad of 'Lenore,' but as only the last movement is
concerned with the actual ballad I will confine my remarks mainly to
that. I wish, however, to call your attention to a curious harmony in
the first movement. Upon the return of the first theme the trombones
break in upon a dominant B major harmony with what is apparently a
dominant C major harmony, D, F, and B. But the chords are actually
enharmonic of D, E sharp, and B. This is a dominant harmony in F sharp.
Listen for these trombone chords, and pay special attention to the E
sharp--a tone that is extremely characteristic of Raff."
"I think I have read somewhere," said Mrs. Givu A. Payne, "that Raff was
exceedingly fond of E sharp."
"He was," said Dr. Dubbe. "He often said he didn't see how he could get
along without it. But to resume:
"The fourth movement opens with Lenore's lamentation over her absent
lover and her quarrel with her mother--the oboe being the girl and the
bassoon her parent. Lenore foolishly curses her fate (tympani and
triangle), and from that moment is lost. There is a knock at the door
and her dead lover appears with a horse and suggests something in the
nature of an elopement. Not knowing he is dead, Lenore acquiesces, and
away they go (trumpets, flutes and clarinets).
"'T is a wild and fearful night. Rack scuds across the moon's wan face
(violas and second violins). Hanged men rattle in their chains upon the
wayside gibbets (triangle and piccolo). But on, on, on go the lovers,
one dead and the other nearly so.
"At last they reach the grave in the church-yard, and death claims the
lost Lenore ('cellos and bass viols _pizzicato_). For a conclusion there
is a coda founded on the line in the ballad, 'Gott sei der Seele
gnädig.' It is very sad."
Dr. Dubbe seemed much affected by the sad tale, and many of us had to
wipe tears away. But Miss Ellenborough came to our rescue with some
lovely doughnuts made in the shape of a true lovers' knot. These, with
the tea, quite restored us.
VI.
There really wasn't any study class this week--that is, Dr. Dubbe did
not appear. While the class waited for him and wondered if he were ill
a messenger brought me the following note:
"My Dear Poeta: Kindly inform the class that there will be no
lecture this week. I cannot stand for such a trivial program as Herr
Thomas has prepared.
C. F.-D."
"He might have told us sooner," said Miss Georgiana Gush.
"Why, yes; he knew last week what the next program would be," said Mrs.
Faran-Dole.
"The eccentricity of genius, my dear," remarked Mrs. Gottem-Allbeat.
"Genius is not tied down by rules of conduct of any sort."
"Well," said Mrs. Givu A. Payne, "I don't blame him for not wanting to
analyze this week's program. There isn't a bit of Bach or Brahms on it."
"Ladies," said Miss Ellenborough, coming forward with a gentleman who
had just arrived, "let me introduce Mr. Booth Tarkington, of Indiana.
Mr. Tarkington came up to attend the lecture, but as Dr. Dubbe will not
be here Mr. Tarkington has kindly consented to give a doughnut recital,
so to speak."
"Oh, how lovely!" we all exclaimed.
"Mr. Tarkington," added Miss Ellenborough, "is well known as the author
of the Beaucaire doughnut, the pride of Indiana doughnutdom."
Saying which Miss Ellenborough removed the screen that conceals her work
table and Mr. Tarkington, in an incredibly short time, produced a batch
of Beaucaires. They were really excellent, and we didn't leave a single
one. Mr. Everham Chumpleigh Keats poured.
After tea we all adjourned to the concert, which we enjoyed immensely,
in spite of the absence of Bach and Brahms. Not knocking Dr. Dubbe.
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
_Inveniat, quod quisque velit; non omnibus unum est, Quod placet; hic
spinas colligit, ille rosas._
--_Petronius._
_THE PASSING OF SUMMER._
_Summer is gone with its roses,
Summer is gone with its wine;
Likewise a lot of dam choses
Not so ideal and benign._
_King Sol is visiting Virgo,
On his Zodiacal way.
'Morrow's the twenty-third! Ergo,
Summer will vanish to-day._
* * *
Summer in town is a synonym for dullness. The theaters offer nothing of
importance; only trivialities are to be found on "the trestles." Musical
directors appeal only to the ears--chiefly the long ears mentioned by
Mozart. Bookstores offer "best sellers," "the latest fiction," and
"books worth reading" on the same counter; and the magazines become even
less consequential. Art in all its manifestations matches our garments
for thinness and lightness.
During the canicular period intellectual activity is at a stand, and we
should be grateful for the accident which tilted earth's axis at its
present angle; for when the leaves begin to fly before the "breath of
Autumn's being" we plunge into the new season with a cleared mentality
and a great appetite for things both new and old.
* * *
A man asks the Legal Friend of the People, "Will you kindly publish
whether or not it is illegal for second cousins to marry in the state of
Illinois?" and the Friend replies, "No." Aw, go on and publish it.
There's no harm in telling him.
* * *
WHYNOTT?
[From the Boston Globe.]
From this date, Sept. 25, 1920, I will not be responsible for any bill
contracted by my wife, Mrs. Bernardine Whynott.
G. Whynott.
* * *
In all the world the two most fragile things are a lover's vows and the
gut in a tennis racket. Neither is guaranteed to last an hour.
* * *
It would help along the economic readjustment, suggests Dean Johnson, of
New York University's school of commerce, if we all set fire to our
Liberty Bonds. We can't go along with the Dean so far, but we have a
hundred shares of copper stock that we will contribute to a community
bonfire.
* * *
The height of patriotism, confides P. H. T., is represented by Mr.
Aleshire, president of the Chicago Board of Underwriters, who, billed to
deliver a patriotic address in an Evanston theater, paid his way into
the theater to hear himself talk.
* * *
IT MUST BE ABOUT TIME.
Sir: The Federal Reserve bank at New Orleans has received a letter from
a patriot who wants to know where and when he shall pay the interest on
his Liberty bond.
Rocky.
* * *
"In fact, I've finished--would you say a sonnet?"--concludes H. G. H.,
to whom we recommend the remark of James Stephens: "Nobody is interested
in the making of sonnets, not even poets."
* * *
Referring to the persons who are given to the making of sonnets, Norman
Douglas wrote: "I have a sneaking fondness for some of the worst of
these bards.... And it is by no means a despicable class of folks who
perpetrate such stuff; the third rate sonneteer, a priori, is a
gentleman, and this is more than can be said of some of our crude
fiction writers who have never yielded themselves to the chastening
discipline of verse composition, nor warmed their hearts, for a single
instant, at the altar of some generous ideal."
* * *
The trouble with minor poets is well set forth by Conrad Aiken in The
Dial, who refers to the conclusions of M. Nicolas Kostyleff after a
tentative study of the mechanism of poetic inspiration: "An important
part in poetic creation, he maintains, is an automatic verbal discharge,
along chains of association, set in motion by a chance occurrence."
* * *
POETRY.
(_Lord Dunsany._)
What is it to hate poetry? It is to have no little dreams and fancies,
no holy memories of golden days, to be unmoved by serene midsummer
evenings or dawn over wild lands, singing or sunshine, little tales told
by the fire a long while since, glow-worms and briar rose; for of all
these things and more is poetry made. It is to be cut off forever from
the fellowship of great men that are gone; to see men and women without
their halos and the world without its glory; to miss the meaning lurking
behind the common things, like elves hiding in flowers; it is to beat
one's hands all day against the gates of Fairyland and to find that they
are shut and the country empty and its kings gone hence.
* * *
Why is it that in nearly all decisions of the Supreme court the most
interesting opinions are delivered by the dissenting justices?
* * *
"New Jack-a-Bean dining room furniture, used two months; will sell
cheap."--El Paso Herald.
That is the kind that Louis Canns has his apartment furnished with.
* * *
A CHANGE FROM LATIN ROOTS.
[From the Reedsburg, Wis., Free Press.]
Miss Edna White resumed her school duties after a week's vacation for
potato digging.
* * *
OUR FAVORITE AUTUMN POEM.
(_By a New Jersey poetess._)
Autumn is more beautiful, I think,
Than Spring or Winter are.
For then trees change at the river's brink--
How beautiful they are.
I love to see the different colors so bright--
That grow around brooks & grottoes.
Leaves that are pressed are a pleasant sight
To make photograph frames & mottoes.
* * *
Dr. Johnson or somebody said that a surgical operation was necessary to
get a joke into a Scotchman's head; but the Glasgow Herald, reporting
the existence of a London detective named Leonard Jolly Death,
conjectures that it was probably an ancestor of his who was drowned in
the butt of Malmsey wine.
* * *
One is usually mistaken in such matters, but we visualize Mr. Imer Pett,
general manager of the Bingham Mines, in Salt Lake City, as quite
otherwise.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Received by a wholesale grocery house, from an Italian customer.]
Gentlemen: My wife wants me to suggest that you observe one of our
Italian customs by remembering her with a bit of Christmas cheer. As she
is the only wife I got I trust you will help me keep her.
Joe.
* * *
DENTAL FLOSS.
Sir: D. Seiver is a dentist on Kedzie avenue. If I were a complete
contrib, I might head this, "Now, this isn't going to hurt a bit," but,
as I am not, I merely proceed to nominate C. O. Soots, of North Salem,
Ind., as chief chimney sweep to the Academy, and propose the Rev. Ed. V.
Belles of the First Presbyterian Church of Northville, Mich., to ring in
the new for the members. As a substitute for Mr. D. Seiver, you might
induce the nominating committee to accept Dr. J. Byron Ache, a dentist
of Uniontown, Pa.
Ballysloughguttery.
* * *
The melancholy days have come
For him who's naturally glum:
But for the man whose liver's right
These Autumn days are pure delight.
* * *
"Complains He Was Called Sexagenarian--Candidate Says Many Voters
Thought It Had to Do With Sex."--Boston Herald.
Flattered, but unappreciative.
* * *
Lady Godiva writes from Loz Onglaze: "Have been having wonderful
weather. Quite warm yesterday, the first of December. Riding around with
just my fur cape on."
* * *
Some people hold potatoes for higher prices, while others, like
Scribner's Sons, hold sets of Henry James' novels at $130, an increase
of $82 over the original price.
* * *
JUST ABOUT.
Sir: How long do you suppose the Snow Ball Laundry will last in Quinter,
Kansas? The proprietor is G. W. Burns.
P. V. W.
* * *
In an almanack, which is printed once a year, or in a dictionary or
encyclopedia, which is republished after ten or twenty years, you would
expect to find fewer errors than in a daily newspaper; but apparently
time has little to do with it. Consulting the Britannica's article on
Anatole France, we were inexpressibly shocked to find therein the
atrocities, "L'Ile des Penguins" and "Maurice Bàrrès."
* * *
We were looking through the France sketch to see whether there was
mention of a story he wrote before he became well known, entitled
"Marguerite." A Paris publisher found it recently in a magazine and
asked M. France to write a preface to it, that it might be issued as a
book. Quoth France: "It would be an excess of literary vanity on my part
to resurrect the story. But my vanity would, perhaps, be greater were I
to try to suppress it."
* * *
Reference books, as is well known, improve like wine with age, and the
efficiency of our proof room is to be accounted for, in part, by the
vintage volumes that line its library shelf. There are sixty of these
rare old tomes, and five of them are useful; these being, we think,
first editions. There is a Who's Who of the last century that is still
in good condition, and the dictionary of biography with which
Lippincotts began business. Bibliophiles would, we believe, enjoy
looking over the shelf.
* * *
JAW JINGLES.
If a Hottentot taught a Hottentot tot
To talk ere the tot could totter,
Ought the Hottentot tot be taught to say "ought,"
Or "naught," or what ought to be taught her?
If to hoot and to toot a Hottentot tot
Be taught by a Hottentot tutor,
Ought the Hottentot tutor get hot if the tot
Hoot and toot at the Hottentot tutor?
G. B.
* * *
"NATURE NEVER DID DECEIVE..."
No sooner had blundering man accomplished the ruin of Halifax than
Mother Nature sent a blizzard with a foot or two of snow. A kindly
dame--as kindly as the old lady of Endor. She has her gentle, her
amorous moods, in which we adore her, and write ballads to her beauty;
but we know, if we are wise, that her beauty is "all in your eye," to
speak in the way of science, not of slang, and that she is savage as a
jungle cat. Like some women and much medicine, she should be well shaken
before taken, and always one must keep an eye upon Nature, or one may
feel her claws in one's back. So we have reflected on a summer's day in
woods; but the forest seemed not less beautiful, nor was our meditation
melancholy. To be saddened by the inescapable is a great mistake.
* * *
NO. 68, COUNTING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT.
[From the Goshen, Ind., Democrat.]
Albert E. Compton, 68, a former well known Elkhart taxi driver, went to
California last summer and told his friends he was going into the
movies. A communication from him yesterday informed them of his
appearance in a mob scene.
* * *
"Mrs. Fred L. Olson is on the programme to sing vocal
selections."--Portland Telegram.
That's the trouble. They will sing them.
* * *
Our young friend who is about to become a colyumist might lead off with
the jape about the switchman who asked for red oil for his lantern. Then
there is that side-stitching sign, "Pants pressed, 10 cents a leg, seats
free."
* * *
COMMERCIAL CANDOR.
Sir: A tailor in Denver advertises: "If your clothes don't fit we make
them."
W. V. R.
* * *
Heard, by R. M., in a department store: Shoe-polish demonstrator: "And
if you haven't already ruined your shoes with other cleaners this will
do the work."
* * *
FAREWELL!
(_By Poeta._)
Comet, Comet, shining bright
In the spaces of the night,
Every hour swinging higher
From the Sun of thy desire;
Astral vagrant, stellar rover,
Dipping under, dipping over
Path of Venus, Earth, and Mars
Till there's naught beyond but stars;
Cutting, in thy lane elliptic,
Thro' the plane of the ecliptic,
Far beyond pale Neptune's track--
Good-by, Comet! Hurry back!
* * *
AN UNCOMMONLY HAPPY THOUGHT.
(_A. J. Balfour, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1891._)
"It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so
few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth."
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[The editor of the Winneconne, Wis., Local to his flock.]
Dear Subscriber: You probably know that the Local editor and his wife
have been away from Winneconne most of the time during the last ten
months. Every month we expected to get back again. The suspense was
somewhat hard. During the meantime Mrs. Flanagan, each week, would
worry and talk about the paper as much as ever. The doctor desired to
have it off her mind. During the meantime she did not want the plant
closed for even a short time. Now it has been decided to take a holiday
vacation, during which time Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan will release
themselves from all business cares and build up in health. No doubt, you
will realize the delicate situation of the affair, and bear with us in
the matter until the Local again resumes its regular publication dates,
for surely both of us are very much attached to the paper, the town, and
its people, and the surrounding country.
M. C. Flanagan.
* * *
THE DAY OF "DON'TS."
Thanksgiving was a holiday I welcomed when a boy,
But now it is a solemn feast without a jot of joy.
It used to be a pleasure to attack the toothsome turkey,
But now when I approach the bird I'm anything but perky.
A multitude of dismal "Don'ts" impair my appetite;
A fear of what may happen me accompanies each bite.
There hovers round this holiday a heavy cloud of dread
That never lifts till I am safe, with water-bag, in bed.
I used to drink a glass of wine, but that is bad, I'm told,
So now I ship in water--just as much as I can hold.
To fail to fletcherize my food were fatal, without question;
I never touch the stuffing, as it taxes the digestion.
When the lugubrious feast is done I hasten from my chair
To open all the windows wide, and let in lots of air;
And then I sit around an hour and chew a wad of gum
Until the fullness disappears from my distended tum.
That pleasant, dozy feeling I compel myself to shake,
For should I venture on a nap I'd never, never wake;
And if I sneeze I take alarm and hasten out of doors,
To start a circulation in my poison-clotted pores.
The fact that I am still alive is due, I'm glad to say,
To heeding all the dinner "Don'ts" that went with yesterday.
It was, from soup to raisins, by and large, and all in all,
The solemnest Thanksgiving meal that ever I recall.
* * *
A BALANCED TUITION.
Sir: The fourth grade teacher in Roland, Ia., is Viola Grindem.
Fortunately for the kids the high school principal is Cora Clement.
T. B.
* * *
"We wish the coöperative factories, a success," says an esteemed
contemporary on our left. So do we, with this prediction, that if
success is achieved it will be by the same methods that are employed in
the iniquitous capitalistic system.
* * *
Although the name topic bores us to distinction, as a young lady of our
acquaintance puts it, we should feel we were posing if we neglected to
find room for the following:
Sir: Deedonk, can you provide a chaise longue in the Romance language
department of the Academy for George E. Ahwee of Colon, Panama?
Rusty.
* * *
We knew what was meant, and yet it gave us a slight start to read in a
Minnesota paper, "Pickle your own feet while they are cheap and clean."
* * *
OPINION CONCURRED IN.
Sir: My heart with pleasure filled when I saw that Riquarius quoted it
as I always want to do, "with rapture fills." While I realized it is the
height of presumption to think I could improve on Wordsworth, don't you
agree with me that rapture is more expressive than pleasure?
Jay Aye.
"Rapture" might be preferred for another reason: the accent falls on a
stronger syllable. Suppose George Meredith had used "pleasure" in his
lines--
"Lasting, too,
For souls not lent in usury,
The rapture of the forward view."
Every good poet has left lines that could be bettered for another ear.
Probably Wordsworth leads the list.
* * *
TRANSCENDENTAL CALM.
Sir: Remember the story about Theodore Parker and Emerson? While they
were walking in Concord a Seventh Day Adventist rushed up to them and
said, "Gentlemen, the world is coming to an end." Parker said, "That
doesn't affect me; I live in Boston." Emerson said, "Very well. I can
get along without it."
E. H. R.
* * *
So the President has been converted to universal military training--as a
war measure. Better late than never, as Noah remarked to the Zebra,
which had understood that passengers arrived in alphabetical order.
* * *
THIS REFERS, OF COURSE, TO FRANCE.
[From Faguet's "Cult of Incompetence."]
Democracy has the greatest inducement to elect representatives who are
representative, who, in the first place, resemble it as closely as
possible, who, in the second place, have no individuality of their own,
who, finally, having no fortune of their own, have no sort of
independence. We deplore that democracy surrenders itself to
politicians, but from its own point of view, a point of view which it
cannot avoid taking up, it is absolutely right. What is a politician? He
is a man who, in respect of his personal opinions, is a nullity, in
respect of education a mediocrity; he shares the general sentiments and
passions of the crowds, his sole occupation is politics, and if that
career were closed to him he would die of starvation. He is precisely
the thing of which democracy has need. He will never be led away by his
education to develop ideas of his own; and, having no ideas of his own,
he will not allow them to enter into conflict with his prejudices. His
prejudices will be, at first, by a feeble sort of conviction, afterward,
by reason of his own interest, identical with those of the crowd; and
lastly, his poverty and the impossibility of his getting a living
outside of politics make it certain that he will never break out of the
narrow circle where his political employers have confined him; his
imperative mandate is the material necessity which obliges him to obey;
his imperative mandate is his inability to quarrel with his bread and
butter. Democracy obviously has need of politicians, has need of nothing
else but politicians, and has need indeed that there shall be in
politics nothing else but politicians.
* * *
AN IOWA ROMANCE.
[From the Clinton Herald.]
Lost--A large white tom cat with gray tail and two gray spots on body.
Return to 1306 So. Third street and receive reward.
Lost--"Topsy" black persian cat. Any one having seen her kindly call 231
5th ave.
* * *
WE SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.
[From the Idaho Falls Register.]
A lady's leather handbag left in my car while parked on Park avenue two
weeks ago. Owner can have same by calling at my office, proving the
property and paying for this ad. If she will explain to my wife that I
had nothing to do with its being there, I will pay for the ad.
C. G. Keller.
* * *
COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD.
[From the Tavares, Fla., Herald.]
The home of Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Duncan was the center of attraction
Sunday afternoon. All the relatives and a few special friends were there
to celebrate two happy occasions, the anniversary of Mr. and Mrs.
Duncan's marriage and the marriage of Miss Cora L. Peet, Mrs. Duncan's
sister, to Mr. J. E. Hammond, and the soft winds of March had blown the
planet of love over this beautiful home.
The composition of the decorations adhered with striking fidelity to
nature. The wide veranda was completely screened in by wild smilax and
fragrant honeysuckle vines, which entwisted themselves among the
branches of sweet myrtle and native palms, fitly transforming it into a
typical Arcadian scene beckoning to
"Come unto the garden, Maud;
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the muck of the rose is blown."
Soon the sound of music greeted the impatient
ear. With a voice full of individuality of flavor
and unusual quality, Mr. Carl E. Duncan, perfectly
accompanied by his mother at the pianoforte,
rendered "I Hear You Calling Me." Then
the coming of the bridal couple was heralded by
the solemn tones of Mendelssohn's wedding
march. Never was a bride more beautiful;
never--
[Well, hardly ever.]
* * *
AND HOW CALM THE OCEAN IS!
[Correspondence from Florida.]
I've fallen in love with the salt water bathing. It feels wonderfully
refreshing here, below the equator.
* * *
POEMS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED.
Between the Barn and the Woodhouse.
Between the barn and the woodhouse,
Where oft old Jersey would stand,
I remember 'twas on this self-same spot
Where she kicked Elizabeth Ann.
I could hear the clang of the bucket,
And also poor Annie's refrain,
And when the family reached her,
She was writhing and groaning with pain.
Mother stooped dawn to caress her
As she lay there stunned on the ground,
And our big, simple minded brother
Thought he should examine the wound.
Without halt or hesitation,
He dropped to his knees in the dirt;
Although she lay stunned and bleeding,
He asked her where she was hurt.
Then Annie, in a half sitting posture,
While resting on mother's arm,
Feebly responded to brother,
"Between the woodhouse and barn."
W. T. N.
* * *
"The Chicago convention left the Democratic party as the sole custodian
of the honor of the country."--Orator Cummings.
Some custodian, _nous en informerons l'univers!_
* * *
To the inspired compositor and proof reader of the York, Neb.,
News-Times he is General Denuncio.
* * *
"The plebicide showed an overwhelming majority in favor of King
Constantine's return."--St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Very good word.
* * *
We were not alone in financing the war. An income tax payment of
$14,000,000 was made in New York yesterday. The identity of the
individual is not disclosed, but the painstaking Associated Press says
that "he is obviously one of the richest men in the United States."
* * *
"Thinking as One Walks."--Doc Evans.
"Meaning," conjectures Fenton, "that if one is bow-legged one is likely
to think in circles." Or if one limps, one is likely to come to a lame
conclusion. Or if-- Roll your own.
* * *
_THE PHILOSOPHY OF BALDNESS._
_One by one the hairs are graying,
One by one they blanch and fall;
Never stopping, never staying--
W. t. h. and d. i. all!_
_W. R._
* * *
A DEAD SHOT.
[From the Mt. Carmel, Ill., Republican.]
The Mount Carmel Gun club held its weekly shoot this afternoon, the
chief feature being the demonstration of expert marksmanship by Mr.
Killam of the Du Pont Powder Co.
* * *
IT WOULD PUT 'EM ON THE STAGE.
Why does not some pianist give us a really popular recital programme?
Frezzample:
Moonlight Sonata.
The Harmonious Blacksmith.
Mendelssohn's Spring Song.
Old Favorites:
Recollections of Home.
Silvery Waves.
Monastery Bells.
Etincelles.
Waves of the Ocean.
Gottschalk's Last Hope.
Clayton's Grand March.
The Battle of Prague.
The Awakening of the Lion.
* * *
There is an encouraging growth of musical understanding and appreciation
in this country. Even now you hear very many people say, "I liked the
scherzo."
* * *
"He sat down in a vacant chair," relates a magazine fictionist. It is,
everything considered, the safest way. Much of the discord in the world
has been caused by gentlemen--and ladies as well--who sat down in chairs
already occupied.
* * *
A Kenwood pastor has resigned because some members of his flock thought
him too broad. The others, we venture, thought him too long.
* * *
"Prof. Hobbs Will Make Globe Trot"--Michigan Daily.
Giddap, old top!
Vacation Travels.
It is a great pleasure to be free, for a time, from the practice of
expressing opinion; free to read the newspapers with no thought of
commenting on the contents; free to glance at a few hectic headlines,
and then bite into a book that you have meant to get to for a long time
past, to read it slowly, without skipping, to read over an especially
well done page and to put the book aside and meditate on the moral which
it pointed, or left you to point. Unless obliged to, why should anybody
write when he can read instead? One's own opinions (hastily formed and
lacking even the graces of expression) are of small account; certainly
they are of less account than Mr. Mill's observations on Liberty, which
I have put down in order to pen a few longish paragraphs. (I would
rather be reading, you understand; my pen is running for the same reason
some street cars run--to hold the franchise.) And speaking of Mill, do
you remember the library catalogue which contained the consecutive
items, "Mill on Liberty" and "Ditto on the Floss"?
* * *
One can get through a good many books on a long railway journey. My
slender stock was exhausted before I reached Colorado, and I am
compelled to re-read until such time as I can lay in a fresh supply. At
home it is difficult to find time to read--that is, considerable
stretches of time, so that one may really digest the pages which he is
leisurely taking in. Fifty years ago there were not many more books
worth reading than there are to-day, but there was more time to
assimilate them. A comparatively few books thoroughly assimilated gave
us Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Not long ago my friend the Librarian
was speaking of this short classic. "Did you ever," said he, "read
Edward Everett's address at Gettysburg?" "No," said I, "and I fear I
shall never get to it." "It is stowed away among his collected
orations," said he. "Not half bad. Unfortunately for its fame, Mr.
Lincoln happened along with a few well chosen remarks which the world
has preferred to remember."
* * *
Another advantage of a long railway journey is the opportunity it
affords to give one's vocal cords a (usually) well-merited rest. It is
possible to travel across the continent without saying a word. A nod or
a shake of the head suffices in your dealings with the porter; and you
learn nothing from questioning him, as he has not been on that run
before. Also, business with the train and Pullman conductors may be
transacted in silence, and there is no profit in asking the latter to
exchange your upper berth for a lower, as he has already been entreated
by all the other occupants of uppers. When the train halts you do not
have to ask, "What place is this?"--you may find out by looking at the
large sign on the station. Nor is it necessary to inquire, "Are we on
time?"--your watch and time-table will enlighten you. You do not have to
exclaim, when a fresh locomotive is violently attached, "Well, I see we
got an engine"--there is always somebody to say it for you. And you
write your orders in the dining car. There is, of course, the chance of
being accosted in the club car, but since this went dry the danger has
been slight. And conversation can always be averted by absorption in a
book, or, in a crisis, by pretending to be dumb.
* * *
Not everybody can travel three or four days without exchanging words
with a fellow traveler. Mr. George Moore, for example, would be quite
wretched. Conversation is the breath of his being, he says somewhere. I
understand that Mr. Moore has another book on press, entitled "Avowals."
Avowals! My dear!... After the "Confessions" and the "Memoirs" what in
the world is there left for the man to avow?
* * *
What a delightful fictionist is Moore! And never more delightful than
when he is writing fiction under the appearance of fact. No one has
taken more to heart the axiom that the imaginary is the only real. As my
friend the Librarian observed, the difference between George Moore and
Baron Munchausen is that Moore's lies are interesting.
* * *
Travelers must carry their own reading matter under government
ownership. The club car library now consists of time-tables, maps, and
pamphlets setting forth the never to be forgotten attractions of the
show places along the way. These are all written by the celebrated prose
poet Ibid, and, with a bottle of pseudo beer or lemon pop, help to make
the club car as gay a place as a mortician's parlor on a rainy
afternoon.
* * *
The treeless plateau over which the train rolls, hour after hour, is the
result of a great uplift. It was not sudden; it was slow but sure. This
result is arid and plateautudinous, in a manner of speaking--not the
best manner. It makes me think of democracy--and prohibition. To this
complexion we shall come at last. To be sure, the genius of man will
continue to cut channels in the monotonous plain; erosion will relieve
the dreary prospect with form and color, but it bids fair to be, for the
most part, a flat and dry world, from which many of us will part with a
minimum of regret. There will remain the inextinguishable desire to
learn what wonders science will disclose. Perhaps--who knows?--they will
discover how to ventilate a sleeping car.
* * *
At Albuquerque I remarked a line of Mexicans basking in the sun (having,
perhaps, finished jumping on their mothers). They looked happy--as happy
as the Russian peasants used to be. Men who know Russia tell me that the
peasants really were happy, even under the twin despotisms of Vodka and
Czar. It was not, of course, a reformer's idea of happiness: a
reformer's idea of happiness is perpetual attention to everybody's
business but his own. People who are interested academically in other
people's happiness usually succeed in making everybody unhappy. Now, the
Russian's happiness was a poor thing, but his own. In reality he was
wretched and oppressed, and his voice and bearing should have expressed
his misery and hopelessness, instead of a foolish content and a silly
detachment from political affairs. But he is at last emancipated, and,
as was said of Mary's fleecy companion, now contemplate the condemned
thing!
* * *
Liberty, equality, international amity, democracy, the kingdom of heaven
on earth--All that is very well, yet Candide remarked to Dr. Pangloss
when all was said and done, "Let us cultivate our garden."
* * *
There are so many interesting things along the way that I should, I
suppose, be filling a notebook. But why mar the pleasure of a journey by
taking notes? as the good Sylvestre Bonnard inquired. Lovers who truly
love do not keep a diary of their happiness.
* * *
In Phoenix, Arizona, distance lends enchantment to the view. But the
hills are far away, and as I did not visit the Southwest to contemplate
the works of man, however ingenious, I followed the westering sun to
where the mountains come down to the sea. I do not fancy the elevated
parts of New Mexico and Arizona; and as there was no thought of pleasing
me when they were created, I feel free to express a modified rapture in
their contemplation. I should have remembered enough geology to know
that granite is not found in this section, except at the bottom of the
Grand Canyon. The hills I like are made of old-fashioned stuff, not
young upstart tufa and sandstone that was not thought of when the
Laurentians were built. One really cannot have much respect for a rock
that he can kick to pieces. The gay young buttes in this land of quickly
shifting horizons are not without their charm; they look well in
certain lights, and they are decidedly better than no hills at all.
Although immature, they have an air of pretending to be very ancient, to
be the ruins of mountains. They are picturesque and colorful. And I
would swap a league of them for one archaic boulder the size of a
box-car, with a thick coverlet of reindeer moss.
* * *
When I left the train at Pasadena I saw what I took to be a procession
of the K. K. K. It proved to be citizens in flu masks. I was interested,
but not alarmed; whereas a lady tourist who debarked on the following
day fell in a swoon and was conveyed to the hospital. The newspapers
charged her disorder to the masks, but as she was from Chicago I suspect
that her reason was unsettled by the sudden revealment of a clean city.
And Pasadena is clean--almost immaculate. I was obliged to join the
masqueraders, and I found the inconvenience only slight. The mask keeps
the nose warm after sundown, and is convenient to sneeze into. And I
have never remarked better looking folks than the people of Pasadena.
The so-called human race has never appeared to better advantage. The
women were especially charming, and were all, for once, equally
handicapped, like the veiled sex in the Orient.
* * *
Whoever christened it the Pacific ocean was the giver of innocent
pleasure to every third person who has set eyes on it since. "There's
the Pacific!" you hear people exclaim to one another when the train
reaches the top of a pass. "Isn't it calm! That's why it is called the
Pacific. And it is pacific, isn't it?" Some such observation must have
escaped the stout adventurer in Darien, before he fell silent upon his
peak.
* * *
I shall say nothing about the never to be sufficiently esteemed climate
of California, nor even allude to the windjammers of Loz Onglaze. The
last word concerning those enthusiasts was spoken by a San Francisco man
who, addressing the people of "Los," explained how the city might
overcome the slight handicap imposed by its distance from the sea. "Lay
an iron pipe to tidewater," he advised; "and then, if you can suck as
hard as you can blow, you will presently have the ocean at your doors."
It would be difficult to improve on that criticism. And so, instead of
praising the climate, I will gladly testify that it is easier to live in
this part of the country than anywhere east of the Sierras. And San
Diego impresses me as the easiest place in the state to live, the year
round.
* * *
The mechanical effort of existence is reduced to its minimum in La
Jolla, a suburb of San Diego, where I am opposing a holiday indolence to
pen these desultory lines. "There's lots of good fish in the sea" that
beats against this rockbound but not stern coast, and there is a fish
market in the village. But each day I see the sign in the window, "No
fish." The fisherman, I am told, is "very independent," a euphemism for
tired, perhaps. He casts his hooks and nets only when the spirit moves
him, and is not impelled to the sea by sordid motives. A true fisherman,
I thought, though he never change his window sign.
* * *
To-day's newspapers contain the protest of the governor of Lower
California against the proposed annexing of his territory by the United
States, Señor Cantu may be a hairless dog in the manger; he may, as he
claims, represent the seething patriotism of all but a negligible
percentage of the population; but he is no doubt correct in merely
asserting that the peninsula will not be annexed. Incidentally, he is on
sure ground when he attributes the chaos in Mexican affairs to
"conflicting political criteria." It is all of that. So far as I have
casually discovered, there is no active annexation sentiment on this
side of the border, for there is no hope of overcoming that provision in
the Mexican constitution which makes it a matter of high treason to
encourage a movement for the diminution of Mexican territory.
* * *
Gov. Cantu's phrase, "conflicting political criteria," applies rather
happily to the doings in Paris these days. The Peace conference and
prohibition in the United States are perhaps the two most prominent
topics before the public, and they are the two things which I have not
heard mentioned since I began my travels.
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
_"Lord, what fools these mortals be."_
COUNTRY LIFE IN AMERICA.
Sing high the air like dry champagne,
The fields of virgin snow!
(Sing low the mile-hike from the train,
In five or ten below.)
Sing high the joys the gods allot
To our suburban state!
(Sing low the dinner gone to pot,
Because the train is late.)
Sing high the white-arched woodland way,
Resembling faëry halls!
(Sing low the drifts that stay and stay,
In which your motor stalls.)
Sing high, sing low, sing jack and game,
Sing Winter's spangled gown!
(Let him who will these things acclaim--
_I'm_ moving in to town.)
* * *
Scratch a man who really enjoys zero weather, and you will find
blubber.
* * *
Born in Sioux City, to Mr. and Mrs. Matt Hoss, a daughter. Who'll
contribute a buggy?
* * *
"For Sale--1920 Mormon chummy."--Minneapolis Journal.
Five-passenger at least.
* * *
THERE WERE IMMORTALS BEFORE JET WIMP.
Sir: In the Lowell (Mass.) Daily Journal and Courier, dated Feb. 4,
1853, I find the following: "What's in a name! The name of the
superintendent of the Cincinnati Hospital is Queer Absalom Death." Thus
showing that there were candidates for the Academy seventy years ago.
Concord.
* * *
Some sort of jape or jingle might be chiseled from the fact that Lot
Spry and Ida Smart were married t'other day in Vinton, Ia.
* * *
CONTRIBUTIONS THAT HAVE AMUSED US.
Proprietor of hotel in Keokuk, answering call from room: "Hello!"
Voice: "We are in Room 30 and now ready to come down."
Prop.: "Take the elevator down."
Voice: "Is the elevator ready?"
[Proprietor sends bellboy to Room 30 to escort newly-wedded couple to
terra firma.]
* * *
"Weds 104th Veteran."--Springfield Republican.
The first hundred veterans are the hardest.
* * *
For official announcer in the Academy, E. K. proposes James Hollerup of
Endeavor, Wis.
* * *
SHE PREFERRED HER PSYCHOPATHY STRAIGHT.
Sir: At a party last night one of my sex read the recent buffoonery,
"Heliogabalus," by the Smart Set editors. When the reader reached the
choice second act one of the women (the bobbed hair type) refused to
listen to any more of the "salacious rot," and walked over to the
bookcase, from which, after careful study, she picked out Krafft-Ebing's
Psychopathia Sexualis. I ask you, ain't women funny?
Philardee.
No, not in this instance. We quite sympathize
with the lady. We much prefer Havelock Ellis
to "Jurgen," for example. Chacun à son goût.
* * *
This peculiar and unliterary preference of ours may be due to the fact
that once upon a time, in a country job-print, we were obliged to read
the proofs of a great many medical works, made up largely of "Case 1, a
young man of 28," "Case 2, a woman of thirty," etc. These things were
instructive, and sometimes interesting. But when "Case 1" is expanded
to a novel of three or four hundred pages, or "Case 2" expressed in the
form of hectic vers libre, a feeling of lassitude comes o'er us which is
more or less akin to pain.
* * *
THE COME-BACK.
Click! Click!
Goes my typewriter,
Transcribing letters
That the Boss dictates around
His chew
After he has discussed the weather,
And the squeak in his car,
And his young hopeful's latest,
And the L. of N.
Click! Click!
While he writes impudent
Things
For the Line
About the Stenos,
And asks me how to spell
The words.
Hark!
To the death rattle of
The cuspidor
Upset,
As he departs at two o'clock
To golf,
While I type on
Till five.
Agnes.
* * *
Mr. Gompers advises labor to accomplish its desires at the polls,
instead of chasing after the red gods of political theory. This is
excellently gomped, and will make as deep an impression as an autumn
leaf falling on a rock.
* * *
Since the so-called working classes are unable or unwilling to do so
simple a sum as dividing the total wealth of a nation by the number of
its inhabitants; since they cannot or will not understand that if the
profits of an industry are exceeded by the wages paid, the industry must
stop; since they only reason _a posteriori_ when that is well kicked,
and by themselves--it is fortunate that the United States has the
opportunity to watch the progress of the experiment now making in
England.
* * *
Nowadays the buying and dispatching of Christmas gifts is scientifically
made. One merely selects this or that and orders it sent to So-and So.
One turns in to a book store a list of titles and a list of names and
addresses, and the book store does the rest.
Consequently one misses the pleasant labor of tying up the gift, of
journeying to the post-office, to have it weighed and stamped, and of
dropping it through the slot and wondering whether the string will
break, or whether the package will go astray.
* * *
We were engaged in dropping newly-minted double-eagles into the
Christmas stockings of our contributors when an auto truck got mired
near our chamber window, and the roar of it woke us up.
* * *
Japanese, Chinese, Hindus, and other Orientals are disliked, not because
of race or color, but because they are willing to work. Anyone who is
willing to work in these times is, like the needy knife-grinder, a
wretch whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance.
* * *
Washladies get more money for less work than any other members of the
leisure class, with the exception of the persons who work on putting
greens. In addition to their wage, they get car-fare and two or three
meals. Why? Because it is not generally known that a mere man, with a
washing machine and a bucket of solution, can do more washing in three
hours than a washlady does in three days.
* * *
What do they mean "industrial unrest"? Industry never rested so
frequently or for such protracted periods.
* * *
The natives of Salvador can neither read nor write, but their happy days
are numbered. The Baptist church is going to spend three millions on
their conversion. Their capacity for resistance is not so great as that
of the Chinese. Do you remember what Henry Ward Beecher said of the
Chinese? "We have clubbed them, stoned them, burned their houses, and
murdered some of them, yet they refuse to be converted. I do not know
any way except to blow them up with nitroglycerine, if we are ever to
get them to heaven."
* * *
"Do you not know," writes Persephone, "that with the coming of all this
water, all imagination and adventure have fled the world?" Just what we
were thinking t'other evening, when we dissipated a few hours with our
good gossip the Doctor. "I am," said he, pouring out a meditative
three-fingers, "in favor of prohibition; and I believe that some
substitute for this stuff will be found."
We pursued that lane of thought a while, until it debouched into a
desert. The Doctor then took down the works of Byron, and read
aloud--touching the high spots in "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,"
"Don Juan," "Childe Harold," "The Prisoner of Chillon"--pausing ever and
anon to replenish the glasses. It was midnight ere the book was returned
to its shelf.
It was a delightful evening. And we wondered whether, without the
excellent bourbon and the cigars, we should not have had enough of
Byron by 10:30.
* * *
An English publisher binds all his books in red because, having watched
women choosing books in the libraries, he found that they looked first
at the red-bound ones. Does that coincide with your experience, my dear?
* * *
Our interest in Mr. Wells' "Outline of History" has been practically
ruined by learning from a geologist that Mr. Wells' story of creation is
frightfully out of date. Should he not have given another twenty-four
hours to so large an opus?
* * *
Visiting English authors have a delightful trick of diagramming their
literary allusions. Only the few are irritated by it.
* * *
"And as I am in no sense a lecturer..."--Mr. Chesterton.
Seemingly the knowledge of one's limitations as a public entertainer
does not preclude one from accepting a fee five or ten times larger than
one would receive in London. We are languidly curieux de savoir how far
the American equivalent would get in the English capital.
* * *
You cannot "make Chicago literary" by moving the magazine market to that
city. Authors lay the scenes of their stories in New York rather than in
Chicago, because readers prefer to have the scene New York, just as
English readers prefer London to Manchester or Liverpool. If a story is
unusually interesting it is of no consequence where the scene is laid,
but most stories are only so-so and have to borrow interest from
geography.
* * *
THANKS TO MISS MONROE'S MAGAZINE.
Only a little while ago
The pallid poet had no show--
No gallery that he could use
To hang the product of his muse.
But now his sketches deck the walls
Of many hospitable halls,
And juries solemnly debate
The merits of the candidate.
* * *
TRADE CLASSICS.
Every trade has at least one classic. One in the newspaper trade
concerns the reporter who was sent to do a wedding, and returned to say
that there was no story, as the bridegroom failed to show up. Will a few
other trades acquaint us with their classics? It should make an
interesting collection.
Sir: The classic of the teaching trade: A school teacher saw a man on
the car whose face was vaguely familiar. "I beg your pardon," she said,
"but aren't you the father of two of my children?"
S. B.
Sir: The son of his father on a certain occasion, when the paper was
overset, objected to adding two pages, but in a moment of economical
inspiration agreed to permit one extra page.
C. D.
Sir: Don't forget the classic of dry stories. "An Irishman and a
Scotchman stood before a bar--and the Irishman didn't have any money."
L. A. H.
To continue, the Scotchman said: "Well, Pat, what are we going to have
to-day? Rain or snow?"
Sir: "If you can't read, ask the grocer." But I heard it differently. An
Englishman and an American read the sign. The American laughed. The
Englishman did not see the humor of it. The American asked him to read
it again; whereupon the Englishman laughed and said: "Oh, yes; the
grocer might be out."
3-Star.
* * *
You may know the trade classic about the exchange editor. The new owner
of the newspaper asked who that man was in the corner. "The exchange
editor," he was informed. "Well, fire him," said he. "All he seems to do
is sit there and read all day."
* * *
Divers correspondents advise us that the trade classics we have been
printing are old stuff. Yes; that is the peculiar thing about a classic.
Extraordinary, when you come to think of it.
* * *
"Timerio," which is simpler than Esperanto, "will enable citizens of all
nations to understand one another, provided they can read and write."
The inventor has found that 7,006 figures are enough to express any
imaginable idea. But we should think that a picture book would be
simpler.
"You can go to any hotel porter in the world," says the perpetrator of
Timerio, "and make yourself understood by simply handing him a slip of
paper written in my new language." But you can do as well with a picture
of a trunk and a few gestures. The only universal language that is worth
a hoot is the French phrase "comme ça."
* * *
DENATURED LIMERICKS.
There was a young man of Constantinople,
Who used to buy eggs at 35 cents the dozen.
When his father said, "Well,
This is certainly surprising!"
The young man put on his second best waistcoat.
* * *
"The maddest man in Arizona," postcards J. U. H., who has got that far,
"was the one who found, after ten miles' hard drive from his hotel, that
he had picked up the Gideon Bible instead of his Blue Book." Still, they
are both guide books, and they might be interestingly compared.
* * *
To one gadder who asked for a small coffee, the waitress in the rural
hotel said, "A nickel is as small as we've got." Some people try to take
advantage of the bucolic innkeeper.
* * *
"I have not read American literature; I know only Poe," confesses M.
Maeterlinck. Well, that is a good start. For a long time the only French
author we knew was Victor Hugo. Live and learn, say we.
* * *
"He is so funny with the patisserie," says Mme. Maeterlinck of
M. Charles Chaplin. "He is an artist the way he throw the pie." Is he
not? M. Chaplin is to Americans what the Discus Thrower was to the
Greeks.
* * *
Sings, in a manner of singing, Mr. Lindsay in the London Mercury:
"I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan,
Candidate for President who sketched a silver Zion."
But we prefer, as simpler and more emotional, the classic containing the
lines--
"But my soul is cryin'
For old Bill Bryan."
* * *
You are familiar with the cryptic inscription "TAM HTAB," which ceases
to be cryptic when you turn the mat over; but did you ever hear about
the woman who christened her child "Nosmo King," having been taken by
those names on two glass doors which stood open?
* * *
A Chippewa Falls advertiser offers for sale "six Leghorn roosters and
one mahogany settee." And we are requested to ascertain whether the
settee is a Rhode Island Red or a Brown Leghorn.
* * *
A Rotary club is being formed in the Academy by the Rev. Rodney Roundy
of the American Missionary Association.
* * *
What do you mean "prosperity"? Even the Nonquit Spinning Co. of New
Bedford has shut down.
* * *
Joseph Conrad's latest yarn is the essence of romance. But what is
romance? For years we have sought a definition in ten words; but while
romance is easily recognized, it is with difficulty defined. Walter
Raleigh came the nearest to it in a recent essay. "Romance," said he,
"is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings." This would seem
also to be the opinion of a West Virginia editor, who, reporting a
marriage, noted that "the couple were made man and wife while sitting in
a buggy, and this fact rendered somewhat of a romantic aspect to the
wedding."
* * *
MY LOVE, DID YOU KNOW THERE WERE SO MANY KINDS OF MAIDS?
[From the Derbyshire Advertiser.]
Mrs. Reeves requires--Cooks, £18 to £50, with Kitchenmaids,
Scullerymaids, Betweenmaids, and Single-handed; Upper, Single-handed,
Second, Under Parlourmaids £14 to £40; Head, Single-handed, Equal,
First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Under Housemaids, good wages;
Ladies' Maids, Useful Maids, Maid-Attendants, Maids, Housemaids,
House-Sewingmaids, £18 to £30; Chambermaids, Housemaids,
Stillroom-maids, Pantry-maids, Cooks, £20 to £52; Kitchenmaids, £12 to
£30; Staffmaids, Hallmaids, etc.
* * *
A yarn about a clean Turk reminded W. D. W. of a story that came
straight from Gallipoli; and in running over the files of the Line we
happened on it. Some British officers were arguing as to which had the
stronger odor, the regimental goat or a Turk. It was agreed to submit
the matter to a practical test, with the Colonel as referee. The goat
was brought in, whereupon the Colonel fainted. A Turk was then brought
in, whereupon the goat fainted.
* * *
As confirming that goat and Turk story, the following extract from a
British soldier's letter, explaining the retreat before Bagdad, is
submitted:
"We had been pursuing the Turks for several weeks, and victory was
within our grasp, when the wind changed."
* * *
As a variant for "loophound," may we suggest "prominent hound about
town"?
* * *
The Isle of Yap, the Isle of Yap,
Where burning Sappho never sung!
You ain't so much upon the map,
But Uncle Samuel murmurs, "Stung!"
* * *
"After submitting a contribution, how long must one remain in suspense?"
asks E. L. W. That, sir, depends, as has been well said. But you would
be safe in assuming, after, say, three months, that the contribution has
been mislaid.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Result of a collection letter that drew a sum on account.]
"Don't get peevish about this. I have a wife and large family. More
coming."
* * *
Heard in the Fort Des Moines Hotel: "Call for Mrs. Rugg! Call for Mrs.
Rugg! Is she on the floor?"
* * *
YES, SOMETIMES WE THROW THE WHOLE MAIL AWAY WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT.
[From the Madison State Journal.]
It isn't "B. L. T." and "F. P. A." that makes the respective columns of
these most celebrated of the "conductors" great. It is their daily mail.
It comes to them in great bags. They open enough letters to fill that
day's column, and consign thousands, unopened, to the waste basket.
There is a fortune to some newspaper syndicate in the unopened mail of
"B.L.T." and "F.P.A."
* * *
A limousine delegate from the Federated Order of Line Scribes has waited
on us to present the demands of the organization, among which are
(1) recognition of the union; (2) appointing a time and place for
meeting with a business committee to determine on a system of collective
bargaining for Line material; (3) allowing the Order to have a voice in
the management of the column. A prompt compliance with the demands of
the Order failing, a strike vote will be ordered.
We have never limited the output of a contributor; the union will. No
matter how excellent the idea, no matter how inspired the contrib may
be to amplify it, he will not be permitted to do more than a certain
amount of work per day. However brilliant he may be, he will be held
down to the level of the most pedestrian performer. In unionizing,
moreover, he will be only exchanging one tyrant for another, and perhaps
not so benevolent a one. Now, then, go to it, as the emperor said to the
gladiators.
* * *
ALL RIGHT, DAISY.
Dear B. L. T., pray take this hint:
I shrink to see my name in print,
The agate line--O please!--for me.
I sign myself just--
Daisy B.
* * *
THE SHY AND LOWLYS.
I'm modest and meek,
And not a bit pushing.
Please set in Antique,
Or 14 point Cushing.
Iris.
* * *
HE MIGHT TRIM THE VIOLETS.
Sir: Could you find an inconspicuous job around the Academy for a
bashful man like Mr. Jess Mee, whom we had the pleasure of encountering
in Toulon, Ill.?
* * *
We welcome Mr. Mark Sullivan, who fights the high cost of existence by
turning his clothes inside out, to our recently established league, The
Order of the Turning Worm. Mr. Sullivan, meet Mr. Facing-Both-Ways.
* * *
Mr. Mark Sullivan may be interested in this case: "My husband," relates
a reader, "did a job of turning for a man reputed to be wealthy. He
removed the shingles from a roof, and turned all except those which were
impossible: these few were replaced by new ones. The last I heard about
this man he was said to have refused Liberty loan salesmen to solicit in
his factory."
* * *
Five years ago a neighbor told us that he had his clothes turned after a
season or two of wear, but we neglected to ask him how he shifted the
buttonholes to the proper side. Left-handed buttoning would be rather
awkward, especially if one were in a hurry.
* * *
Miss Forsythe of the Trades Union league explains that young women in
domestic service feel there is a social stigma attached to the work. It
is this stigmatism, no doubt, that causes them to break so many dishes.
Anyway, Stigma is a lovely name for a maid, just as pretty as Hilda.
* * *
"Why care for grammar as long as we are good?" inquired Artemus Ward. A
question to be matched by that of the superintendent of Cook county's
schools, "Why shouldn't a man say 'It's me' and 'It don't'?" Why not,
indeed! How absurd was Prof. McCoosh of Princeton, who, having answered
"It's me" to a student inquiry, "Who's there?" retreated because of his
mortification for not having said "It's I." Silly old duffer! He would
not have enjoyed Joseph Conrad, who uses unblushingly the locution,
"except you and I."
No, let the school children, like them (or like they) of Rheims, cry
out, "That's him!" _Usus loquendi_ has made that as mellifluous as
"that's me." It don't make you writhe, do it? Besides, we are all
sinners, like McCoosh. And as a gentleman writes to the Scott County,
Ind., Journal, "Let he that is without fault cast the first stone."
* * *
"I want to use the 'lightning-bug' verse," writes Ursus. "Please reprint
it and say to whom credit should be given."
It is easier to reprint the lines than to locate the credit, but we have
always associated them with Eugene Ware. They go--
"The lightning-bug is brilliant, but he hasn't any mind;
He stumbles through existence with his headlight on behind."
* * *
The Harmony Cafeteria advertises, "Eat the Harmony Way." A gentleman who
lunched there yesterday counted eighteen sword-swallowers.
* * *
Remindful of the bow-legged floorwalker who said, "Walk this way,
madam."
* * *
Watching the play, "At the Villa Rose," our thoughts wandered back to
"Prince Otto," in which piece we first saw Otis Skinner. And we wondered
precisely what George Moore means when he says that Stevenson is all
right except when he tries to tell a story. According to Moore, a story
is not a story if it keeps you up half the night; "it is only the
insignificant book that cannot be laid down," he once maintained.
* * *
What is a story? To us it is drama first, operating on character. To
Conrad it is character first, being operated on by drama. That may be
why we prefer "The Wrecker" to "The Rescue."
* * *
Writes M. G. M. from Denver: "Madame Pompadour, late of Chicago, opened
a beauty shop here, and one of our up-to-date young ladies asked her if
she was doing the hair in the crime wave so popular in Chicago."
* * *
TRADE ADIEUS.
Sir: After I had entertained a saleslady all evening and had said
good-night at her abode, she murmured, "Thanks! Will that be all?"
C. H. S.
* * *
According to Dr. Kumm of the Royal British Geographical Society, the
natives of Uganda are happier than we. So are the camels of Sahara. But
hoonel, as Orpheus asked Eurydice, wants to be a camel?
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
BEING A FEW HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PAGES FROM HIS JOURNAL.
I.
In this, the seven and twentieth year of my captivity, I have been much
distressed by the monotony of my existence. My habitation is as complete
as I can wish; I have all the clothing to my need; and my subjects--my
man Friday and his father, and the Spaniard--keep me abundantly supplied
with food. When I was alone the necessity of husbandry gave me plenty to
do, but now I am oppressed by a great lack of matter for occupation,
both physical and mental. Questioning myself, I put the blame upon an
evil state of mind into which I have fallen, in no longer finding profit
in reading my bible and other books, or in meditating on this life and
that which is to come.
I am rich in that I want for no material thing; and I am idle, in that I
do naught to profit myself or my companions; so that, although
practically a solitary, I am, as you might say, an idle rich class, and
were I multiplied by thousands I should be a grievous burden on society.
Friday, perceiving the state of my mind, has set himself to entertain
me, and, being an ingenious fellow, will no doubt succeed. As a
beginning he took unto himself the management of our simple meals, and
he has contrived so to expand them, both in quantity of food and time
spent in consuming it, that a large part of my day is now given over to
eating. I drink a great deal of wine with my meals, and of rum also, a
great store of which I saved from the wreck; and these strong waters,
added to the great quantity of food consumed, produce in me a pleasant
torpor, which I find to be a satisfactory substitute for meditation.
II.
My man Friday came running to me this afternoon to relate that "many
great number" of savages were landed on our shore, and that, by the
preparations the wretches were making, a great feast was intended. The
news was extremely welcome, for I have become so bored by the monotony
of existence that any pretext for going abroad after nightfall is a
godsend. So after disposing of a heavy dinner, that included six kinds
of wines and liquors, my carriage, as I called it (though it was no more
than a litter), was fetched by Friday and his father; and followed by
the Spaniard, carrying my cloak and perspective glass, I set out for a
little wooded hill that overlooked the beach on which the savages were
encamped.
The dreadful wretches had finished their inhuman feast and were
squatting on the sand, watching one of their number, a comely female,
who was dancing wildly in a circle of strong firelight. The body of
this creature was swathed in veils, which she removed, one after the
other, until she was wholly naked. This degrading spectacle seemed to be
enormously enjoyed by the spectators, who were grouped in the form of a
horseshoe. I observed, also, that they were decorated with feathers and
glass beads, and that, except for these ornaments, were as naked as the
dancer.
My Spaniard, a God fearing man, was greatly shocked by the sight, and my
man Friday, too, was strongly affected; but to my shame I must confess
that I did not share their abhorrence. Yet even my stomach began to
protest when the dancer, darting to one of the canoes, appeared with a
gory head that had been chopped from one of the victims of the feast,
and continued her shocking gyrations, to a most infernal din of
barbarous musical instruments that half a hundred of the wretches were
beating. The Spaniard and Friday urged, in their indignation, that we
discharge our muskets at the unholy crew; but I restrained them from
such an intelligible piece of violence, reflecting that the barbarous
customs of these people might be regarded as their own disaster, and
that I was not called upon to judge their actions, much less to execute
the judgment of heaven upon them. Besides, they were in such numbers
that, had we attacked, we should have been overwhelmed. So, calling for
my litter, I returned to my habitation.
A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO
_Hew to the Line, let the quips fall where they may._
An artist friend, back from the Land of Taos, brings word of another
artist who is achieving influence by raising hogs--or "picture buyers,"
as he sardonically calls them. This set us to wondering what had become
of Arthur Dove, one of the first of the Einstein school to exhibit in
this town. Despairing of the public intelligence, Mr. Dove took up the
raising of chickens, and very old readers of this column may recall the
verses in which we celebrated his withdrawal from art:
THE BROODING DOVE.
Arthur Dove is raising chickens,
He has put his paints away:
Tell me, Chronos, where the dickens
Are the Cubes of yesterday!
Dove was real, Dove was earnest,
But his efforts came to nix.
Bowing to decree the sternest,
He has gone to raising chicks.
There's a strong demand for broilers,
There's a call for chicken-pie;
Dove declined to paint pot-boilers,
So he put his brushes by.
Luck attend his every setting!
May his inspirations hatch!
And, whatever price he's getting,
May he market every batch.
* * *
"Perpetual reduction of my audience is my hobby," observes Mr. Yeats,
who aspires to be the Einstein of song. When only twelve disciples are
able to understand him, he will be content.
* * *
A scientific expedition will hunt for the missing link in Asia, and may
find it. But it will never be known whether the m. l. was capable of the
popular songs which one sees in the windows of music stores, or whether
it could have done something better.
* * *
The gadder contrib who uses the Gideon Bible to hold the shaving mirror
at the right angle is properly rebuked by sundry readers. As one of
them, M. B. C., says, he may make the Line, but he'll have a close shave
if he makes heaven.
* * *
We imagine the Gideon Bible is read more than may be supposed. Evening
in a small town must be desperately dull to many travelers. And there
are better love stories in the Bible than can be bought on the trains.
Some of our gadding contribs have so good a writing style that we feel
sure it must have been influenced by the Great Book.
* * *
A STERN PEDAGOGUE.
[From the Antelope, Montana, local.]
Miss Gladys Spank arrived here from Bozeman last Saturday and is again
teaching in the school near Williams.
* * *
Our esteemed contemporaries, F. P. A., Don Marquis, and Chris Morley,
have taken the pains to reply to Miss Amy Lowell's recent remark that
"colyums" are "ghastly and pitiful." Dear! dear! What has happened to
their sense of humor?
* * *
SHE NOT ONLY HAS A BOOK. SHE HAS TWO!
"I wish to buy a book for a young lady," infoed the blond mustached one
to a clerk at McClurg's. "She has both the 'Rubaiyat' and 'A Tale of Two
Cities.' What do you advise?"
O. B. W.
* * *
"I never could get to Detour, either," communicates Jezebel, "but
recently, on a train, I passed through Derail, which seems to be a
fairly thriving village, although some of the houses need paint."
=> _Old readers detour here--_
* * *
YES, YES.
Sir: Herbert F. Antunes is a piano tuner in Evanston.
L. L. B.
* * *
=> _Resume main pike._
YE STUFF.
Sir: "Yee Laundry" reads the sign over Yee Hing's washee at Deming,
N. M. Wherein ye olde world is joined with ye olde English.
C. P. A.
* * *
"Henry Ford is poverty stricken intellectually, morally, and
spiritually."--Comrade Spargo.
Hint for Briggs: "Wonder what Henry Ford thinks about?"
* * *
Powell's taxicab service in Polo, Ill., offers "a rattle with every
ride," and for the life of us we can't imagine the kind of car employed.
* * *
Speaking of Detour and Derail, "I wonder," wonders A. T., "whether in
your travels you ever got to Goslow."
* * *
DATED.
Sir: From the Blue Book: "Pleasant View. Saloon on left corner. Turn
left. Then follow winding road."
A. C.
* * *
YOU KNOW THE TUNE.
"No girl," say the rules of Northwestern University, "must walk the
campus after dusk, unless to the library or to lectures, or for purposes
of learning."
_I'm a merry little campus maid,
The campus sward I rove,
Picking Greek roots all the day
And learning how to love._
* * *
Considering "A Treasury of English Prose,"--prose that rivals great
poetry--Mr. J. C. Squire came to an interesting conclusion--that "there
is an established, an inevitable, manner into which an Englishman will
rise when his ideas and images lift into grandeur; the style of the
Authorized Version."
* * *
Auguste Comte listed five hundred and fifty-eight men and women who
could be considered great in the history of the world. An English
writer, striking from the list names that he had never heard of before,
arrives at the "astounding fact" that since the dawn of history fewer
than three hundred and fifty great men have lived. We too are astounded.
We had no notion there were so many.
* * *
"Great Britain," says Lloyd George, "must be freed of ignorance,
insobriety, penury, and the tyranny of man over man." That ought not to
require more than three or four glacial periods.
* * *
The Woman's Club asks for "jingles for the jaw." Well, here are two from
C. L. Edson. Try them on your jaw:
THE TREE TOADS.
A tree toad loved a she toad
That lived up in a tree;
She was a three-toed tree toad,
But a two-toed toad was he.
The two-toed tree toad tried to win
The she toad's friendly nod;
For the two-toed tree toad loved the ground
That the three-toed tree toad trod.
But vainly the two-toed tree toad tried--
He couldn't please her whim;
In her tree toad bower
With her V-toe power,
The she toad vetoed him.
THE RIDER AND THE ADDER.
Miss Tudor was a rider in a famous circus show;
For a pet she had an adder--and the adder loved her so!
She fed the adder dodder. It's a plant that live on air,
Could you find an odder fodder if you hunted everywhere?
Miss Tudor bought some madder. It's a color rather rare,
And it made the adder shudder when Miss Tudor dyed her hair.
Her hair was soft as eider when she tried her madder dye;
Then, it had an odder odor--and was redder than the sky.
The adder couldn't chide 'er. It could only idle stare,
But a sadder adder eyed 'er when the rider dyed 'er hair.
* * *
One of our readers was dozing in the lobby of a Boston hotel when he was
aroused by an altercation near the cigar stand. A was wagering B that
the name of the heroine of "The Scarlet Letter" was Hester Thorne, B
maintaining that it was Hester Prim. The manager of the hotel was about
to call the police, forgetting that there were none, when the
gum-chewing divinity behind the case awarded the decision to B, and the
crowd reluctantly dispersed.
We have on hand a column of favorite wheezes sent in response to our
invitation, and the only reason we have not printed them is the
preponderance of our own stuff. Naturally, or not, we are better amused
by the wheezes of contributors. Frexample the following evoked a smile:
"On the train running into Tulsa," wrote a gadder, "a native was fooling
with the roller curtain, when suddenly it flew up with a snap. He looked
bewildered, stuck his head out of the window, and finally said to
himself, 'Well, I reckon that's the last they'll see of _that_ derned
thing!'"
* * *
As we have been informed, and as we repeat for the benefit of the School
of Journalism, there is nothing to running a column except the knack of
writing more or less apt headlines. And so for the instruction of
students whose ambition may be vaulting in that direction we will reopen
a short court in head-writing. See what you can do with the divorce suit
of Hazel Nutt against John P. Nutt, filed in a Florida court.
* * *
As to the divorce suit of Hazel Nutt vs. John P. Nutt, M. M. C. offers,
"Shucks!"
* * *
Another happy headline for the Nutt vs. Nutt divorce suit, suggested by
Battle Creek: "Two Nutts Will Soon Be Loose."
* * *
The hand-painted baby-blue pencil for the best headline last week goes
to the artist on the San Francisco Chronicle for the following:
"Prehistoric Skulls Found Digging Wells."
* * *
We see by the paper--our favorite medium of information--that Duluth is
to have an evening of "wrestling and dance." A keen eye can probably
tell the difference.
* * *
The drawn-work decanter, prize for the best headline for the Nutt vs.
Nutt divorce case, is awarded to G. C. H. for his inspiration, "Nutts
for the Lawyers."
* * *
LIMERIK.
There was a young man from Art Creek
Who went around dressed in Batik.
When they asked, "Are you well?"
He replied, "Ain't it hell?
But in Art it's the very last shriek."
* * *
Received by a Missouri teacher: "Please excuse Frank for being absent. I
kneaded him at home." In the woodshed? Ouch, Maw!
* * *
How could the teacher rebuke Emil when she read this excuse from his
father? "The only excuse I have for Emil being late was nine o'clock
came sooner than we expected."
* * *
For our part, we are moved to protest against the growing practice among
parents of rebuking their children for playing with the children of
prohibitionists. We should not visit upon the little ones the sins of
their intemperate progenitors.
* * *
"Attention, Members!" postcards the house committee of the Chicago Real
Estate Board. "Get your feet under the table and you are putting your
shoulder behind your board." This is another good reducing exercise.
* * *
With the return of the railroads to private control, we look for an
immediate improvement in the service. For, as the dining-car waiter
said, when requested to brush the crumbs from a table: "We's workin' for
the government now. We don't have to brush no crumbs off no more." Well,
he'll brush some crumbs off some more now, or he'll be fired.
* * *
One may send "harmless live animals" by parcel post, with the chances
eight to five that the animal will be reduced to pulp or die of old age.
* * *
THE CHIGGER.
When the enterprising chigger is a-chigging
And maturing his felonious little plan,
He loves to climb the lingerie and rigging
And tunnel into Annabel and Ann.
The chigger then with chloroform they smother,
His little hour of pleasure then is o'er,
So take this consideration with the other,
A chigger's life is pretty much a bore.
* * *
A VERSATILE CHAP.
[From the Turton, S. D., Trumpet.]
Victor LaBrie gave several fine selections on the piano. Victor is a
splendid musician. When he plays he has full control of the piano, and
has splendid harmony to his selections.
Victor LaBrie started dragging Monday afternoon. He used the tractor
and stated that it worked up fine.
* * *
"Seeing is believing," says the vender of a piano player. But perhaps
you would prefer auricular evidence.
* * *
"The only fad I have had for the last twenty-six years is my
husband."--Mrs. Harding.
This is one of the very few really worthy fads that women have ever
taken up.
* * *
ACT II., SCENE II.
JULIET.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
ROMEO.
Thou sayest a mouthful, love. And yet how come
That Myra Tinkelpaugh, of Cobleskill,
New York, conducts therein The Music Shop?
* * *
Mr. Sink having resigned as plumber to the Immortals, we are
recommending in his place the plumbing firm of Jamin & Jerkin, of
St. Petersburg, Fla.
* * *
"Buy a communication ticket," advises a restaurant. This, understands
E. S., gives you the privilege of talking with the waitresses.
* * *
"Every American man has a mental picture of his wife standing behind the
door with a rolling-pin."--Blasco Ibanez.
We fear the gifted Spaniard has acquired an idea of American domestic
life from Mr. Tom Powers' sketches and other back-page comics.
* * *
A reader wonders what we can find in a book so childishly egotistical as
Margot Asquith's Autobiography. Answer: much that is interesting. When
we read an autobiography we are interested in the people written about
rather than in the writer. There are exceptions, of course; for example,
Henry Adams and Jacques Casanova.
* * *
THE JANITOR ENTERTAINS.
[Iowa City Item.]
An unusual function for men in business circles was that which John
Voelkel, janitor of the First National bank, supervised, Saturday
evening. He gave a dinner, card party and a smoker to all the officers
of the bank. Invitations were issued to every member of the staff, from
president to clerk, and those who assembled at the custodian's home made
merry for several hours at an event probably without a duplicate in
banking history in Iowa City.
* * *
VARIANT OF THE V. H. W.
Sir: Please send me a copy of the famous valve handle wheeze. I have
heard so much about it. I hope this reaches you before your limited
supply is exhausted.
O. G. C.
P. S.--One of the fellows in the office just told me the joke, so you
need not bother to send me a copy.
O. G. C.
* * *
CRUELLE ET INSOLITE.
[Transfer slip, Peninsular Railway Co.]
This ticket is good for one continuous passage only in the direction
shown by conductor's punch in the face hereof.
* * *
HIGH, LOW, JACK, AND THE GAME.
Sir: While visiting in a New England family I accused them of being
"highbrows," and they gave me these modern synonyms for highbrow and
lowbrow, taken from a Boston paper:
Highbrow: Browning, anthropology, economics, Bacon, the string
quartette, the uplift, inherent sin, Gibbon, fourth dimension,
Euripides, "eyether," pâté de fois gras, lemon phosphate, Henry Cabot
Lodge, Woodrow Wilson.
Low-highbrow: Municipal government, Kipling, socialism, Shakespeare,
politics, Thackeray, taxation, golf, grand opera, bridge, chicken à la
Maryland, "eether," stocks and bonds, gin rickey, Theodore Roosevelt,
chewing gum in private.
High-lowbrow: Musical comedy, euchre, baseball, moving pictures, small
steak medium, whisky, Robert W. Chambers, purple socks, chewing gum with
friends.
Lowbrow: Laura Jean Libbey, ham sandwich, haven't came, pitch, I and
her, melodrama, hair oil, the Duchess, beer, George M. Cohan, red
flannels, toothpicks, Bathhouse John, chewing gum in public.
E. S.
* * *
A bachelor complains to us that prohibition has ruined his life. His
companions have deserted their haunts--all, all are gone, the old
familiar faces--and he can find no one to talk to; and he talks very
well, too. Now, we have as much compassion for him as it is possible to
have for any bachelor, and yet we do not esteem his case utterly
hopeless. As Mr. Lardner has suggested, when he repairs to his hotel at
night he can open the clothespress and talk to his other suit of
clothes.
* * *
Tolstoi's "Power of Darkness" reminds P. G. Wodehouse of a definition of
Greek tragedy--the sort of drama in which one character comes to another
and says, "If _you_ don't kill mother, _I_ will!"
* * *
"The jehu of the rubber-neck wagon," reports a gadder from Loz Onglaze,
"called out: 'We are now in the center of the old aristocratic center.
That palatial residence on our left is the home of Fatty Arbuckle.'"
* * *
_MORNING IN IOWA_.
_A cold, rough, gloomy morning!
'Gainst yellow dawn the smoke
Of neighbors' chimneys stains the air,
Reminding me that yon grim, white-capped cone,
Which like a second Rainier stands in my backyard,
Like him of ash and cinders built, now calls
For more upbuilding. That white bloom
Which last night's snow hath left upon
His smooth and awful sides must now
Be sicklied o'er with more and yet more
Ashes._
_What's that I smell--buckwheats?
And What's-his-name's pig sausage?
It is? Aha!
Gee, what a peach of a morning!_
Abd-el-Kader.
* * *
AN EVENING WITH SHAKESPEARE.
Sir: Overheard at the Studebaker: "What's put him off his nut?" Lady,
answering: "He ain't really bugs--it's a stall. The old guy [Polonius]
thinks he's got something on him."
P. S. D.
* * *
YOURS, ETC.
Sir: The height of efficiency is attained by Mervin L. Lane, Insurance
Service, New York, who prints on his letterhead, "Unnecessary terms of
politeness as well as assurances of self-evident esteem are omitted from
our letters."
E. A. D.
* * *
"It costs 30,000 Lenin rubles a day for food alone," says Prof. Zeidler
of Viborg, referring to so-called life in Russia. Apparently, then,
Lenin has not yet succeeded in making money utterly worthless.
* * *
HE OUGHT TO BE DEPORTED.
Sir: Gum Boot Charlie, an Alaska native, was discussing the present h.
c. l. with a group of citizens of Yakutat, and while condemning the
present administration and conditions generally, he was interrupted by a
Swede who said: "You dam native, if you don't like this country, why
don't you go back where you came from?"
W. W. K.
* * *
A Carbondale youth was arrested for hunting out of season, and the
possession of a gun and a dog is considered, by the Free Press,
"facsimile evidence."
* * *
Then, as D. B. B. reminds, there are the writers of apostrophic verse
who skip lightly from 'you' to 'thou' and 'thee,' and from 'thy' to
'your.' A language less rugged than the English would have been
destroyed long ago.
* * *
We learn from the Monticello, Ind., Journal that a couple narrowly
escaped being asphyxicated by gas from an anthricate coal stove. Young
Grimes must be reporting for that gazette.
* * *
Overheard in an osteopath's office: "When does it hurt you most, when
you set or when you lay?"
* * *
NOTES OF THE ACADEMY OF IMMORTALS.
The following nominations have been received:
For greenskeeper on the Academy links: Mr. Launmore of Pittsburgh. Nom.
by S. C. B.
For bugler: Mr. Mescall of Chicago. Nom. by Circle W.
For legal counsel: Atty. Frank Lawhead of Detroit. Nom. by H. D. T.
For any vacancy: Mr. Void Null of Centralia, Mo. Nom. by E. J. C.
* * *
Miss Seitsinger is organizing a chorus and glee club in the schools of
Northwood, Ia. Yes, very.
* * *
BUTCHER TO THE ACADEMY.
Bill Bull, the Butcher, of Bartlett, Ill.,
Says: "Trade with me. Cut down your bill."
A. G. C.
* * *
The membership committee of the Academy has received numerous protests
against the admission of Charles Ranck, the skunk trapper of Ellsworth,
Neb., and J. K. Garlick, the "practical horseshoer" of Sublette, Ill.
* * *
ACADEMY NOTES.
The nominations were considered of Ananias Deeds of Guthrie Center, Ia.,
and Mrs. Tamer Lyons of Upton, Ind. The Academy then resumed work on
the Dictionary of Names.
* * *
"For goodness' sake!" exclaims Frank Harris in Pearson's, expressing his
joy in the growth of Lenine's state, "for goodness' sake let us have new
experiments on this old earth." For goodness's sake, let's! But why not
have one on a grand scale? Let's dig a hole a mile deep and a mile
across, fill it with dynamite, and see whether we can't finish the world
in one good bang.
* * *
"Learned Class of Europe In Hard Straits."
They are in hard straits everywhere. The more learned you are, the worse
you're off.
* * *
"Budapest Hungriest of Cities in all Europe."--South Bend Tribune.
The headliner must have his little joke.
* * *
WE DON'T LIKE TO THINK OF IT!
[From the Cambridge Review.]
Think of the portrait that Rembrandt painted of his mother hanging in
the living-room of his parents' simple home.
* * *
Our blithesome contemporary, F. P. A., is not disturbed by the steel
strike, as he uses a gold pen; and for a like reason _our_ withers are
unwrung. Eugene Field of fragrant memory used a steel pen. A friend of
ours was speaking of having dropped in on the poet just as he was
fitting a new pen to the holder. "You can't write anything new," said
Field, "unless you have a new pen."
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Received by a mail order house.]
Dear Sir: The peeaney you shipped me sum time ago come duly recd. My, is
we souposed to pay the frate charge onit. When we bot this peeanney you
claimed to lie it down to me. I want you two send me quick as hell a
receet for 2.29 for same. Besyds the kees on sum dont work a tall. Is
them ivory finger boards. Are dealer here sed we got beet on this deel.
Wer is the thing you seet on? Is it eeen that box on the platform at the
depo? That luks two small for it. Yours truely, etc.
P. S.--Wen you rite tel me how two tune it.
* * *
Fireplace heating, says Dr. Evans, is the most wasteful. True. And the
most agreeable. So many things that make life endurable in this vale of
tears are wasteful.
* * *
"Since her tour of the Pacific Coast," declares a Berkeley bulletin,
"Miss Case has made strident advances in her art." The lady, it appears,
sings.
* * *
THE SECOND POST.
[Received by a Birmingham concern.]
Dear Sirs and Gents: Would say this lady i got the Range for had applied
for a divorce and was to marrey me but she has taken her soldier husband
back again and changed her notion so i don't think it right to pay for a
range for the other man. let him pay it out if she will live up to her
bargin i will pay and could have paid at the time but was afraid this
would happen as it has she has never rote or communicated with me since
i left there dont think it right or justice that i pay for it and
perhaps never see her again had they of rote to me i would have kept up
the payments can first see the parties what they expect to do. Very
Respect, etc.
* * *
You have observed the skinned-rabbit hair-cut. The barber achieves a
gruesome effect by running the clippers half-way up the skull. But did
you know that it originated in Columbus, O.? "Yes, sir," said the
Columbus barber to Col. Drury Underwood, "that started here. We call it
the two-piece haircut."
* * *
CUPID CARRIES A CARD.
H. H. Lessner, of Alton, Ill., known as "Alton's Marrying Justice of the
Peace," carries a union label on his stationery.
* * *
"I am reading Marcus Aurelius now," confides Mme. Galli-Curci to an
interviewer. "One can never really grow tired of it, can one?" Well, if
you ask us, one can.
* * *
"Are we going crazy?"--Senator Smoot.
"Wanted, man or woman to give me a few lessons on ouija board."--Denver
Post ad.
So it seems.
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Transcriber's note:
Minor punctuation errors have been repaired, but inconsistent spelling
and hyphenation have been left as printed in light of the author's
extensive use of dialect and deliberate humorous mis-spelling.
Emphasis rendered in the original by typographic means other than
italics has been marked +thus+.
End of Project Gutenberg's The So-called Human Race, by Bert Leston Taylor
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