Part 2
Wherefore men who do their own thinking, and eke women betimes, take honor rather than disparagement in the name which is meant to typify remorseless commonplace. They hesitate not to question custom, whether there be reason in it. They ask “Why?” when one makes proclamation:
“Lo! Columbus discovered America four hundred years ago! Let us give a dance.” There have been teachers who sought to persuade mankind that use alone is beauty—and these too have done violence to the fitness of things. On such ideals is the civilization of Cathay founded. Neither in the grossness of material things nor in the false refinements that “divorce the feeling from its mate the deed” is the core and essence of living.
It is the business of the true Philistine to rescue from the environment of custom and ostentation the beauty and the goodness cribbed therein. And so the Philistines of these days, whose prime type is the Knight of La Mancha, go tilting at windmills and other fortresses—often on sorry nags and with shaky lances, and yet on heroic errand bent. And to such merry joust and fielding all lovers of chivalry are bidden: to look on—perhaps to laugh, it may be to grieve at a woeful belittling of lofty enterprise. Come, such of you as have patience with such warriors. It is Sancho Panza who invites you.
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_The Chip-Munk_ has a bright reference in the issue of May 15 to Coventry, Patmore, Pater and Meredith. These are four great men, as _The Chip-Munk_ boldly states.
_The Chip-Munk_ further announces that the Only Original Lynx-Eyed Proof Reader has not gone on a journey. Really, I supposed of course he had been gone these many moons!
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I wonder if Carman is still upon a diet of Mellin’s Food that he imagines people do not know that this poem
LITTLE LYRICS OF JOY—V.
Lord of the vasty tent of Heaven, Who hast to thy saints and sages given A thousand nights with their thousand stars, And the star of faith for a thousand years.
Grant me, only a foolish rover, All thy beautiful wide world over, A thousand loves in a thousand days, And one great love for a thousand years.
—BLISS CARMAN in _The Chap Book_, May, 1895.
was written years and years ago as follows:
The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done.
—FRANCIS W. BOURDILLON.
I desire to swipe him after this manner:
LITTLE DELIRICS OF BLISS.
MDCCCXCIV.
Lord of the wires that tangle Heaven, Who hast to thy brake-persuaders given, The longest of days to ring and grind, And no least screen from the winter’s wind.
Grant me, only, a summer lover, Sunshiny days the long year over, A thousand whirls and a thousand fares, And one long whirl of a thousand hours.
JOY TROLLEYMAN.
IV-XI-XLIV.
White and rose are the colors of strife, What care I for the crimson and blue? Greater than football the battle of life And tragic as aught the gods may view, The clutch and the gripe of inward ills; Pallid the People and Pink the Pills.
JOY CARTMAN.
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Mark Twain says he is writing “Joan of Arc” anonymously in _Harper’s_ because he is convinced if he signed it the people would insist the stuff was funny. Mr. Twain is worried unnecessarily. It has been a long time since any one insisted the matter he turns out so voluminously was or is funny.
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The amusing William Dean Howells writes that he is so bothered by autograph seekers that he will hereafter refuse to send his signature “with a sentiment” unless the applicant for his favor produces satisfactory evidence he has read all of his works, “now some thirty or forty in number.” When this proof has been sent if Mr. Howells does not return his autograph on the bottom of a check for a large amount, he deserves to be arrested for cruelty to his fellows.
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There is no doubt that a teacher once committed to a certain line of thought will cling to that line long after all others have deserted it. In trying to persuade others he convinces himself. This is especially so if he is opposed. Opposition evolves in his mind a maternal affection for the product of his brain and he defends it blindly to the death. Thus we see why institutions are so conservative. Like the coral insect they secrete osseous matter; and when a preacher preaches he himself always goes forward to the mourners’ bench and accepts all of the dogmas that have just been so ably stated.
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Literature is the noblest of all the arts. Music dies on the air, or at best exists only as a memory; oratory ceases with the effort; the painter’s colors fade and the canvas rots; the marble is dragged from its pedestal and is broken into fragments; but the _Index Expurgatorius_ is as naught, and the books burned by the fires of the _auto da fe_ still live. Literature is reproduced ten thousand times ten thousand and lodges its appeal with posterity. It dedicates itself to Time.
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The action of various theatrical managers in cutting from their programmes the name of the author of the plays running at their houses and the similar action of numerous librarians in withdrawing his books from their shelves is simply another proof of the marvellous powers of stultification possessed by the humans of the present time. These managers, having the scattering wits of birds, do not seem to appreciate that, whatever the character of the author, the plays he has written were as bad before they were produced as they are now that he has been so effectually extinguished; and these librarians cannot comprehend, evidently, that his books were fully as immoral as they are now when they were first put on the shelves. Would it not be a refreshing thing to find a theatrical manager who managed a theater because he had an honest purpose of elevating, perpetuating, purifying and strengthening the drama, instead of speculating in it as a Jew speculates in old clothes? And would it not be a marvel to discover librarian who knew something about books?
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Buffalo, New York, is getting to be very classic in some things. It tolerated the nude with great equanimity in the recent Art Exhibition and exhibits the female embodiment of everything ideal, from the German muse of song to the still more German muse of barley products, at the great variety of fests, more or less related to beer, that follow in swift succession in that town. But the classic climax was reached on Good Friday of this year, when the Venus of Milo, mounted on a Bock beer pedestal, was the center piece of an Easter symbol picture in a Hebrew clothing advertisement. The limit of Buffalo congruity seems to have been reached.
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_The Chip-Munk_ for May has a bit of folk-lore about a man who advised another to join a conspiracy of silence. This item appeared in 1893 and during 1894 was published by actual count in one hundred and forty-nine newspapers. The editors of _The Chip-Munk_ are a bit slow in reading their exchanges.
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The Two Orphans at the Kate Claxton Building, Chicago Stockyards, have a motto on their letter heads that reads, “We are the people and wisdom will die with us.”
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The editor of _The Baseburner_, who claims to be a veritist, states that it is not true that the Garland stoves were named after Ham Garland of Chicago Stockyards; but the fact is Garland named himself after the stoves.
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_Current Literature_ recently had a long article on Louise Imogene Guinly. Doubtless the spelling of the name was a typographical error, as the editor probably refers to Miss Louisa Imogene Quinney, who is postmistress at Auburn, New York, and daughter of Richard Quinney, manufacturer of the famous Quinney Mineral Water.
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Judge Robert Grant has in preparation a series of articles called “How to Live on a Million a Minute and Have Money to Burn.”
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I hear the voice of the editors of _The Chip-Munk_ complaining that _Little Journeys_, _The Bibelot_, _Chips_ and other publications are base, would-be imitators of their own chaste periodical. Why, you sweet things, did you know that many hundred years ago a great printer made a book which was printed in black inside with a cover in red and black. I believe this is the thing which you claim is original with yourselves. So far as the rest of the periodicals are concerned I have no means of knowing whether they are imitations or not, but _Little Journeys_ was in type and printed long before _The Chip-Munk_ came out of its hole.
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Messrs. Copeland & Day of Boston recently published for Mr. Stephen Crane a book which he called “The Black Riders.” I don’t know why; the riders might have as easily been green or yellow or baby-blue for all the book tells about them, and I think the title, “The Pink Rooters,” would have been better, but it doesn’t matter. My friend, The Onlooker, of _Town Topics_, quotes one of the verses and says this, which I heartily endorse:
I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. “It is futile,” I said, “You can never”—— “You lie,” he cried. And ran on.
This was Mr. Howells proving that Ibsen is valuable and interesting. It is to be hoped that Mr. Crane will write another poem about him after his legs have been worn off.
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I was moved to read Mr. Hermann Sudermann’s diverting novel, “The Wish,” upon observing an extended notice in the “Sub Rosa” column of the Buffalo _Courier_. The writer therein alleged that the novel taught a great moral lesson, and desiring to be taught a great moral lesson I bought the book. It treats of the wish of a girl for her sister’s death in order that she might marry the husband. I suppose the great moral truth is that one should not wish for such things, but I supposed that had been taught in one of the Commandments, which tells of coveting thy neighbor’s wife, and my Sunday School teacher used to tell me that it referred equally to husbands. I was evidently mistaken, and Hermann Sudermann is hereby hailed as a teacher of morals. I should think, from the style of the “Sub Rosa” article, that the writer is a woman. If she is, I’ll bet her feet are cold if she enjoys such things as this:
When Old Hellinger entered the gable room he saw a sight which froze the blood in his veins. His son’s body lay stretched on the ground. As he fell he must have clutched the supports of the bier on which the dead girl had been placed, and dragged down the whole erection with him; for on the top of him, between the broken planks, lay the corpse, in its long, white shroud, its motionless face upon his face, its bared arms thrown over his head. At this moment he regained consciousness, and started up. The dead girl’s head sank down from his and bumped on the floor.
This cheerful book is translated from the German by Lily Henkel and published by the Appletons. I commend it to Mr. Bliss Carman and his shroud washers.
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Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, of Portland, Maine, deserves the thanks of the reading public for the issuing of _The Bibelot_. Each month this dainty periodical comes like a dash of salt water on a hot day, and is as refreshing. After reading the longings and the heartburnings of the various degenerates who inflict their stuff on us these days, Mr. Mosher’s “Sappho” comes and makes us really believe that there is a man up on the coast of Maine who has the salt of the sea and the breath of the pines in him, and is willing to think that there are other people who care for purity and sweetness, rather than such literature as “Vistas” and the plays of Maeterlinck.
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When in five consecutive stories, printed in the same periodical, the hero or heroine has ended the narrative by shooting himself or herself, is it not about time to hire somebody to invent some other denouement?
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Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
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To be stupid when inclined and dull when you wish is a boon that only goes with high friendship.
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Every man has moments when he doubts his ability. So does every woman at times doubt her wit and beauty and long to see them mirrored in a masculine eye. This is why flattery is acceptable. A woman will doubt everything you say except it be compliments to herself—here she believes you truthful and mentally admires you for your discernment.
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STIGMATA.
“Behold the miracle!” he cried— The sombre priest who stood beside A figure on whose snowy breast The outlines of a cross expressed In ruddy life-drops ebbed and flowed; “Behold th’ imprimatur of God!”
A kneeling woman raised her eyes; Lo! At the sight, in swift surprise, Ere awe-struck lips a prayer could speak Love’s stigma glowed on brow and cheek; And one in reverence bent his head— “Behold the miracle?” he said.
WILLIAM MCINTOSH.
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THE MAGAZINES.
_Kate Field’s Wash_ is dry.
_The Arena_ has sand.
“Sub-Tragic” is the latest description of Vic. Woodhull’s _Humanitarian_.
_McClure’s_ is getting a little weary with its living pictures.
_Scribner’s_ has a thrilling article on “Books We Have Published.”
_Godey’s_ is very gay in its second childhood.
Judge Tourgee’s _Basis_ isn’t business. “It’s pretty, but it isn’t war.”
_The Century_, it is said, will insert a page or two of reading matter between the Italian art and the ads.
_The Basis_ is out with prizes for poets and sermon writers. It was as certain as the law of nature makes the filling of every vacuum at some time, that somewhere and at some time these people would get their reward. It seems to be coming now. But where and when will be the reward of the people who read what they write? The thought of their fate is all shuddery.
Ginger used to be in evidence in magazines and pumpkin pies. Squash is a prominent ingredient now.
If _Peterson’s_ wouldn’t mix ads. and reading matter in their books and on title pages the cause of current literature would be advanced.
Between Grant’s essays on the art of living and the mild satire of “The Point of View,” it really looks as if the Tattler had come again—a little disembodied for Dick Steele, but in character.
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THE BOK BILLS OF NARCISSUS.
“Narcissus is the glory of his race, For who does nothing with a better grace.”
YOUNG—_Love of Fame._
_Narcissus: or, The Self-Lover._
JAMES SHIRLEY, 1646.
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PHILADELPHIA, June 1, 1895.
W. D. HOWELLS:
TO EDWARD W. BOK, DR.
42 sq. inches in Boiler Plate. “Literary Letter,” on What I Know of Howells’s Modesty $4 20
Mentioning Howells’s name, 730,000 times in same (up to date) 7 30
Cussing _Trilby_ (your suggestion) 20 ------ $11 70
Less 2 per cent. for cash.
Please remit.
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Die Heintzemannsche Buchdruckerei
In Boston, Mass., empfiehlt sich zur geschmackvollen und preiswerten Herstellung von feinen Druckarbeiten aller Art, als: Schul- und Lehrbucher in allen Sprachen, Schul-Examinationspapiere, Diplome, Zirkulare, Preisverzeichnisse, Geschafts-Kataloge u. s. w. Herstellung von ganzen Werken mit oder ohne Illustrationen, von der einfachsten bis zur reichsten Ausfuhrung.
Carl H. Heintzemann, 234 Congress Street, Boston, Mass.
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WANTED—Books on the History and Mythology of =Sweden=, =Denmark=, =Norway=, =Lapland=, =Finland=, =Greenland=, =Iceland=, =etc.=, in any language. Also maps, pamphlets, manuscripts, magazines and any work on Northern Subjects, works of General Literature, etc. Address, giving titles, dates, condition, etc., with price,
JOHN A. STERNE, 5247 Fifth Avenue, Chicago, Ill.
All kinds of Old Books and Magazines bought.