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Title: The Philistine: a periodical for curious persons (Vol. II, No. 6, May 1896)
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Philistine: a periodical for curious persons (Vol. II, No. 6, May 1896)" ***
FOR CURIOUS PERSONS (VOL. II, NO. 6, MAY 1896) ***
The Philistine
A Periodical for Curious Persons.
_Affliction may one day smile again, and till then, sit
thee down, sorrow._—LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST.
[Illustration: Vol. II. No. 6.]
Printed Every Little While
for The Society of The Philistines
and Published by
Them Monthly. Subscription,
One Dollar Yearly
Single Copies, 10 Cents.
May, 1896.
THE PHILISTINE.
CONTENTS FOR MAY.
Ananké, a poem, Eugene R. White
The compensation of the martyrs.
By Rule of Three, Elbert Hubbard
A preachment by a Prizeman, showing the futility
of certain things and the usefulness of others.
A Sonnet of Hope, John Jerome Rooney
Shakspeare’s Borrowings, Walter Blackburn Harte
Life’s Voyage: a Mood, William B. Faville
If Love were All, Elizabeth C. Cardozo
An Hour with Cæsar Augustus, G. W. Stevens
The inside of Roman Politics obtained from sources
only just unearthed in recent excavations.
Side Talks with the Philistines.
A chronicle of opinion conducted by the East Aurora
School of Philosophy.
_Entered at the Postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission as
mail matter of the second class._
_COPYRIGHT, 1896, by B. C. Hubbard._
Only a very few copies of that noble book, The Song of Songs: which is
Solomon’s, remain unsold. The price for these is now Five Dollars Each.
The Vellum Copies can no longer be supplied by us at any price.
The Roycroft Printing Shop,
East Aurora,
New York.
THE CONSERVATOR
Printed Monthly in Philadelphia.
HORACE L. TRAUBEL, Editor.
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION PRICE ONE DOLLAR.
All communications intended for the Editor should be addressed to HORACE
L. TRAUBEL, CAMDEN, NEW JERSEY.
The attention of persons interested in Walt Whitman is directed to _The
Conservator_, in which, along with the presentation of other views,
affecting freedom, democracy, ethics, solidarity, there appear special
studies treating of the significance of Walt Whitman’s appearance in
history, written in part by men whose personal relations to Whitman,
often whose genius, give their utterances great importance and offer
special reasons why readers of books and lovers of man cannot afford to
ignore or neglect their contributions.
Grouped here following are some names of recent writers aiding in this
synthesis.
John Burroughs,
Richard Maurice Bucke,
Oscar Lovell Triggs,
Hamlin Garland,
Daniel G. Brinton,
Thomas B. Harned,
Kelley Miller,
Isaac Hull Platt,
Miss Charlotte Porter,
Miss Helen A. Clarke,
Miss Helena Born,
Edward Payson Jackson,
Edgar Fawcett,
Laurens Maynard,
Francis Howard Williams,
William Sloane Kennedy,
John Herbert Clifford,
Wayland Hyatt Smith,
Horace L. Traubel.
_The Bibelot._
MDCCCXCVI
Those authors and subjects that many readers are glad to come at in a
brief way, (and who may be thereby quickened to direct their studies anew
to the sometimes surface hidden beauties of literature,) will continue to
find ample presentation in _The Bibelot_ for 1896.
The typework that has made so many friends among bookmen, will also
be fully sustained; in a word, _The Bibelot_ still proposes to remain
something quite by itself, and out of the highway and beaten track of
every-day book-making.
Subscriptions for 1896 at the regular price, 50 cents in advance,
postpaid, are taken for the complete year only. After March 1, the rate
will be 75 cents, which will, on completion of Volume II, be advanced to
$1.00 net.
It is desirable that RENEWALS for 1896 should be forwarded Mr. Mosher
_early_ that no vexatious delays may occur in mailing. All subscriptions
must begin with January and end with December of each year.
THOMAS B. MOSHER, Publisher.
Portland, Maine.
[Illustration: MODERN ART
Edited by J. M. BOWLES.]
Quarterly. Illustrated.
“If Europe be the home of Art, America can at least lay claim to the most
artistically compiled publication devoted to the subject that we know of.
This is _Modern Art_.”—_Galignani Messenger (Paris)._
“The most artistic of American art periodicals. A work of art
itself.”—_Chicago Tribune._
_Fifty Cents a Number. Two Dollars a Year. Single Copies (back numbers)
50 Cents in Stamps. Illustrated Sample Page Free._
Arthur W. Dow has designed a new poster for _Modern Art_. It is exquisite
in its quiet harmony and purely decorative character, with breadth and
simplicity in line and mass, and shows the capacity of pure landscape for
decorative purposes.—_The Boston Herald._
_Price, 25 Cents in Stamps, Sent Free to New Subscribers to Modern Art._
L. Prang & Company, Publishers.
286 ROXBURY STREET, BOSTON.
_MEDITATIONS IN MOTLEY._
By WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE
Meditations in Motley reveals a new American essayist, honest and
whimsical, with a good deal of decorative plain speaking. An occasional
carelessness of style is redeemed by unfailing insight.—I. Zangwill in
_The Pall Mall Magazine_ for April, 1895.
Philip Hale, the well-known and brilliant literary and musical critic,
writes: “Walter Blackburn Harte is beyond doubt and peradventure, the
leading essayist in Boston to-day. For Boston, perhaps you had better
read “The United States.” His matter is original and brave, his style is
clear, polished when effect is to be gained thereby, blunt when the blow
should fall, and at times delightfully whimsical, rambling, paradoxical,
fantastical.”
Mr. Harte is not always so good in the piece as in the pattern, but
he is a pleasant companion, and I have met with no volume of essays
from America since Miss Agnes Repplier’s so good as his Meditations in
Motley.—RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, in the London _Review_.
PRICE, CLOTH, $1.25.
Address ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP,
East Aurora, N. Y.
_THE LOTUS._
A miniature literary magazine, handsomely printed and illustrated,
wherein may be found many stories, verses and picturings, curious and
otherwise, but pleasing withal, and original.
Unconventional But Not Decadent.
A beautiful specimen of the printer’s art.—_Kansas City Star._
A wonder.—Mary Abbott in the _Chicago Times-Herald_.
Always charmingly unique.—_Boston Ideas._
A beautiful, youthful and sagacious revelation of intercollegiate
ambition and genius.—Amy Leslie in the _Chicago News_.
THE LOTUS is done into type and printed fortnightly and will be furnished
to subscribers for One Dollar a year. Single copies, five cents.
THE LOTUS,
Kansas City, Missouri.
After a brief but brilliant career of Five Issues The Fly Leaf has been
incorporated with The Philistine. Each number issued was published in
a Limited Edition and very few now remain. No. 1 costs 50 cents, and
Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are sold at 25 cents. A few copies of the Complete Set
bound in antique boards are offered at $1.50. The bound volume makes a
library book of unique value, which will interest all students of the
contemporary literary movement in America.
ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP,
East Aurora,
New York.
THE PHILISTINE.
NO. 6. May, 1896. VOL. 2.
ANANKÉ.
A vagrant thought by cowled convention racked;
Dubbed Heretic because its orbit was not known,
Now canonized and crowned in Reason’s throne,
And martyrdom receives its subtle recompense.
EUGENE R. WHITE.
BY RULE OF THREE.
Some years ago at College I read, on compulsion, a book on Rhetoric.
Reasons were to me then as plenty as blackberries, and I recollect that
on examination my answers given to this, that, and the other were so glib
and trite, and my thesis so amusing, that I carried off a Prize.
But during the struggle for prizes that have a value as collateral, the
Prize and the Rhetoric were forgotten. Yet Fate decreed it so, and one
day last week I met a Harvard youth, whose ambition was Literature,
and he was in the grinding turmoil of a Volume. He was studying on
compulsion, with intent to work off a Condition, and the book he was
reading with such violence was the Rhetoric of my College days. With a
flush of pride it came to me that I was a Prizeman, and I offered, out of
the goodness of my heart, to tutor the youth, so that after five lessons
of an hour each he could grind the Condition to powder.
To prove my fitness, the young man put me through a slight quiz, and
alas! all of the beautiful truths and facts of the Rhetoric had slipped
me, save this alone: “The three requisites in correct writing are
Clearness, Force, and Elegance.”
Every address that Professor Adams Sherman Hill, who wrote the Rhetoric,
ever gave began with this formula. Mr. Barrett Wendell, Heir-Apparent
to his ideas and Chair, does the same; and the Shock-headed Youth, who
occupies the same relation to the professorship that the infant Duke of
York does to the throne of England, always settles himself in his seat
with his elbows on the table, coughs gently, and prefaces his lecture
by saying to the admiring Freshmen: “Gentlemen, the three requisites in
correct writing are Clearness, Force, and Elegance.” Professor Hill has
in one book, by actual count, twenty-seven different propositions that
he divides into three parts. I have forgotten them all save the one just
named. This statement I never can forget. I hold it with a deathless
grasp that defies the seasons and sorrows of time: for there are things
burned so deep into one’s soul that the brand can never be removed; and
should reason abdicate, I’ll gibber through the grates of my padded cell
at each pitying passer-by, “The three requisites in correct writing are
Clearness, Force, and Elegance.”
For years I have repeated this fetching formula on every possible
occasion; and up to this date I have managed to drown the rising voice
of conscience by the specious plea that a double standard of truth is
justifiable in the present condition of society. In morals I have been a
bimetalist.
But after reading _On Compromise_, by John Morley, I am convinced that
this juggling with the Eternal Verities is what has kept the race in
darkness these many cycles; and I now admit the truth which I have long
withheld, that Professor Hill’s three Requisites are gross humbuggery. I
boldly state that Professor Hill does not know what the “Requisites” are;
and I am sure that I do not. In fact I am looking for them anxiously; and
should I ever find them, I’ll do as Shakespeare did—keep them to myself.
I say further that inasmuch as Professor Hill does not know them, the
Heir-Apparent and the Shock-headed Youth in the rush-line for the Chair
cannot possibly be expected to know: so none of us know.
Not only is Professor Hill’s formula rank error, but it is in direct
opposition to truth. I bundle his crass creed with Dr. Hall’s Universal
Self-Treatment, Professor Loisette’s Scheme of Mnemonics, and the
Brown-Sequard Recipe for Perpetual Youth.
Professor Hill, with the help of his students, has compiled three books
on Rhetoric; Mr. Barrett Wendell has published two. Students at Harvard
are expected to buy these books. There are three thousand students at
Harvard. These various books are practically one, for they all teach
that “a parenthetical remark must be enclosed in parentheses, dashes or
commas,” and that “every sentence should have at least one verb.” These
things are explained to men who have had ten years of solid schooling in
order to fit them for College. Professor Hill recommends Harvard students
to buy “that well written work on Composition by Mr. Barrett Wendell,”
and Mr. Wendell modestly says, on page 8, line 18, of his biggest well
written work: “Professor Hill’s books are the most sensible treatment of
the art of composition that I have yet found in print.” The last three
chapters in Mr. Wendell’s well written work bear the following startling
titles, respectively: _Clearness_, _Force_, and _Elegance_. Harvard
Freshmen know Trigonometry, Physics and “one language beside English,”
and various other things, but it is left for Professor Hill to sell them
a book which explains that “a sentence may end either with a period,
interrogation point or an exclamation mark!” Do you say that the public
school system is to blame for such a condition? My answer is that if
Harvard required her students to know the simple rules of Rhetoric before
being admitted to the University, it would be done.
Mr. Hill fills the Boylston Professorship of Literature and Oratory at
Harvard University, but with all the many thousand students who have
been under his care he has probably never given impulse to a single
orator, nor materially assisted one man with literary ambition. The
reason is that he is teaching things that should have been known to his
pupils years before. There is a time to teach things as well as a way.
Instead of arousing animation Professor Hill reduces it. So sympathy
is made a weakling and imagination rendered wingless. I have examined
many compositions written by Harvard students, and they average up about
like the epistles of little girls who write letters to Santa Claus. The
students are all right—fine intelligent young fellows—but the conditions
under which they work are such that they are robbed of all spontaneity
when they attempt to express themselves. Of course I know that a few
Harvard men have succeeded in Oratory and Literature, for there are
those so strong that even Cambridge cannot kill their personality, nor a
Professor reduce to neutral salts their native vim.
The rules of Rhetoric should be taught to adolescence; then when the boy
goes to college he has tools with which to work. “When did you learn
your letters?” I asked a six-year-old youngster yesterday. “I allus
know’d ’em,” was the reply. And the answer was wise, for the kindergarten
methods teach the child to read, and he never knows when or how he
acquired the knowledge. As a healthy man does not know he has a stomach,
so he should write without knowing a single so-called rule. And as the
Froebel methods are fast making their way in all departments of learning,
I expect this will soon be so. But the colleges lag behind, and Harvard
(very busy fighting “Co-Ed—”) still tries to make statues by clapping the
material on the outside.
Professor Hill knows the futility of his methods, for in his last work he
puts in several disclaimers to the effect that he “does not undertake to
supply men with ideas.” That confession of weakness is pitiful. Professor
Hill should surround his students with an atmosphere that makes thought
possible. By liberating the imagination of his pupils ideas would come to
them. But as fire will not burn without oxygen, so thought cannot exist
in the presence of Mr. Barrett Wendell. Both he and his Superior are
strong in way of supplying cold storage—that’s all.
In lecturing on Literature and Oratory these men sit at a desk. And
often, becoming weary, they sprawl over the table like a devil-fish
seeking its prey. This, I believe, is the usual Cambridge method. But
there is one exception to this rule at Harvard, and that is Professor
Kittredge, who being nervous and cannot sit still, paces the platform
and shoots the lecture over his shoulder. When a student is called on
to recite, Professor Kittredge often opens a box of withering sarcasm
that acts like chlorine gas on the poor fellow who is trying to recite.
But it makes the rest of the class grin like deaths-heads. Harvard knows
no general plan for cultivating the imagination, inciting animation, or
furthering ambition. All is suppression, fear; and this repression often
finds vent in rowdyism outside of Harvard Yard. The seven youths who
under Professor Hill mark the themes hunt only for errors and lapses. The
tendency of this negation is intellectual torpor and spiritual death.
If any one should ask Mr. Barrett Wendell what he thought of the
Herbartian idea of developing the God within, the Assistant Professor
would first calmly light a cigarette, and after blowing the smoke through
his nose, would fix on his presumptious interlocutor an Antarctic stare
that would freeze him stiff.
II.
And let me say right here that toward Harvard’s teachers I bear no
malice. In showing Professor Hill’s books to be puerile and profitless,
and in depositing the Heir-Apparent in the ragbag of oblivion, I have
no sinister motive. And if from this time forward their names are a
byword and a hissing, it is only because the Institution which they serve
has stood in the way of Eternal Truth. These professors of rhetoric
prospecting on the mountain side, thinking they had found the Final Word,
builded tabernacles and rested—all forgetful of the avalanche.
“Clearness” is never found in literature of the first class. Clearness,
according to the Professor, means a simplicity that makes the meaning
plain to all others. But this is only pabulum for the sophomore
intellect; and outside of Bryant & Stratton’s it has no legitimate place.
The great writer is only clear to himself or those as great as he.
The masterpieces of Art are all cloud-capped. Few men indeed ever reach
the summit: we watch them as they ascend and we lose them in the mists as
they climb: sometimes they never come back to us, and even if they do,
having been on the Mount of Transfiguration, they are no longer ours.
In all great literature there is this large, airy impersonal
independence. The Mountain does not go to you: you may famish out
there on the arid plain and your bones whiten amid the alkali in the
glistening sun, but the majestic Mountain looks on imperturbable. The
valleys are there, with the rich verdure, and the running brooks where
the trout frolic, and the cool springs where wild game gathers, but what
cares the Mountain for you! Ecclesiastes offers no premiums to readers,
Shakespeare makes no appeal to club raisers, Emerson puts forth no hot
endeavor for a million subscribers: all these can do without you.
Rich lodes run through this Mountain, and we continually delve and toil
for treasure. And in spite of the pain and isolation and the privation
that is incident, and the dangerous crevices that lie in wait, we secure
a reward for our labor. Still we do not find the fabled “pockets” that we
seek—it is always something else. From Columbus searching for a Northwest
Passage to the rustic swain who follows with such fidelity the wake of a
petticoat, all are the sport of Fate. We achieve, but die in ignorance
of the extent to which we have benefitted the Race. And like the man who
rode the hobby all his life, and whose friends discovered after he was
dead that it was a real horse and had carried the man many long miles, so
are we carried on steeds that are guided by an Unseen Hand.
All sublime Art is symbolistic. What is the message the great violinist
brings you? Ah, you cannot impart it! Each must hear it for himself.
The note that is “clear” to all is not Art. When Charles Lamb pointed
to the row of ledgers in the office of the East India Company and said,
“These are my works,” he was only joking; for he afterward explained that
ledgers, indices, catalogues, directories, almanacs, reports, and briefs
are not literature at all. These things inspire no poems; they give no
glow.
The province of Art is not to present a specific message, but to impart a
feeling. If we go home from the Lyceum hushed, treading on air, we have
heard Oratory, even though we cannot recall a single sentence; and if
we read a poem that brings the unbidden tears and makes the room seem a
sacred chancel, we have read Literature. The Master has imparted to our
spirits a tithe of his own sublimity of soul.
For the good old ladies who prick the Bible for a message I have a
profound sympathy: the Sacred Page fits man’s every mood, and this is
why it is immortal. That which is clear is ephemeral. Symbolism requires
interpreters, and lo! colleges spring up with no other intent than to
train men to explain a Book; for the Saviours of the world all speak
in parables. They see the significance of Things and voice a various
language. The interpreter makes the symbolist immortal, and the symbolist
makes the fame of the interpreter. If Turner had been “clear,” Ruskin
might still be Assistant Professor. All Holy Writ from Moses to Whitman
is mystical. The writer has breathed into its nostrils the breath of
life, that impalpable, elusive Something which we forever seek and which
forever escapes us.
Of course, I would not have a writer endeavor to be mystical—this would
be positively base; but I would have each man who feels that he has
something to say express himself in his own way, without let, hindrance,
or injunction from writers on rhetoric, who having never produced
anything to speak of themselves, yet are willing for jingling coin to
show others how.
III.
“What do you do when you are preaching and can’t think of anything to
say?” asked a Fledgeling of his pastor.
“I just holler,” was the answer of the experienced Exhorter.
With half a million preachers in the United States, with families to keep
on an average salary of five hundred dollars, I do not blame them for
“hollerin’;” neither do I censure editors who have to fill three columns
each day if they often “holler;” as an economist I might advise a man to
“holler,” but as a lover of literature I cannot conscientiously do so.
I have a clerical friend who, being much before the public, is often
called upon unexpectedly to reduce moral calculi. Being a man of force,
and not a man of power, he never says, “I do not know,” but always boldly
faces the problem after this manner: “My friends, this subject naturally
divides itself under three heads: firstly,”... Here he states some
general commonplace for the first head, and casts about in his mind for
the other two; having secured them, he launches forth with much emphasis
on some other theme and carries all before him. His swashing and marshal
manner makes him everywhere a great success; he is considered one of the
most powerful men in his denomination.
And I am fully convinced that a painstaking show of system is one of
the first essentials in making a favorable impression. We are like the
Hebrew salesman who called on a firm who occupied a sixth floor and
who, on starting to show his samples, was promptly kicked down stairs;
having arrived at the first landing a second man took him in hand and
kicked him one flight further; this was continued until his battered form
reached the sidewalk, when he picked himself up and admiringly exclaimed,
“Mein Gott! vot a system!” So when a rhetorician flashes his “heads” and
“divisions” and syllogisms and analyses and figures (that do not lie)
upon us, we are so lost in bedazzled admiration that we can only lift up
our hands and say, “My God! what a system!”
Good work never comes from the effort to be “clear” or “forceful” or
“elegant.” Clear to whom, forsooth? and as for force, it has no more
place in letters than has speed.
Power in Art there surely is, but power is quite a different thing
from force. Power is that quality by which change is wrought; it means
potentiality, potency. The artist uses only a fraction of his power, and
works his changes by the powder that he never explodes; while force means
movement, action, exertion, violence, compulsion.
Literature is largely the result of feeling. The “hustler” is a man of
force; very, very seldom is he a man of power; still rarer is it that he
is a man of feeling. The very idea of force precludes tender sensibility
and delicate emotion. If I should write on a scrap of paper, “Hate is
death, but love is life,” and drop the slip into the street, there might
be power in the words, but surely there is no force.
And as for elegance, let him who attempts it leave all hope behind; he is
already damned. The elegance of an act must spring unconsciously from the
gracious soul within. There is no formula.
In letters, “clearness” should be left to the maker of directories,
“force” to the auctioneer, and “elegance” to the young man who presides
at the button counter. Were I an instructor in a Commercial College, I
might advise that in business correspondence there should be clearness
and force and elegance; but if I were a Professor of Literature and
Oratory, I would not smother inspiration in a formula. I would say,
Cultivate the heart and intellect, and allow nature to do the rest. For
while it is still a mooted question whether a man’s offspring after the
flesh are heirs to his mental and spiritual qualities, it is very sure
that the children of his brain are partakers in whatsoever virtue that
his soul possesses.
The teacher who teaches best is not he who insists on our memorizing
rules, but he who produces in the pupil a pleasurable animation. We
learn only in times of joy and in times of grief. The teacher who can
give his pupils pleasure in their work shall be crowned with laurel, but
grief—grief is the unwelcome gift of the gods alone!
Let the writer have a clear conception and then express it so it is at
the moment clear to his Other-Self—that Self that looks on over the
shoulder of every man, endorsing or censuring his every act and thought
and deed. The highest reward of good work consists in the approbation of
this Other-Self, and in that alone; even though the world flouts it all,
you have not failed. “I know what pleasure is,” said Stevenson, “for I
have done good work.”
ELBERT HUBBARD.
A SONNET OF HOPE.
I said unto my heart: take courage, friend!
No hurt can hurt thee save thyself alone:
Thy only brother’s breast may change to stone,
Thy soul’s companion turn, thy core to rend;
Earth’s utmost space no cheering word may send,
But only Darkness make a bitter moan
Till naught, save Death, may seem to be thine own,
Naught left for thee to love—naught to defend.
Yet, O my heart! fear not thy challenger
Nor quail to meet the blackest packs of Night,
Whether on flowery mead or rocky hill:
Rouse thou my blood and bid my pulses stir
To match the Lilliputians’ sapless might
With the steel armor of the unconquered Will!
JOHN JEROME ROONEY.
SHAKSPEARE’S BORROWINGS.
An English student of Italian literature has been at great pains to
investigate Mr. William Shakspeare’s indebtedness for his plots and
backgrounds to the Italian novelists. He publishes the result of his
studies in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and it is an article all students
of literature will want to read. It reveals the fine audacity of Mr.
Shakspeare, and shows how the world of readers gains when great genius
takes its own where it finds it.
These Italian novelists were fine workmen, and ingenious story tellers,
but Shakspeare clothed their creations in the flesh and blood of
perennial humanity. They made the puppets of passion, true to the
fashions and humors of their day, and invaluable as such; Shakspeare took
them and gave them that philosophy and humanity that rings true through
all the changes of custom, and knowledge and philosophy.
These writers had the faculty of invention, of incident and situation,
and dramatic movement and climax. Shakspeare may have really lacked these
ingenious faculties of mind, but yet he had the dramatic perception of
life—the whole of life, quick and stirring, all emotion and thought and
passion. In his day the play was the thing in England, and he needed a
strong current of human action to show the soul of life on the stage as
he saw it in the commonplaces of everyday existence. So he borrowed from
the Italians, who supplied him with the very plots he needed to develop
his own philosophy of life, in a fashion that gave thought its real place
in life, as a concrete force on a level with action.
If the novel had been established in England earlier, if the English
writers had borrowed the form of the novel from the Italians bodily,
instead of their plots, Shakspeare might have been our psychological
novelist; for it seems that his dramatic power was of the deeper sort
that seizes the heart and soul of life, rather than that which devises
effective scenes and climaxes. That is, if this English writer is to be
trusted, and he seems to write with authority. He says _Cymbeline_ and
_All’s Well That Ends Well_ were taken from Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, _The
Merchant of Venice_ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ from Florentino’s
_Pecarone_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _Much Ado about Nothing_, _Two Gentlemen
of Verona_ and _Twelfth Night_ from Bandello, and _Measure for Measure_
and _Othello_ from Giraldi’s _Ecatommiti_.
If any contemporary writer put himself in such indebtedness the critics
would probably howl. And yet the richest imaginations, the most fantastic
fancy, the keenest wit and widest comprehension of human nature and life
is often given to a writer who is destitute of the mere dramatic knack
of improvising a story to carry on the frame of life as he knows and sees
it.
Half our so-called creative and imaginative writers of today are merely
ingenious plot and puppet makers, with no real gift of creation or
imagination at all. The exceptions in English are Meredith, Hardy,
Zangwill, Gissing and a baker’s dozen or so others. The man of real
imaginative gifts, and the philosophic insight that invariably
accompanies them, is seldom recognized in his true office and capacity;
for he so often lacks the melodramatic and theatrical ingenuity, that
perverts the course of human destiny for mere effectiveness. Since the
deeper things of existence are usually excluded from fiction it is ten
to one he is writing criticism or essays, and is thought to be prosy and
dull by the majority of readers, to whom imaginative writing means simply
the romance of abducted duchesses and bloody encounters by moonlight. But
creation, as Emerson pointed out long ago, is _insight_.
A gory era is at this hour upon us. Let us hope that the true imaginative
literature of insight, philosophy, poetry and analysis of character
will yet emerge, when Ibsen and Maeterlinck and Sudermann and the rest
are relieved by process of time of the stigma attached to all original
observers, thinkers and innovators.
Shakespeare, if he were alive today, would be in the forefront of this
new movement for freedom in literature, and he would steal right and left
from Science!
WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE.
AN HOUR WITH CÆSAR AUGUSTUS.
Ah! I am late this morning. I can feel in the air the vibration of the
third hour. Attius! Attius! I suppose he thinks that having lain so long,
I may as well wait till tomorrow. Ah! Attius, have you, too, overslept
yourself? No more dinners with Maecenas: we are getting too old for them.
It is the third hour; I will rise. But first request Livia Augusta to
favor me with her presence. Dear old Attius! that little trick of telling
him the hour never fails. Now for my daily bargain with the august.
Madam, good morning; leave us, Attius. And how is the irreproachable?
Judging from her roses, better than her lacy deputy. I spare you the
econium of Maecenas’ wine. I saw last night a girl named Candidia; do
you know who she is? Oh, the old senator’s daughter? Not much like him;
I should have said our late friend, Mark Antony, was a friend of the
family. You know that? I thought she had a trick of him, and I don’t
often make that sort of mistake. She’s a very fine young woman, the
white Cantonia. I suppose you know all about her; is she desirous
of influence at Court? H’m! Thanks; I trust you to awake her to the
legitimate ambition of a Roman beauty. I wish, Incomparable, you’d find a
Maecenas to renasce Roman women. When Candidia stands up you can see she
is standing on her legs, and, except a certain perennial of mine, I can’t
say as much for any woman else in Rome. Will you see about it? Thanks,
kindest of Junos.
Now, another matter. You must see by now, Livia, that it’s impossible for
me to let Tiberius go on any longer as he’s doing. You must let me send
him away. Yes, yes; I know all you’ve done for me, but it doesn’t justify
your son in studied insolence. After all I’m supposed to be Proconsul and
Pontiff and Augustus, and all that, and I can’t let him do it. Claudian
pride? Well, I can only say that there’s no vacancy for Claudian pride in
Rome just at present. Eh? What has Candidia to do with Tiberius? Oh, I
see; you want to bargain. Very well, Candidia for Tiberius—only on these
conditions. First, you must talk to him seriously about his demeanor—not
as coming from me, you understand. Secondly, I put him on the list for
foreign service. Oh, yes, you can make your mind easy. He shall have
a big war, and a triumph, and all the fandangles. Also, I’ll throw in
Agrippa; he shall go abroad and have no triumph, and I’ll try to keep
Julia quiet. I’m a generous Jove—eh, Junicula? Give me a kiss, old wench.
We’ve had some battering times together, eh? And if I’m not mistaken
you’ve still something to hold your back straight on, eh? Eh? Eh? Adieu,
my Empress. Send in Cleobulus, will you? And don’t forget Candidia—H’m.
My excellent spouse was pleased with my little attentions. Also she was
pleased with the idea of her Tiberius in high command; she doesn’t yet
understand the value of interior lines in politics, my Augusta. I suppose
she foresees her Tiberius crossing the Rubicon while we all sit tremulous
in East Aurora—ha, ha! And yet she’s seen the Praetorians at drill every
day these many years. Naturalists have greatly neglected women.
Now, Cleobulus, my wig and my eye-brightening stuff. I always assume you
don’t give away these secrets of the toilet, Cleobulus. If you do, the
next wig will be the scalp of one Cleobulus, mysteriously disappeared.
Now the gown. Not that, you nincompoop of genius. How often must I tell
you I’m only plain Proconsul? That will do: now announce me at the levee.
I wonder who’s here today. I’m glad the Roman Senators haven’t the
political insight of that hair-dresser.
Attius, precede me into the ante-chamber, while I have a look at the
company. Gods, what an air the rogue has with him, and how very right
he is, considering the way they grovel to him. A poor set of curs, I’m
afraid, these nobles at Rome; yet I’m afraid I like them.
Good day, gentlemen, I fear I have ill repaid this courteous attention by
keeping you so long awaiting. Ah, Isauricus, my dear old friend, this is
too kind. Too kind; it is I that should be calling on you; you must not
expose yourself to this morning air; all Rome is waiting for your speech
on this new Land Bill or Agrippa’s. By the way, Egnatius, I do not think
you have yet taken the public into confidence as to your attitude? You
reserve it? Ha! I am not sure you are right, if I may say so. One loses
a great part of one’s due influence, I always think, unless one gives an
opinion time to percolate, as one might say. I have told Agrippa frankly
all along that I shall oppose him on the municipal clauses. What says
Piso? Opposed to the whole scheme; you will speak, of course?
Aha, good day, Iulus. What says Iulus on the question of the hour? An
excellent measure all around! So—well, it should be an interesting
debate, and personally I am still open to be convinced. And here is the
author of all the trouble, himself. How do you do, Agrippa? Eh? A word in
private; by all means, old man. Want to go away? No, no, dear fellow, we
want you here. Pannonia and Germany? Nonsense, you’re losing your nerve.
Why, we settled the Pannonians years ago. Well, we’ll think it over.
Good morning, Maecenas; survived your own wine, I see! Amusing fellow,
that little Horace of yours. Underbred? No, I didn’t notice it. I tell
you what, though, if I were that man I wouldn’t stand the way you treat
him for five minutes, good as your dinners are. However, that’s his
affair. Been here long? I’m beginning to agree with you about Iulus. See
me before dinner.
Well, gentlemen, I thank you once more for the high honor you have paid
me. I am afraid you spoil me with your indulgence, for I am now about to
ask to be excused. You have put me in an important public position, and I
am anxious not to disappoint you. Adieu, my friends.
H’m. To-day’s hypocrisy over. Not that it is, though, for I have to play
the hypocrite one way and another every minute of my life. I’m beginning
to think it’s a mistake to be a tyrant. It’s exciting enough when you
have to fight for it; but when you’ve got it, decidedly a bore. And
unluckily the posing isn’t the worst of it; the worst of it is that you
have to suppress so many good fellows. Now I know Egnatius is guilty of
the impiety of not seeing why he should do what I please any more than I
should do what he pleases. I must get rid of him; I can’t help myself.
Such a witty, astute fellow, too, and what a boxer! Iulus I must get rid
of, too. I fancy Maecenas has got his own reasons for wanting Iulus out
of the way; still he is his father’s son, and never quite safe. A man
I’ve known since they first put me into the long gown. No, I sha’n’t get
rid of Iulus; he can go to Gyarus if Maecenas likes. No, dam it, why
Gyarus? He won’t do any harm at Rhodes, and at least he can get a dinner
there. Poor old Iulus! And poor old Agrippa! I suppose he wants to go
away because, he can’t stand Julia any more. I should never mind that
sort of scandal myself, but some do. Perhaps I was to blame in giving him
Julia at all, knowing her character. But she had to marry somebody and
that somebody could be none else than Agrippa. Such is statesmanship!
Now the poor old boy wants to go back to his soldiers. But I can’t do
it. Once he gets to Pannonia, he’d forget his obedience—and he is most
astonishingly obedient—and go for the chiefs. His loyalty’s splendid, but
I can’t trust even it, when the old war-horse sees the enemy in front
of him. And the worst of it is that the chiefs ought to be smashed this
summer, and no man in the world could do it as well as Agrippa. It would
be all over in a month. But Pannonia’s got to be nursed, for Pannonia’s
to be a big thing, and Tiberius is to get his triumph for it, sulky dog.
Yet he’s got the stuff in him, too. I suppose I’d better make up some
reason to send Agrippa to Gaul again: Livia can’t object to him there.
After all, the real devil of it isn’t being a tyrant, but being a married
tyrant. There isn’t an easier or pleasanter thing in the whole world than
to go on as I’m doing now, and keep my place to the end, and my friends
into the bargain. It’s this cursed dynasty business, and that cursed
woman—though she’s behaved a deuced deal better to me than I deserved.
But why in the name of all the gods at once must I turn out my oldest
friend to die miserable in Gaul? Why, to make the way easy for a moody
young prig that I dislike—and who hates me. What do I get for it all?
Candidia! That’s what it comes to, when you work it out. I’m monarch of
the world, and the gain of it is that I have unequaled chances of making
a ridiculous goddam goat of myself. I wish to Heaven I’d had my uncle’s
pluck: then I should have been cut to pieces ten years ago. Still after
all, Agrippa’s going to Gaul would be away out of the Land Bill business,
and I begin to think I went too far in the matter. Yes: he had better go.
G. W. STEVENS.
LIFE’S VOYAGE: A MOOD.
Dark and tumultuous seas
Have quenched the lurid sun.
Vapors, flame riven, writhingly ascend,
And night comes winging on
’Cross sullen waves,
While Death upon the bowsprit waiting sits.
Bereft of hope,
Life’s running sands low spent,
No rudder steers—nor beacon’s flame
Tells us the course to sail.
Alone, alone, breathed on by awful fears,
Groping amidst life’s way for light, we drift.
WILLIAM B. FAVILLE.
OUR SYNDICATE LETTER.
I have been greatly amused quite recently by two little items that were
printed in one of those short-lived magazinelets. One article was by
Neith Boyce and the other by Emma Eggleson, both of which ladies are
subscribers to _The Homely Ladies Journal_. If I am not mistaken one of
these ladies raised a club for the _Journal_ (not at it), and when Mr.
Curtis and me offered to send her abroad to be educated, the amusing fact
was discovered that she already had a lovely education.
But the articles that amused me so much were about the penchant of
editors to monkey with manuscript. Both articles were on the same theme,
but the article by Neith Boyce was the longest. As Mr. Howells has not
improperly spoken of one of Neith Boyce’s short stories as a crackerjack,
and as this master of letters has also referred to a poem by Emma
Eggleson as hotstuff, I feel that I am justified in saying that both of
these ladies are arriving successward in the merry and dizzy field of
literature very rapidly.
I have sometimes thought in my thoughtful way that the reason an editor
is called by that appellation is because he loves to edit. A young
literary aspirant told me of a case in point the other day. He wrote a
lovely triolet which was accepted on its seventeenth trip by a paper
which shall be nameless. When he sent it out it ran thus:
TRIOLET.
A nosegay of roses white
Stands on my loved one’s table.
Would I were they tonight,
A nosegay of roses white,
Placed on her brow so bright,
To deck her tresses sable.
A nosegay of roses white,
Stands on my loved one’s table.
This is how it was printed:
A nosegay of roses white
Is quite a pretty sight,
Upon my loved one’s table.
(Far better than in a stable.)
It would be pleasant quite
To be those roses white
And deck her tresses sable—
That is if I were able.
You see much of the poetic effluvia was lost when it had been edited.
A very witty novelist, author of a novel, by the way, said an awfully
bright thing to me the other day. He was speaking of the way that certain
houses had of sending you a postal saying your manuscript would receive
attention. “That,” said he, “keys you up to concert pitch. But there
isn’t any concert generally. Your manuscript is refunded: that’s all.” I
had to laugh, it was so witty.
A well known poet told me the other day that an editor should be a judge
of good poetry. Said he, “when an editor cuts two or three lines out of
your sonnet to a wild flower or a wild animal, or anything whatever, and
retains the distinguishing label, it is like passing off XX milk for the
XXX article and the real connoisseur is justly indignant. An honest and
self respecting poet wishes to give full measure in his sonnets and it is
an injury to his moral character that the editor works when he palms off
ten or a dozen for the usual fourteen or fifteen lines of a sonnet.”
Poets are not practical. Why didn’t he write that out himself and sell it
for a dollar a line instead of giving me the chance?
I’m an editor myself in a small way.
I ask celebrated authors, actors, preachers, presidents, doctors,
lawyers, generals, naval officers and the like to send in any old
thing they happen to have on the hook and then I have it beautifully
illustrated and print it just as it is; no matter how bad it is, I never
change a line. It’s a matter of principal—not to say of interest. For
above all things I wish to be honest and successful.
EDWARD W. TOK.
“IF LOVE WERE ALL.”
(THE PRISONER OF ZENDA.)
If Love were all! Sore smitten at the start,
“Alas, is Love not all in all?” we cry,
And lost in wretched egoism try
Only to heal the individual smart.
Then at Life’s summons from our dreams we start
And seek, lest Life’s great stakes should pass us by,
What labor nearest to our hands may lie,
So half-knowingly, find our nobler part.
Love is not all for us; perchance some few
Love leadeth by the hand to higher ways—
What matter since for us he is not king?—
And some, more blessed yet, their labor through,
Still in the golden glory of their days
Shall garner love at a ripe harvesting.
ELIZABETH C. CARDOZO.
SIDE TALKS WITH THE PHILISTINES: BEING SOUL EASEMENT AND WISDOM
INCIDENTALLY.
Dr. Robertson Nicoll, of London, England, a good Scot, is the present day
discoverer of Scotch genius, and Ian Maclaren is largely the creation of
his splendid audacity of prophecy and executive ability.
Dr. Nicoll is a noticeable and interesting personality in contemporary
literature. He fully deserves his wide celebrity, for he has put into
the chronicling of monotonous literary news and criticism an element of
newsyness and vim that is characteristic of the best American journalism.
He has made mere literary news as exciting and mysterious as politics or
horseracing. We now bet on the sales of new poets as well as on the Derby
favorites. This adds a great deal to the picturesqueness and interest of
“The Literary Show,” and Dr. Nicoll deserves the credit due to a bold
innovator. He marks an epoch in literary journalism, and his “Scotch era”
will be remembered in history. But fashions change and Ian Maclaren, and
some of Dr. Nicoll’s other inventions and discoveries, will pass into
well deserved oblivion, in a very little while.
They are significant simply as striking examples of the creative genius
of criticism. As “famous authors” they are purely factitious. In a word,
they must be considered at par amply as the shadows and phantoms of Dr.
Nicoll’s picturesque power of criticism and great creative gifts.
The literature of the Kailyard is having its day, but happily it will not
last forever. It will eventually go the way of negro dialect fiction,
when its unique adaptability as a conveyance for the perfectly obvious
and the perfectly absurd come to be more generally recognized than is
possible in this hour of perfervid enthusiasm.
All the Scots who want to be in the Scotch Sweepstakes and win, had
better mount their nags in this hour of favor and get away. A few
discerning and canny critics are still alive, and the suspicion is
gaining ground among them from a perusal of Ian Maclaren’s pages, that
the great literary prophet of Paternoster-Row, while a delightful
chroniqueur and a generous soul, is not altogether an infallible judge
of the permanent and essential elements of robust and distinctive
literature.
* * * * *
The one man of the Nineteenth Century who will be remembered when
all others are forgotten, and whose name will go clattering down the
Corridors of Time like a tin kettle to a dog’s tail, is Professor J.
Dorman Steele. This man covers all Science and all Philosophy. He has
compiled text books on seventeen subjects and over three million volumes
of his works have been sold. Darwin, Humboldt, Spencer, Huxley—all fade
into misty nothingness when we think of Steele, and bless my soul! what a
suggestive name that is anyway!!
* * * * *
The _Forum_ for March had an article concerning your Uncle Kruger and
his folks. It was headed “Manners and Customs of the Boers.” But the
compositor got it “Manners and Customs of the Boors,” just as if every
one did not know only too well what they were already. I understand that
nearly half of the edition was run before the mistake was discovered.
* * * * *
“If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d rent Texas and live in Hell,” once
said Phil Sheridan. But now comes _The Fad_, one of the _Chip-Munk_
brood, printed on green paper at San Antonio, and claims that Texas has
more real, sure-enough Culture than all of New England. This is only
truism—Rodents!
* * * * *
Speaking of a certain very New Woman, Quilp says, “God made her, let her
pass for a man.”
* * * * *
On sighting the Crookes tube in the direction of East Aurora we find
there are some very choice things to appear in THE PHILISTINE within the
next few months.—_Exchange._
* * * * *
So far no charge has been made that the Philistines were mixing up in
the theatrical business; but on every hand the air is full of complaints
because the stage has fallen into the hands of the Children of Israel.
Even Mr. Howells has turned _Harper’s Weekly_ into a Periodical of
Protest, and declares that the greed for dollars has dropped histrionics
to a point where the drama is not only artistically decadent but
positively demoralizing.
But a friend of mine takes issue with Silas Lapham and declares that
there is a sure reaction just now in favor of plays with a strong ethical
purpose. To prove his point he cites a certain curtain raiser called _The
Flea Hunt_.
The scene opens, in this choice little fantasy, on the _ennui_ of a
pretty young woman, whose husband, a sea captain, is far across the
water. The afternoons pass slowly for her; she cannot read and tosses
on her boudoir lounge distressfully. To add to her uneasiness a young
man across the way has had the impudence to send her flowers and a
note, with a rendezvous for 3 o’clock. Indignation. Pride of conscious
strength. Admiration. Curiosity. Hesitation. Remorse. Prayers to her
husband’s portrait. Sighs. Wriggles. Pillowtossing. Thoughtfulness.
The clock strikes 2. _Zut!_ She starts up guiltily, tiptoes across the
room, and turns her husband’s picture to the wall. Now she is in a
tempest of preparation with her street toilette. The time is growing
short. She has her gloves, her hat, her cloak, her muff, her veil, her
parasol, and stands at the open door to give a last apologetic look.
Ouch! What is that! Can it be! Ouch! again. Certainly a flea is biting
her neck—she reaches for it! Then the trouble begins. In the search for
the nimble flea nearly everything the lady has on is cast aside. At last
she finds it. But by this time she has revealed a very roly-poly tenement
of clay with a center of gravity like a sofa pillow. Lingerie is strewn
over chairs, tables, sofa and floor. She is clad only in very scanty, but
dainty dimity. The clock is striking 3. Too late! she looks at the flea,
first revengefully, then thoughtfully, then gratefully. Hesitatingly she
slips across the room and turns her husband’s portrait to the light.
Saved—providentially saved, saved by a flea! Curtain.
* * * * *
In 1859 there lived three miles north-east of Skowhegan an Old Farmer,
and he subscribed for the New York _Tribune_. The reason he subscribed
was because the Editor, one Horace Greely, wrote Hot Stuff. Now the
Old Farmer was a great admirer of Mr. Greely and of the Hot Stuff and
he induced several of his neighbors to subscribe for the _Tribune_ on
account of the Hot Stuff and the greatness of Mr. Greely. Now it chanced
that Mr. Greely wrote on many themes and on a certain day he produced
Hot Stuff on a certain subject about which no man should write unless he
has had a Call. When the Old Farmer read that particular editorial he
was very wroth and he wrote a very angry personal letter to Mr. Greely,
cancelling his subscription; and he also induced his neighbors to cancel
theirs.
About a year after this the Old Farmer went to Skowhegan with a load of
slipperyellum, and walking into a grocery he found the Grocer reading the
New York _Tribune_. The Old Farmer started, stared, and exclaimed, “What
er—eh—what er that paper you be readin’?”
“The New York _Tribune_,” was the answer.
“My! Judas Priest—that can’t be—me and three other fellows ordered it
stopped a year ago!”
* * * * *
I hear that an article by Mr. Cudahy is soon to appear in _The Ladies
Home Journal_. The subject is not yet announced but it probably will be
“The Pigs that Have Helped Me.”
* * * * *
Latest advices from the Librarian of Congress confirm the report that Mr.
Brander Matthews’ whiskers are fully covered by copyright.
* * * * *
Who says that woman has more feeling than man? Her feelings are more
shallow, and this being so more ripple on the surface is seen, that’s
all. So says Nax Moredough.
* * * * *
No doubt but that Mr. Howells is a great man, but he would be a greater
if he never used in print those tattered and attenuated expressions, “so
to speak” and “as it were.” These ancient terms belong with the hoary
oratorical, “If I may be allowed the expression.” Further than this, I
have gibes and jeers in store for any man who says “from time immemorial.”
* * * * *
In the _Forum_ for April Mr. Brander Matthews has a preachment entitled,
_On Pleasing the Taste of the Public_. No man has made more anxious
efforts to do it than Mr. Matthews.
* * * * *
I certainly have nothing against Mr. MacArthur nor against Mr. Dodd,
who hires him. They are both nice men, and as an advertising sheet the
_Bookman_ is certainly skilfully conducted. But they shall not mislead
the dear public if I can help it. On page 36 of the March issue the
_Bookman_ makes bold to tell us that Robert Browning and Elizabeth
Barrett were married “in September of 1866.” And then in the next column
“on March 9th, 1869, was born their son.” If James Russell Lowell were
alive today I can imagine him saying, “I may be a bookman, but by the
eternal I’m not the kind issued by Dodd, Mead & Company.”
* * * * *
Philosopher and prophet, Edward S. Martin, avers that when the
_Chip-Munk_ doubled its size it reduced its value one-half.
* * * * *
Way & Williams, Chicago, the publishers of Mrs. Wynne’s book, _The Little
Room and Other Stories_, say that THE PHILISTINE’S mention of the volume
sold seven thousand copies. Advertising rates made known on application.
* * * * *
“Should we have an Eleventh Commandment?” asked a youth of the Greatest
Living Actress. “Most assuredly, no—we have ten too many now!” answered
the divine Sara.
* * * * *
The fact that we have no “serving class” in America, and that some of
us (or you) have wealth and insist on being waited upon, is a stream of
tendency that makes for misery. The wives of very many of our rich men
make a business of keeping up an establishment. They are not producers
in any sense, and their one excuse for living is put out of court when we
consider that “society” to them means neither affinity nor friendship.
Their woes are in exact proportion to the number of servants that play
tennis with their peace of mind. Or, more strictly speaking, the size
of the house, showing the bigness of their cares, their happiness is in
inverse ratio to the square of the domicile.
* * * * *
Writers who can gain an audience in a foreign and distant country reap
some of the advantages of the cool and impartial interest of posterity.
The English authors enjoy this advantage, and something more with the
contemporary American reading public; but the English critics and public
do not reciprocate our hospitality and impartiality in any degree, though
there is a reported demand in England for American text books on electric
lighting and improved methods of agriculture.
However, the future of the English speaking race is with us on this
continent, and in Australia and in Africa, and so certain characteristics
of the English mind and English literature will be remolded and touched
and broadened by other racial influences. They have already been so
modified and changed here since Emerson’s day. So, eventually, instead
of Americans looking obsequiously over to Paternoster Row and Fleet
street in all intellectual concerns, England will shrink into a small
and insignificant provincial community, cut off from the rest of the race
and its great centres of thought. Modern civilization will upset all the
traditions of the old intellectual centres by making new ones. Thus our
posterity will have a revenge on British condescension we can only enjoy
in anticipatory imaginings. I wish I could live as long as Methusaleh
to be alive then. England and English’ literature will perhaps finally
hold the importance of the Provencal literature in France—it will be an
archaic survival in the midst of the great throbbing heart of a great
modern people. Our descendants will roar over our adulation of English
female theological novelists.
* * * * *
The _Chip-Munk_ “Notes” are all long past due; and most depressing to
contemplate. It was after trying to make sense of them that Ella Wheeler
Wilcox wrote:
I am tired, and that old sorrow
Sweeps down the bed of my soul,
As a turbulent river might suddenly break
Away from a dam’s control.
It beareth a wreck on its bosom,
A wreck with a snow-white sail,
And the hand on my heartstrings thrums away,
But they only respond with a wail.
* * * * *
Here is a true story that I have pinched for the benefit of the Hivites,
the Moabites, the Hittites and the Parasites: A nice young man in
Scranton called on a nice young lady and spent the evening. When he
arrived there was not a cloud in the sky, so he carried no umbrella and
wore neither goloshes nor mackintosh. At ten o’clock when he arose to go,
it was raining cats and dogs; the gutters o’erflowed and if it had been
in Johnstown, it could properly have been called a Johnstown flood.
“My, my, my!” said the nice young lady, “if you go out in all this storm
you will catch your death a’ cold!”
“I’m afraid I might!” was the trembling answer.
“Well, I’ll tell you what—stay all night; you can have Tom’s room, since
he’s at college. Yes, occupy Tom’s room—excuse me a minute and I’ll just
run up and see if it’s in order.”
The young lady flew gracefully up the stairs to see that Tom’s room was
in order. In five minutes she came down to announce that Tom’s room
was in order, but no Charles was in sight. Like old Clangingharp, he
had passed out—no one knew where or how. But in a very few moments he
appeared, very dripping and out of breath from running, a bundle in a
newspaper under his arm.
“Why, Charles, where have you been?” was his greeting.
“Been home after my night shirt,” was the reply.
One dollar will secure this magazine for one year and twelve Little
Journey booklets, which will be sent in a complete package, charges
prepaid. Each of the Little Journey books treats of recent visits
made by Mr. Elbert Hubbard to the homes and haunts of various eminent
persons. They are delightfully unconventional sketches of places forever
associated with the lives and works of some of the greatest names in
English art and literature. The subjects are:
1. George Eliot.
2. Thomas Carlyle.
3. John Ruskin.
4. W. E. Gladstone.
5. J. M. W. Turner.
6. Jonathan Swift.
7. Victor Hugo.
8. Wm. Wordsworth.
9. W. M. Thackeray.
10. Charles Dickens.
11. Oliver Goldsmith.
12. Shakspeare.
This complete set of twelve dainty booklets and THE PHILISTINE for one
year for One Dollar is the most attractive offer that could be made to a
Bookman for the price. The LITTLE JOURNEYS form an introduction to the
master minds of our century which will lead many younger readers to make
wider excursions into the best literature. For the busy man or woman here
is a small library complete in itself. These are the unexacting books
that solace us for the harrassments of active life.
Address THE PHILISTINE,
East Aurora, N. Y.
THE AMERICAN.
The Leading Exponent of Bimetallism and Protection in the United States.
A national weekly journal, Truthful, Fearless and Aggressive in the
discussion of Public Affairs and other events of general interest, in
which those who are literary, as well as those who desire to be fully
informed on current events of Public Importance will find what they want.
WHARTON BARKER, Editor.
_The American_ is fighting the battle of the masses against those who
would fix the gold standard permanently upon the country; holding that
the supreme duty of the American People is to conserve, protect and
fortify the interests of the United States. $2.00 per annum. Sample
copies free.
$3.00 for $2.00.
JUST THINK OF IT! For $2, the regular price of subscription, we will send
_The American_ and any one of these well-known periodicals:
To Date.
Munsey’s.
Cosmopolitan.
The Black Cat.
McClure’s.
Peterson’s.
Book Buyer.
Godey’s.
Romance.
American Sentinel.
Farm Journal.
American Agriculturist.
Rural New Yorker.
Art in Advertising.
Ladies’ Home Journal.
Sunday School Times.
American Gardening.
National Temperance Advocate.
American Woman’s Magazine.
The name of the subscriber must be one not now on our list. Mention this
advertisement.
THE AMERICAN,
No. 119 SOUTH FOURTH St., PHILADELPHIA.
Little Journeys
SERIES FOR 1896
Little Journeys to the Homes of American Authors.
The papers below specified were, with the exception of that contributed
by the editor, Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late G. P. Putnam,
in 1853, in a book entitled _Homes of American Authors_. It is now
nearly half a century since this series (which won for itself at the
time a very noteworthy prestige) was brought before the public; and the
present publishers feel that no apology is needed in presenting to a new
generation of American readers papers of such distinctive biographical
interest and literary value.
No. 1, Emerson, by Geo. W. Curtis.
” 2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland.
” 3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard.
” 4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs.
” 5, Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant.
” 6, Walt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard.
” 7, Hawthorne, by Geo. Wm. Curtis.
” 8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin.
” 9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman.
” 10, Longfellow, by Geo. Wm. Curtis.
” 11, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard.
” 12, Bancroft, by Geo. W. Greene.
The above papers will form the series of _Little Journeys_ for the year
1896.
They will be issued monthly, beginning January, 1896, in the same general
style as the series of 1895, at 50 cents a year, and single copies will
be sold for 5 cents, postage paid.
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS,
NEW YORK AND LONDON
We make a specialty of Dekel Edge Papers and carry the largest stock and
best variety in the country. Fine Hand-made Papers in great variety.
Exclusive Western Agents for L. L. Brown Paper Company’s Hand-mades.
GEO. H. TAYLOR & CO.,
PAPER DEALERS,
207-209 Monroe Street,
Chicago, Ill.
A MOUNTAIN WOMAN. By ELIA W. PEATTIE. With cover design by Mr. Bruce
Rogers. 16mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.
The author of “A Mountain Woman” is an editorial writer on the Omaha
_World-Herald_, and is widely known in the Middle West as a writer of a
number of tales of Western life that are characterized by much finish and
charm.
THE LAMP OF GOLD. By FLORENCE L. SNOW, President of the Kansas Academy
of Language and Literature. Printed at the De Vinne Press on French
hand-made paper. With title-page and cover designs by Mr. Edmund H.
Garrett. 16mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.
PURCELL ODE AND OTHER POEMS. By ROBERT BRIDGES. 16mo, cloth, gilt top,
$1.25 net.
Two hundred copies printed on Van Gelder hand-made paper for sale in
America.
HAND AND SOUL. By DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. Printed by Mr. William Morris
at the Kelmscott Press.
This book is printed in the “Golden” type, with a specially designed
title-page and border, and in special binding. “Hand and Soul” first
appeared in “The Germ,” the short-lived magazine of the Pre-Raphælite
Brotherhood. A few copies remain for sale at $3.50. Vellum copies all
sold.
_For sale by all booksellers, or mailed postpaid by the publishers, on
receipt of price._
WAY & WILLIAMS,
Monadnock Block. Chicago.
_1. RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM._
_RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY EDWARD FITZGERALD._
This is not a mere reprint of “The Bibelot” edition, but has been edited
with a view to making FitzGerald’s wonderful version indispensable in its
present OLD WORLD shape.
The following are special features that as a whole can only be found in
THE OLD WORLD edition:
I. An entirely new biographical sketch of Edward FitzGerald by
Mr. W. Irving Way of Chicago.
II. Parallel texts of the First and Fourth editions, printed
the one in Italic and the other in Roman type on opposite
pages, the better to distinguish them.
III. Variorum readings giving all textual changes occurring in
the Second, Third and Fourth editions.
IV. The omitted quatrains of the rare Second Edition of 1868.
To the student of literature these cancelled readings are of
the greatest interest and value.
V. A bibliography of all English versions and editions revised
to date.
VI. Finally, three poems upon Omar and FitzGerald, not
generally known, are here given, just as in The Bibelot
Edition, two poems were there reprinted as fitting foreword and
finale.
_925 copies on Van Gelder’s hand-made paper at_ _$1.00 net._
_100 ” ” Japan Vellum (numbered) at_ _2.50 ”_
Address THOMAS B. MOSHER,
Portland, Maine.
A SHELF OF BOOKS.
LITTLE JOURNEYS.
To the Homes of Good Men and Great.
By Elbert Hubbard. Series 1895, handsomely bound. Illustrated with twelve
portraits, etched and in photogravure. 16mo., printed on deckle-edge
paper, gilt top. $1.75.
THE ELIA SERIES.
A Selection of Famous Books, offered as specimens of the best literature
and of artistic typography and bookmaking. Printed on deckle-edge paper,
bound in full ooze calf, with gilt tops, 16mo., (6½ × 4½ inches), each
volume (in box), $2.25.
⁂ There are three different colors of binding—_dark green, garnet and
umber_.
First group: The Essays of Elia, 2 vols. The Discourses of Epictetus.
Sesame and Lilies. Autobiography of Franklin. Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius.
NO ENEMY: BUT HIMSELF.
The Romance of a Tramp. By Elbert Hubbard. Twenty-eight full-page
illustrations. Second edition. Bound in ornamental cloth, $1.50.
EYES LIKE THE SEA.
By Maurus Jokai. (The great Hungarian Novelist.) An Autobiographical
Romance. Translated from the Hungarian by Nisbet Bain. $1.00.
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS,
NEW YORK AND LONDON.
_FOOTLIGHTS_,
that weekly illustrated paper published in Philadelphia (pity, isn’t
it?), is a clean (moderately so) paper, chock full of such uninteresting
topics as interviews with actor and actress (bless ’em); book gossip,
news from Paris and London, (dear, old Lunnon), woman’s chatter, verse
and lots more of idiocy that only spoils white paper. It sells for five
cents a copy, or $2.00 a year.
VERY SPECIAL: Send two dollars and _Footlights_ and THE PHILISTINE will
be sent you for one year. Address
THE PHILISTINE,
East Aurora, N. Y.
THE ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP at this time desires to announce a sister book
to the Song of Songs: which is Solomon’s. It is the Journal of Koheleth:
being a Reprint of the Book of Ecclesiastes with an Essay by Mr. Elbert
Hubbard. The same Romanesque types are used that served so faithfully
and well in the Songs, but the initials, colophon and rubricated borders
are special designs. After seven hundred and twelve copies are printed
the types will be distributed and the title page, colophon and borders
destroyed.
In preparation of the text Mr. Hubbard has had the scholarly assistance
of his friend, Dr. Frederic W. Sanders, of Columbia University. The
worthy pressman has also been helpfully counseled by several Eminent
Bibliophiles.
_Bound in buckram and antique boards. The seven hundred copies that are
printed on Holland hand-made paper are offered at two dollars each, but
the twelve copies on Japan Vellum at five dollars are all sold. Every
book will be numbered and signed by Mr. Hubbard._
The Roycroft Printing Shop,
East Aurora, N. Y.
WHEN THE GHOST WALKS!
A black chiffon gown for my skirt-dance,
For the ball scene a satin brocade,
Velvet page-dress to wear in the “Free-Lance.”
(And a stand-off for having them made.)
KATHERINE HILLIARD BENNETT.
[Illustration]
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