The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I, No. 4, September 1895)

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Title: The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I, No. 4, September 1895)
Author: Various
Language: English
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OF PROTEST (VOL. I, NO. 4, SEPTEMBER 1895) ***

The Philistine
A Periodical of Protest.

_I have peppered two of them: two I’m sure I have
paid, two rogues in buckram._—KING HENRY IV.

[Illustration: No. Four.]

Printed Every Little While
for The Society of The Philistines
and Published by
Them Monthly. Subscription,
One Dollar Yearly
Single Copies, 10 Cents. September, 1895.

The Philistine.

Edited by H. P. Taber.

CONTENTS FOR SEPTEMBER, 1895.

The Birth of the Flower. John Northern Hilliard

A Notable Work. Elbert Hubbard

The Manners Tart. Clara Cahill Park

A Matter of Background. William McIntosh

In Slippery Places. W.

A Lantern Song. Stephen Crane

The Rubaiyat of O’Mara Khayvan. W. M.

Notes.

THE PHILISTINE is published monthly at $1 a year, 10 cents a single
copy. Subscriptions may be left with newsdealers or sent direct to the
publishers.

Business communications should be addressed to THE PHILISTINE, East
Aurora, New York. Matter intended for publication may be sent to the same
address or to Box 6, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

_Entered at the Postoffice at East Aurora, New York, for transmission as
mail matter of the second class._

_COPYRIGHT, 1895, by H. P. Taber._

THE PHILISTINE.

NO. 4. September, 1895. VOL. 1.

THE BIRTH OF THE FLOWER.

In the Beginning, God, the Great Workman,
Fashioned a seed;
Cunningly wrought it from waste-stuff left over
In building the stars;
Then, in the dust and the grime of His Workshop,
He rested and pondered—
Then, with a smile, flung the animate atom
Far into space.

As the seed fell through the blue of the heavens
Down to the world,
Wind, the Great Gardener, seized it in triumph
And bore it away;
Then, at a sign of the Master, who made it,
He planted the seed:—
Thus into life sprang the first of the flowers
On earth.

—JOHN NORTHERN HILLIARD.

A NOTABLE WORK.

In Mr. Cudahy’s remarkable book entitled _The Pawns of Chance_ there are
Sixteen Women who Did. Its sure success is prophesied on this account,
for of the five novels that have made ten-strikes during the past year
each has contained at least One Woman who Did, and in two instances
Several.

And right here, before referring further to Mr. Cudahy’s book, I wish to
place on file a modest word of protest concerning the modern sex novel.

Just now the stage and story-book seem to vie with one another in putting
on parade the Men and Women who Did for the delectation of those who Have
or May. The motif in all these books and plays is to depict the torturing
emotions that wring and tear the hearts of these unhappy mortals. The
Camp of Philistia does not boast that there are in it no People who Did,
neither do we deny the reality of the heartaches and tears that come from
unrequited love and affection placed not wisely. But from a somewhat
limited experience in wordily affairs I arise to say that life does not
consist entirely in these things, and furthermore that the importance
given to the Folks who Have is quite out of proportion to their proper
place with the procession. There are yet loves that are sweet and
wholesome; there are still ambitions that are manly and strong. Let’s
write and talk of these.

But still even in spite of a morbid plot and many incidents that are
rather bluggy, Mr. Cudahy has produced a work that probably will outsell
any of the other volumes issued by Chicago’s Enterprising Decadent
Publishers. This book has a few positive virtues. Evidently it is a
collaboration. I think the author has employed some exceptionally bright
apprentices and like Dumas the Elder, Mr. Cudahy is to be congratulated
on the rare discrimination shown in choosing his help. In literature, as
in commerce or war, much depends on selecting one’s aides: every good
general must be properly reinforced.

The prospectus of _The Pawns of Chance_ describes the binding of the book
as “a symphony in pig-skin.” And the volume is certainly very pleasing
to the eye. The paper is hand-made—deckle edge; the illustrations and
etchings on Japan paper; and the portrait of the author that serves as
frontispiece is a genuine work of art.

The space in THE PHILISTINE at my disposal will not admit of an extended
criticism, so I will briefly trace the plot, and make a few casual
remarks on the more important situations, trusting that my readers will
procure the work and each read for himself. For while its faults are
many, yet there are here and there redeeming features, and in the moral
at the close is a suggestion that is worth one’s while.

Now for the story:

James Hunks, known on the bills as Signor De June, was in 1875 proprietor
of a Ballet Troupe. The corps de ballet consisted of sixteen ladies who
were personally selected by Signor De June, and trained by him so that
they performed some very wonderful terpsichorean evolutions. Eight of
these women were blondes and eight brunettes. Surprising to state, none
were over thirty and none under twenty years of age. But they were all
Women who Did—that is to say, Ladies with a Past.

Not that they were selected on this account; indeed, Signor De June
did not interest himself in their Experiences—he only wanted form and
intellect—but mostly form. Yet a coryphee must have brains, else she
could not learn to conduct her airy shape through the mazy evolutions of
the dance.

But it came about by degrees that Signor De June learned that all of his
ladies were Ladies with a History. And being a philosopher, he reasoned
it out that the ballet was the only respectable calling that was open to
a woman who had been the victim of misplaced love. Such is the bitter
cruelty of a sham-virtuous society.

And thus on page 141 Signor De June muses as follows: “Had my ladies been
possessed of homely faces and crusty manners, no temptation could have
come to them, and they would all have lived and died virtuous maidens; or
at best been the contented (or discontented) wives of farmers, molders,
bricklayers or mill hands. But being loving and gracious and sympathetic
and withal beautiful, they have been unfortunate. Furthermore no woman
should ever speak of her virtue unless she hates her husband and loves
another man.”

So Signor De June was very kind and gentle with these ladies—aye! tender.
He loved them all; he guarded and shielded them from every fierce
temptation. It was a pure paternal love—more properly Platonic. He only
wished to make them happy—that was all.

They gave exhibitions in the principal cities of the United States and
were everywhere successful. Occasionally a husband or a former lover of
one of these Women who Did would appear upon the scene, and whenever this
happened the Signor, who was a large man and ambi-dextrous, would take
the offender neck and crop and throw him out. This always cooled the most
amorous follower, but it kept Signor De June quite busy. Yet it must
not be thought that the Signor was brutal—far from it: all were welcome
to worship his ladies, but it must be done from the parquette or dress
circle.

So they were all very prosperous and very happy, until one day the wife
of Signor De June appeared and camped upon his trail. He had gotten an
Indiana divorce from this woman five years before, but the courts had
pronounced it invalid, and now she was upon him neck and crop, just as he
had been upon the lovers and husbands. He tried to explain to her that
he loved the Corps de Ballet, not the ladies individually. He loved them
as a Whole, not singly. Moreover, his love was idyllic—Platonic. The
wife explained that the thing did not exist except in books, and further
stated her belief that the love was Plutonic if anything; and moreover it
must cease.

No doubt the woman really loved Mr. Hunks. He, too, had a little regard
for her, although they quarrelled. But he was essentially commercial—a
man of peace. He had no stomach for a legal battle with his wife’s
attorneys, who had taken the case on speculation, and he could not run
away. The woman utterly refused to be bought off for a reasonable sum,
and she also declined joining the Ballet herself, in spite of De June’s
assertions that he could love seventeen as well as sixteen, for in love
capacity increases through use.

“Try it for a month and you will see that it is Platonic,” said De June.

“I’ve no doubt I’d find it so,” said the wife.

She still was firm. He must choose between her and the Troupe. If he
chose the Troupe he’d have her, like the poor, always with him. If he
chose her alone she would still resemble the poverty stricken; but there
would come times when vigilance might relax and he could slip a way.

But what to do with the Troupe! He could not throw these beautiful,
susceptible women on a struggling, seething, wicked world. He could not
put them on a farm, for who would look after, correct, discipline and
restrain them as he had done? If allowed to scatter they would marry, and
marriage according to civilized methods, so-called, was a failure; had he
not tried it?

But De June was a man of resource (he was from Chicago). They were in
Denver and women were scarce. He would select husbands for his ladies,
himself.

He did so, choosing sixteen strong fine young miners. Calling the men out
one side, he made known to them his plan. Each man was to have a wife
on payment of the trifling fee of two hundred dollars “matriculation”
(_Sic_). The men were delighted—but had the ladies been consulted? No,
that was not necessary—there was to be a return to primitive methods,
which indeed were ever best: civilization was artificial, unnatural and
corrupt.

These sixteen ladies were all of fair intelligence, good hearted, able to
work, willing to obey. More than that they had great capacity for loving,
for had not this excess of love been their misfortune? The love only
needed proper direction, like all of our other gifts.

The sixteen gentlemen that the philosophic De June selected were of fair
intelligence, healthy and good natured, prosperous and all men of fine
physique. There was no choice in the men; there was no choice in the
women; they were on the same intellectual plane—they were well mated
and De June would not defeat the God of Chance by allowing any personal
selection. One man offered a thousand dollars for first choice, but Mr.
Hunks was a man of honor and could not be bought.

The gentlemen were to be in the parquette. When the ladies appeared on
the stage, at the word “Go” from De June, the sixteen men were to make a
rush for the stage and each seize his future wife. All after the manner
of the Romans who captured the Sabine women—and I guess the Roman Nation
is not to be sneezed at! Cæsar, Antony, Brutus and all the rest of those
honorable men were products of just such marriages.

The rush was made—the women screamed, some fainted, but each man held
his prize. The electric lights were turned off, the audience got out as
best it could. Then the doors were locked, the curtain dropped and Signor
De June stepped forward and in gentle words assured the sixteen ladies
that no harm should come to them. All had been arranged for the best.
They must be good honest wives, and the men must be good honest husbands,
and Mr. Hunks, being a Justice of the Peace, declared them all man and
wife—that is sixteen wives and sixteen husbands.

The women, it must be confessed, had grown a trifle weary of the De June
Idyllic Plan; and in the good old-fashioned womanly way, oft in the night
season, each had confessed in her own heart, that one loving husband for
each woman was what Nature intended. So they accepted the situation,
and each began to use those winning ways that Herbert Spencer says are
woman’s weapons: woman conquers through her intuition.

At a word from De June the women repaired to their dressing rooms and
soon appeared in customary feminine attire. This time the ladies had to
pick their mates, for the change in dress greatly mystified the hirsute
miners. There was a slight scramble among the ladies when three of them
selected the same man, but the Signor soon brought order out of chaos.
This scene, which occurs in chapter XXXIII, is quite dramatic.

All being amicably settled De June gave each woman a chaste kiss on the
cheek, shook hands with the grateful miners and went sorrowfully back
(with his $3,200.00) to the hotel where his Mary Jane sat up awaiting him.

That night Mr. Hunks and his wife left for Chicago. There he went into
real estate and was very successful. Having resolved to face his fate,
he treated Mary Jane as gently as he could and she repaid it all in
kindness. So things were really not so bad as the Signor had imagined.

Ten years passed and Mr. Hunks went back to Denver and found that the
sixteen couples were living happily. Many little pledges had appeared to
cement the bonds. All were content and perfectly mated, although several
of the men were a bit henpecked—but a man soon gets used to such things.
(See page 491, line 16). The women having had Experience were resolved to
hold their new found mates with love’s own bonds; and the men fearing to
lose such beautiful treasures were ever kind. There was a little doubt in
the minds of all concerning De June’s commission as Justice of the Peace,
and then certain requirements of the divorce courts had not been fully
met, but these irregularities put all on their good behavior. For it is
a fact that if a mortal knows that his mate cannot get away he is often
severe and unreasonable.

And the curious part of all this is that the story is true. Mr. Cudahy
protests it on his honor, and declares that these sixteen worthy couples
laid the foundation for the elite of Denver society, and are now the
leading lights in that beautiful city.

The story is somewhat marred by such ungrammatical expressions as “has
came,” “shouldn’t ought,” etc. There are also a needless number of French
and Latin phrases, culled from a lexicon I fear, and a striving after
Latin derivatives. It is also a pity that more pains was not taken with
the proof reading, as exasperating errors are on nearly every page. Still
these are minor points.

In the last four chapters there is considerable symbolism, which one
cannot but wish had been put in plain English. Like Zangwill’s _The
Master_, the moral is left for the last. It is a little clouded, but I
take it that Mr. Cudahy believes that civilization’s plan of selection
is very faulty. He suggests indirectly that Congress should appoint
Matrimonial Commissioners for each district—men of discretion, experience
and judgment. The Commissioner is to select from society sixteen
marriageable young women and place them in a room, and then take a like
number of young men and let them make a rush, and this, says Mr. Cudahy,
would doubtless do away with many of our matrimonial misfits.

Lovers of literature will look anxiously for Mr. Cudahy’s next book,
and in the meantime I am sure that the Young Decadents will reap a rich
harvest from _The Pawns of Chance_. I am in receipt of a letter from the
distinguished author wherein he says that he is positively declining all
invitations to lecture in the provinces, but that he may appear late in
the season in a few of our principal cities.

It may interest the Philistines to know that R. G. Dun & Co. rate Mr.
Cudahy Z Z xxx 1, while Hobart Chatfield-Chatfield Taylor is only Y x 2
3·4 and Mrs. Reginald De Koven ranks K x 4. At the present moment I can
recall but two residents of Grub Street who have ratings so high as Mr.
Cudahy, these being William Waldorf Astor and Walter Blackburn Harte.

ELBERT HUBBARD.

THE MANNERS TART.

An old and worn out Tart once sat on the pantry shelf and as it dried and
stiffened, thus it soliloquized: “In my youth men fought over me, not to
possess me, but that each should pass me to his neighbor.

“I was a fair Tart, greatly to be prized, but the manners of all were
such that I was left alone on the table, the last of my kind, the
Manners Tart, and they all withdrew, feigning indifference.

“The cook, having made many of my brethren, cared not for me, so I,
created to rejoice the soul of man, sit here, a cold and cheerless thing
at which the rats gnaw nightly.

“There was a little boy at the table, but why speak of him? He stretched
out his hand for me, but detecting a slight frown between the eyebrows of
his mother, he withdrew it and my chance was gone.

“The little boy was the only one that sympathized with me; he knew that a
Tart is short lived at best; that the only modest ambition of a Tart is
to gladden some one in life and to overhear a few words of praise as it
passes away.

“But alas! I am a failure, and all because I move in a circle that makes
a merit of self-sacrifice. I do not understand such things, but——”
here a pang of mold struck to the Tart’s heart and it relapsed into
unconsciousness.

If it had understood it would have said—“there are many joys in the world
that die unrejoiced over because no man will have the courage to do what
he wants to do.”

CLARA CAHILL PARK.

DETROIT, August, 1895.

A MATTER OF BACKGROUND.

If the war in the extreme East just ended has done no more for humanity,
it has demonstrated the unfitness in these days of a nation that has no
perspective. Philosophers we have had, and eke reformers, who saw no
farther than their noses. But here is a great people whose polity is
exclusive, whose art recognizes no relation of distance, whose social
code is rigidly formal and openly mercenary, whose methods in war
consisted up to a late date of noise and stenches and hideous banners
designed to frighten an enemy. With rare powers of detail, the art of
China is lifeless and without spirituality or suggestive force. With
centuries of training in literary industry, its lore is the elaborate
repetition of didactic sayings thousands of years old. There is no
background in its pictures. There is no constructive basis in its social
theory. All is flat surface, repression, imitation. Yet here is the
oldest nation in the world in continuous history. We need not wonder it
has fallen at last. The marvel is that it stood so long. The student of
history may well ask what has held back destroying hands through so many
centuries of the world’s unrest.

Lack of a sense of proportion and distance is not peculiar, however, to
Orientals. Even in the light of western civilization philosophers have
forgotten yesterday and to-morrow, and the foreground has usurped the
canvas. Impatience is a sign of modern degeneration if the oracle who has
a caveat on that warning is good authority. It is strange to find in the
prophet himself the fault he attributes to our time. For in all ages the
world has been on the point of going to the dogs, according to some voice
crying in the wilderness or on the house tops, as he is crying now. From
Jonah warning luxurious Nineveh down to Max Simon Nordau listing crooked
ears as the breeder counts his cross-billed chicks as proof that the race
is “running out,” the warning has been unceasing. And yet the race lives,
and builds on its ruins.

Our nerves have worn us out, according to Mr. Nordau. If Count Tolstoi
knows, amatory passion is the cause of the wreck, and high feeding back
of that. If Mr. Ibsen is right, artificiality has destroyed the virtues.
M. Zola is sure that bestiality has brought judgment upon at least one
modern Sodom. Mynheer Maartens is Philistine enough to ascribe most of
our ills to repression of sincerity, of naturalness in social life. And
so a score of doctors describe special symptoms, each empirically, each
truthfully. The wisest of them—those who have a sense of perspective—see
beyond the immediate ailment the persistent vitality which is never
wholly conquered.

We have specialized philosophy and literature as we have medicine.
These are not quacks who tell us the world is going to wreck through
the extravagances of society, through the repression of humanities,
through the lusts of gross living. They are students of particular phases
of distemper. The world, not the men in its clinics, is to blame when
it hails each as a cure-all. The realism of a Zola or a Nordau is not
a finality. While the knife is in hand the ulcer is pre-eminently in
evidence. Its removal is the business in order. But the genius of a Zola
that divines the cancer in the vitals of society presupposes the life
that is behind it—and that is the main factor in his surgery.

He would be a false teacher who should put the immediate in the place
of the permanent in any such calculation. The world that listens has an
equal responsibility. The greatest artist can only paint passing phases
of the limitless evolution going on about him. It is heresy in itself
fatal to put a phase in the place of the infinite process. Grant that
society is always at war with itself, always repressing truth, always
promoting animalism by its very more or less disguises. The paradox of
these results can never be wholly escaped. The teacher who sees what is
and was in due proportion will judge what is to be, though no son of a
prophet. The new realism for which Philistines contend is no expose of
the evils of modern society, no uncovering of a witch’s pot. It holds all
these manifestations in perspective, but substitutes none of them for
a general view of life and human destiny. It would make health instead
of disease infectious, substituting for blind Oriental imitation a
truer standard of custom, freer from convention that has no warrant of
purpose, more direct in its expression of natural and normal vitality
in personal living and thinking. “From within outward,” is its motto.
It would depose and outgrow self-consciousness—the vampire fungus that
signalizes arrested development and decay in thought or in letters or in
the self-projection of social life. The realism of the Philistines is
manifested in the recognition of healthy life that we find in some of the
new literature—in the heroic romance of Anthony Hope, in the charming
tenderness and sweetness of Maartens’s Hollandais and in the fresh-witted
islanders, full of arterial blood, of Hall Caine and the wizard who lies
buried on the mountain top of his own beloved island—that second one to
the left after you leave San Francisco.

Even the modern stage, corrupted by French intensities and the commercial
idea of filling the house, is showing signs of a reaction. Not more than
nine-tenths of the standard attractions of the coming season are based on
infractions of the seventh commandment or of that similar law which every
chivalrous man knows, though it was never traced in fire on the Sinaitic
stone.

WILLIAM MCINTOSH.

IN SLIPPERY PLACES.

“Publish it not in the streets of Askelon lest the daughters of
THE PHILISTINES rejoice.”

The publishers of the _Chap Book_ of July 15th have kept their promise
to furnish original matter in one way perhaps not contemplated when they
made mention of that booklet in their catalogue.

We can rest assured that Tacitus never wrote “emperasset” in the sentence
quoted on page 174; we shall be slow to believe that the author of _The
Children of the Ghetto_, in confusion of mind was referring empire and
empirical to a common origin, mixing up the sons of Aeneas and Danaos
after the fashion of Little Buttercup.

With perhaps a trifle less confidence we may acquit him of dragging into
notice as a prominent name in English letters the hitherto obscure or
wholly mythical “Carlysle,” who figures on page 177. But in excusing the
writer from the fatherhood of these literary foundlings we are compelled
to look to the publishers or at least to their proof-reader as the
responsible man, a sense of decency no less than the requirements of this
metaphor, repudiates the suggestion that he might after all turn out to
be a woman, and whether the reproach belong at the door of the principals
or of the workman is quite immaterial to us, the house must stand the
breakage of glassware, not the bartender.

A matter of two typographical errors within the space of a single short
article may seem but trifling subject for comment in a world where the
surest footed at times slip, but one or two considerations make even such
venial sins fit objects for animadversion. The publishers of the little
fortnightly, in the manner of their issues if not in so many words,
set themselves up, in a fashion, as guides in the matter of literary
elegance, it behooves them therefore to take heed that the unwary be
not led astray. “Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat,” nor should
the venerable name of Caxton be made a laughing-stock in the mouths of
scoffers.

SAN FRANCISCO, August, 1895.

* * * * *

TO MARK TWAIN: I am awfully sorry you have lost all your money. I am in
the same boat, but let’s not talk about it all the time.

A LANTERN SONG.

EACH SMALL GLEAM WAS A VOICE
—A LANTERN VOICE—
IN LITTLE SONGS OF CARMINE, VIOLET, GREEN, GOLD.
A CHORUS OF COLORS CAME OVER THE WATER,
THE WONDROUS LEAF-SHADOWS NO LONGER WAVERED,
NO PINES CROONED ON THE HILLS,
THE BLUE NIGHT WAS ELSEWHERE A SILENCE
WHEN THE CHORUS OF COLORS CAME OVER THE WATER,
LITTLE SONGS OF CARMINE, VIOLET, GREEN, GOLD.

SMALL GLOWING PEBBLES
THROWN ON THE DARK PLANE OF EVENING
SING GOOD BALLADS OF GOD
AND ETERNITY, WITH SOUL’S REST.
LITTLE PRIESTS, LITTLE HOLY FATHERS,
NONE CAN DOUBT THE TRUTH OF YOUR HYMNING
WHEN THE MARVELOUS CHORUS COMES OVER THE WATER,
SONGS OF CARMINE, VIOLET, GREEN, GOLD.

STEPHEN CRANE.

THE RUBAIYAT OF O’MARA KHAYVAN.

ERIN (IRAN?) YEAR OF THE HEGIRA 94—VIA BROOKLYN.

Wake! for the night that lets poor man forget
His daily toil is past, and in Care’s net
Another day is caught to gasp and fade;
Oh, but my weary bones are heavy yet!

Wake! son of kings that bears a hod on high,
And builds the world. The red sun mounts the sky
And circles squares in the cot’s every chink
And gilds ephemeral motes that whirl and die.

Wake! for the bearded goat devours the door!
And now the family pig forbears to snore,
And from his trough sets up the Persian’s cry—
“Eat! drink! To-morrow we shall be no more!”

Eat, drink and sleep! Aye, eat and sleep who can!
I work and ache. The beast outstrips the man;
And when oblivion bids the sequence end,
Which shall we say has best filled nature’s plan?

When on Gowanus’ hills the whistle blows
What dreams are mine of Hafiz’ wine-red rose?
And when I drag my leaden feet toward home
No sensuous bulbul note woos to repose.

I envy the dull brute my hand shall slay.
He lifts no stolid eye above the clay.
I, longing, on the cloud-banked verge discern
“Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday.”

What is the Cup to lips that may not drain?
Or fleeting joy to lives conceived in pain?
Toil and aspire is still the common lot,
Stumbling to rise and rising fall again.

And is this all? Shall skies no longer shine,
Or stars lure on to themes that seem divine?
Ah, Maker of the Tents! is this thy hope—
To feed and grovel and to die like swine?

W. M.

SIDE TALKS WITH THE PHILISTINES: BEING SUNDRY BITS OF WISDOM WHICH HAVE
BEEN HERETOFORE SECRETED, AND ARE NOW SET FORTH IN PRINT.

To Robert Cameron Rogers: You are keeping the stage waiting.

* * * * *

My friend with the Sharp Scissors which edit the Table Talk column
of the Buffalo _Commercial_ had a few words to say the other evening
regarding success. He alleged that Mr. Bok and Richard Harding Davis were
successful men, and that it was the pleasure of unsuccessful people to
jump on them mercilessly. I dislike to disagree with Mr. Quilp, but it
seems to me that he belongs to that class of people who habitually miss
the point of things.

The story in _Gil Blas_ of the strolling player—true to what he deemed
his art—working with commendable if misdirected energy, walking from town
to town, and as he walked soaking his dry crusts in the water of wayside
wells—this were a story of success. Success, it seems to me, lies not so
much in having one’s name a commonplace among this great American public,
which falls down to worship mediocrity if it is well advertised, as in
doing one’s day’s work honestly and sincerely. To sing a song that finds
its way into the hearts of men; to act a part that helps another toward
his happiness, and do it all without blare of trumpets and jangle of
hurdy-gurdy; and then walk on to the next town, stopping by the roadside
wells to soak a dry crust in cool water, or, perhaps, a fresh cake in
a mug of Bass as occasion served, and then, at the end, to lie down
quietly, listening to the singing by the people of one’s own songs—though
they know it not—presents a picture of a perfect harmony. This is the
preachment of Stevenson and of men before him, and until a better one may
be advanced this will serve. I would rather have written _The Pavilion
on the Links_ than _Successward_, or even Mr. Davis’s masterpiece, _Van
Bibber and the Swan Boats_. Still, it is a matter of taste, and if one
likes lactated food, roast mutton is bad for his stomach.

* * * * *

According to the prospectus Mr. Cudahy’s book fairly bristles with
epigram: the bristles alone are said to be worth the money.

* * * * *

Probably Lawrence Hutton knows more about death masks than any living
man. I cheerfully grant him this honor, but when he writes the
advertising pages in _Harper’s_ and springs them on an unsuspecting
public as “Literary Notes,” I rebel. Rebellion is not, however, confined
to mere objection to his sailing under false colors, but to such
sentences as these from a recent number of _Harper’s_:

“_Beyond the Dreams of Avarice_ is not as _amusing_ as an
entertaining story, but it is intensely interesting from
beginning to end. No one who picks it up for an evening’s
_amusement_ will be likely to lay it down unfinished or to lay
it aside for any other form of current _entertainment_.”

The italics are mine, and are put in simply to emphasize the occult
meaning of Mr. Hutton, who belongs to the class which assumes to set the
literary pace of the world. I doubt if Brander Matthews could do worse.

* * * * *

The portrait of Mr. Cudahy that is used as a frontispiece in his new book
is a photograph from the original chromo, signed by the electrotyper.

* * * * *

It is reported to me that quite a large section of the Metropolitan
colony sing their jubilate this way: “It is Howells that hath made us and
not we ourselves—We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.”

* * * * *

“Papa,” said the smart boy at dinner, “does consomme mean consumed?”

“No, my son,” said the philologic pa, “consomme is from a Latin word,
_summum_—all—and comes to us via the French. It means ‘all together’—the
same as the Trilby pose.” And there was silence for the space of four
seconds.

* * * * *

Somebody has sent me the prospectus of a magazine shortly to be published
in Cincinnati. In spite of rumors to the contrary THE PHILISTINE will
continue publication. Even _The Century_, although frightened, will let
advertising contracts as heretofore. THE PHILISTINE, and supposedly
other magazines, base their hopes of a longer existence not on their
equal worth—for lo! it is but timorously we draw breath after reading
this prospectus—but knowing that the new magazine will be keyed to so
exquisite a pitch of literary supremacy that only a few from the world
erudite may revel in such a rarified atmosphere. The birth of the
periodical—from the prospectus—fittingly closes this momentous era.
Evolution, hitherto satisfied with minute gradations, now forges ahead
in a stupendous leap; we are diatoms, we scratch rudely on bones, and
live in caves; we still bag the mastodon with embryonic pitfall, we shave
with a shell and are only paleozoic microbes in a literary miocene age.
We are mental fossils clogged in stratified oblivion—but we can’t help
it, we are rudimentary and still possess some basal instincts such as
love, religion, love of beauty and the like. But we never imagined how
infinitesimal we were until the coming of that fatal prospectus. Now we
realize that the groaning of the world, the extraordinary upheaval of the
age, the quickening of the leaven, the quaking of the Zeit Gheist were
but the premonitory travaillings of eternity before the awful nativity of
this infant from Over-the-Rhine. The veil of our temple is rent and our
suspenders are in hock. Mighty Spirit of the æons have mercy on us! we
are worms! moribund, senile old things. Our ears are sessile, yet we hear
the portents. In this hackneyed, conventional, sterile age somebody is
going to be original! Prostrate we make obeisance. Spare us Original that
is to be—spare us! But who t’ell started this Literary Fresh Air Fund,
anyway?

* * * * *

“Three generations from the soil” may be a good rule of social
eligibility after all. I know a family in one of our great lake cities
which has ruled society therein for half a lifetime and it is only two
removes from the mud. But savagery will crop out now and then, despite
all the austerities of social custom and the perpetual effort to reach
the calm of Nirvana and look as if life was a doosid bore. The delight
of these, as of all savages, is to astonish the natives. When it can be
done by driving a loping team of circus horses down the chief avenue of
the city, that suffices. Another pet trick is to mass the family on the
porch of the wooden-castled mansion on a Sunday morning and take their
pictures in group, in full view of worshippers returning from church. The
suggestion of a Ute reservation at such times is complete. When these
fail to create a sensation, a yellow tally-ho driven madly through the
narrowest streets of the Quartier Teuton, scattering dogs and babies,
with whoops and horns and the mottled circus horses in the lead, does the
business. It isn’t so long since the richest of our American nobility
showed the craven blood of the materialistic sons of the bush, to whom
brute life is everything. The American-English duel that failed is still
an unpleasant memory. I mention these things only to illustrate the
paradox of our days. We do labor hard to get rid of the joy of living
and we call the new state culture and repose, when we get it. But the
storage of force is a poor thing. It breaks out in abnormal ways and the
acquisitive father is punished in his degenerate children to the third
and fourth generation sometimes—and usually to the second.

* * * * *

I have received the second volume of _Moods_, which my Philadelphia
correspondent calls _Sulks_. It is a retrograde from the first number in
that in some places the printing is on both sides of the leaf. I had hope
that _Moods_ would continue its good work and in the second number leave
both sides blank. As it is, however, I commend the first volume to that
eminent figurer, Mr. Edward Atkinson of Boston, who may use the blank
sides upon which to calculate what the other pages are good for. By the
way, the announcement of the second volume contains a description of the
type used, which is a reprint of the typefounder’s circular concerning
the Jenson type. I would imagine that some of the geniuses of _Moods_
could have at least written an original circular. The prospectus of the
second volume contains a list of one hundred and seventeen stars—geniuses
of the first magnitude—still as my friend of the _Picayune_ says, “Though
they twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, we wonder what they are.”

* * * * *

If McClure can give us more such exquisite stories as the Zenda tale
in the August number, a good deal of reminiscent literature and living
documents may be pardoned. Hope is better than memory, Mr. McClure.

* * * * *

Mr. Frank A. Munsey, who prints a picture book, of which eleven million
copies are sold every four weeks, declares in a shrill, throaty falsetto
that American literature at present is so and so; and that in the future
he proposes to have it _so_. Mr. Oppenheimer of Rochester has not yet
been heard from.

* * * * *

I hope no one suspects me of any disrespect toward Mr. Ham Garland of the
Chicago Stock Yards, heretofore noticed in these columns. A correspondent
reminds me that Mr. G. is favorably mentioned in the oldest records. The
historian of the creation remarks “And Ham was the father of Canaan.”

* * * * *

Chicago’s _Echo_ should be successful. It is taking from the foreign
periodicals their very best of picturings and giving us a taste of the
delightful fun of _Fliegende Blætter_, _La Rire_, and the rest—a fun
which somehow we cannot produce in America, so _Puck’s_ artists and those
of _Judge_ and a few others borrow the ideas and we pat ourselves on the
back and say what a keen sense of humor we have. We are very funny—we
Americans—funnier, by long odds, than we think. I notice, too, that _The
Echo_ knows another good thing when it sees it, so the editors have
made the printers use my pet grape leaves for the beginnings of their
paragraphs. For this compliment to my taste I thank _The Echo_.

* * * * *

What we are coming to in poetry is always a fascinating theme—like biking
in the dark on a strange road. But what we are going away from is more
satisfactory to contemplate. It is pleasant to think that Homer, the
blind minstrel, and Omar, the tent maker, are fixed facts. They are the
poles of verse—one standing for the heroic and romantic, self-unconscious
and buoyant, the other for vampire introspection and fatalism which
mistakes interior darkness for an eclipse of the universe. It is also
consoling to know that such poetry as Francis Saltus Saltus’s “Dreams
After Sunset” and Duncan Campbell Scott’s yawp in the August number has
been written—for they won’t have to be written again.

* * * * *

Judge Grant, in commenting on the ways of the Summer Girl in the July
_Scribner’s_, says that after her return to her own particular vine and
fig-tree she has, among other perplexities, “a considerable uncertainty
in her mind as _to whom she is engaged to_.” This is in form somewhat
similar to the reporter who said the victim of the trolley accident was
killed fatally dead.

* * * * *

According to Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith, who parts his name in the middle and
therefore ought to know, “Abbey in his art really has done what Wagner
has done in music, Tennyson and the poets in verse.” He says so in the
current _Scribner’s_. Tennyson “and” the poets is so kind—with accent on
the “so.” The author of “Locksley Hall” ought to come back to Lily Dale
or somewhere and thank Mr. Hopsmith.

* * * * *

The style of whiskers formerly called “Dundreary,” is now known as “The
Wind in the Clearing.”

* * * * *

I have received from the Department of Agriculture an envelope labelled
“Official Business—Penalty for Private Use $300.” Stamped across the face
in red ink is the autograph of Hon. D. N. Lockwood. Inside this envelope
was one still smaller which bore this inscription:

If I remember correctly Mr. Lockwood Ran for something during last fall’s
campaign. I wonder what he is going to Run for next that he wishes to be
remembered.

* * * * *

New York rejoices in the possession of a magazine for rich people. It is
called _Form_, and it tells all about the first families—Knickerbockers
and others—and what they do to be decent. I understand it proposes
to offer prizes after the manner of Judge Tourgee’s _Basis_ for the
cleverest paraphrase of the second verse in Genesis. The historian of
creation declares that on the first day “the earth was without _Form_,
and void.” It’s a great “ad.”

* * * * *

In
Praising poetry of William Morris
And Stephen Crane
Were you poking fun?
I hope ’twas so:
For
You must perceive
That those slashed and mangled lines
Do no more resemblance bear
To true poetry
Than hacked and shattered corpse
On battle field
Bears
To a perfect man,
Whose form divinely fair
Fitly enfolds feelings consummate
Against such lines—
And in fact ’gainst all your verse,
I do
Protest.

NELSON AYRES.

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 15, ’95.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

At the Publishers’ Convention recently held in San Francisco the
delegates were treated to a steamboat ride down the bay where a picnic
was held. Police were on hand to see that the delegates did not all rush
down a steep place into the sea and perish in the waters.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I, No. 4, September 1895)" ***

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