The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I, No. 2, July 1895)

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Title: The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I, No. 2, July 1895)
Author: Various
Language: English
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OF PROTEST (VOL. I, NO. 2, JULY 1895) ***

The Philistine:
A Periodical of Protest.

“_Those Philistines who engender animosity, stir up trouble
and then smile._”—_John Calvin._

[Illustration]

Printed Every Little While for The Society
of The Philistines and Published
by Them Monthly. Subscription, One
Dollar Yearly; Single Copies, 10 Cents.
Number 2. July, 1895.

The Bibelot

A Reprint of Poetry and Prose for Book Lovers, chosen in part
from scarce editions and sources not generally known....

Printed for Thomas B. Mosher and Publish’d by him at 37
Exchange Street, Portland, Maine

Price 5 cents 50 cents a year

THE BIBELOT is issued monthly, beautifully printed on white
laid paper, uncut, old style blue wrapper, in size a small
quarto (5×6), 24 to 32 pages of text, and will be sent postpaid
on receipt of subscription. Remit (preferably) by N. Y. Draft,
or P. O. Money Order.

Numbers now ready.

January—Lyrics from William Blake. February—Ballades from
Villon. March—Mediæval Student Songs. April—A Discourse of
Marcus Aurelius. May—Fragments from Sappho. June—Sonnets on
English Dramatic Poets.

THOMAS B. MOSHER, Portland, Maine.

Please Mention THE PHILISTINE.

The Philistine.

Edited by H. P. Taber.

CONTENTS FOR JULY, 1895.

JEREMIADS:

An Interview with the Devil, Walter Blackburn Harte.

Fashion in Letters and Things, Elbert Hubbard.

Where is Literature At? Eugene R. White.

A Free Lunch League, William McIntosh.

The New Hahnemann, Herbert L. Baker.

OTHER THINGS:

Some Little Verses, Edwin R. Champlin.

The Laughter of the Gods, Rowland B. Mahany.

The Lord of Lanturlu, G. F. W.

Side Talks with The Philistines.

Some More Verses.

Advertisements.

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._

THE PHILISTINE

NO. 2. July, 1895. VOL. 1.

SOME LITTLE VERSES.

OF EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

Since he is dead who once was so alive,
And all is living that in life he saw,
His written words provoke in me an awe
And wonder if he still unseen doth thrive—
His inmost being true to life and law.

LOST JOY.

Whence joy came I do not know,
But she left me long ago;
In a heart that still is free
She abides—and loves not me.

EDWIN R. CHAMPLIN.

WHERE IS LITERATURE AT?

At any time the sight of a Don Quixote leveling an earnest lance at a
mill is inspiring, hence a book called _Degeneration_, by one Max Simon
Nordau, is worthy of attention. The book has been discussed pro and con
as fully as it deserved. If not forgotten it is reserved for another
generation to adjudicate its value. Enough that it has stirred up a
valiant mess, out of which can come nothing but good.

As a whole it is worthless—it might well have been written by a son of
Robert Elsmere and Mrs. Nickelby—for the mosaic of clever observation
is wrought into a most grotesque picture. The perception of Mr. Nordau
is fine, but his perspective is absurdly jumbled. The premises, logical
enough, are made to form an absurd conclusion—yet the half-truths in the
book are well worthy of note.

Genius was an abnormality long before Nordau found it out from Lombroso.
Granted that everybody who has risen above the dead level of mediocrity
is a maniac, let us head the list with Jesus of Nazareth. But does that
detract from the value of their work or the good of their mission? Moses
may have had asymmetrical ears, and Blind Homer been possessed with all
sorts of mental afflictions. That is not the point. What Mr. Nordau does
show us is that the literature of this decade is self conscious and that
it is marked in general by a hopeless lack of unity. Not that these facts
were discovered by the captious German: Good lack, they are apparent
enough, but he has surely emphasized them. And the object of this is to
say a say about the present non-importance of modern literature’s self
consciousness and its lack of unity.

When one talks with a decrier of modernity, when our ears are stuffed
with the prattle about self consciousness, should there be an attempt
to say a word it is met with a flaunting statement about Homer. Homer
is undeniably the great unsullied spring, the rock struck in the desert
which pours forth a clear limpid stream. But the example does not serve.
If Homer is pristine he is also primeval. Self consciousness in these
days means nothing less than that one comprehends in part that momentous
question of where we are at. Underlying which it means that it has a
realizing sense of battles to fight and wrongs to retrieve. Marry and up,
we might all be Homers had literature no past. The past is a millstone
that has hung around the neck of many a sturdy man.

Truth to tell, there must be a certain self consciousness nowadays if
anything is to be done. Besides, what is self consciousness? Not the kind
that mistakes the medium for the work accomplished, but a genuine hearty
self consciousness. Is it not manifestly absurd to deny to the father of
an idea the most complete conception of his paternity? Can we interpret
the works of an author in any other proportion than that which exists
between our understanding and his?

But Nordau’s principal _casus belli_ is the present diversity in
literature, he thinks; its lack of unity—a segregation which denotes
decay.

Pish!

Diversity is a step towards universality. And is not the present aspect
due primarily to a self assertive spirit, a declaration of individual
independence in literature, built upon the lack of single leaders and the
abolition of a great literary center?

Take the literary capillarity of a great name. It has a marvelous effect,
availing perhaps for all time, but scarcely to the succeeding generation.
Dante, Shakespeare and the world’s sons are but the flood marks of a
great literary tidal wave that crests with eternity. These marks leave
such an influence on the next generation that they can only be viewed
with wonder. And when that same next generation perceives that deeds were
wrought on certain lines, behold a mad rush to build on the same, to
blindly copy after the model, to servilely imitate the pattern. This is
the damning power of the so-called classicists. Not having the original
spontaneity, such doing accomplishes little more than to emasculate
itself wittingly.

Trend is an unseen thread in the warp and woof of literature. It bobs
about, hides here and there, and who will say but now and then it drops
a stitch? Yet the weave goes on for all that. Achievement in the realm
of the real and the realm of the ideal are rarely synchronous. Literature
acted as a John the Baptist for the Renaissance. Artistic expression
antedated for centuries the march of science. Why should we of the purple
trouble ourselves if science should now be the vanguard. It will be a
close finish at the End of Things.

The Sleeping Beauty is now all ready for the magic kiss. The Prince is
perhaps bending over her. He has cut a way through the thorns, the briars
and brambles that hedged her in. He has climbed the stairs and looks her
at last squarely in the face. She will be awake while we yet pule and
despair that there is no good in us and that if a good thing ever came
out of Nazareth it was immediately and ignominiously pushed along by the
rabble.

That’s a close analogue, that Sleeping Beauty. Literature wanted not for
thorns and brambles. Conventions, artificial ties and misconceptions
were of the prickliest kind. Those that spring up where empty ancient
forms are worshipped always are, but we have had some Princes with strong
buskins, who laughed at the stings and bade the small things do their
worst.

Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites were of that kind. Walt Whitman lacked
the princely qualities, the blue blood of prestige that would work the
magic charm, but he was valiant for all that. And there have been others
who have not lacked in bravery.

Now, it is just that hardihood that Nordau derides. Let him creak and
carp, let others erect their idols and worship thereat. Even fetiches
have their use. The world wags on, however, and the line is forming anew.
We will be happy yet.

It is a Gargantuan task to get at the heart of this multiple age. He will
be a Titan who does it.

Form antedates concept. Thus far have we journeyed on this way of
ours—the leaven of concept and of form both have broken out in patches
here and there. Let someone arise who can master both.

Then—

E. R. W.

THE LAUGHTER OF THE GODS.

The laughter of the Gods is clear
And sweet to those who do not know
How, underneath its limpid flow,
Lurk envy, hatred, hope and fear.

ROWLAND B. MAHANY.

FASHION IN LETTERS AND THINGS.

Periodicity exists throughout all nature. Day and night, winter and
summer, equinox and solstice; years of plenty and years of famine,
commerce active and business depressed; volcanoes in state of eruption,
then at rest; comets return, eclipses come back, the striae of one
glacial period are deepened by those of another, and the leg o’ mutton
sleeves that our grandmammas wore in the thirties are again upon us.

When the hounds start game in the mountains, the hunter knowing that the
deer moves in a circle, stands still on the run-way, biding his time. So
no one need wail and strike his breast if his raiment is out of style:
all such should be consoled by the fact that the fashion is surely coming
back.

Mode in dress is only an outcrop of a general law. Why does fashion
change? Because it is the fashion. The followers of fashion—that is
to say, civilized men and women—are not content with being all alike.
Esquimaux and Hottentots never vary their styles. But people in the
temperate zones are intemperate and desire to excel—to be different from
others—distinctive, peculiar, individual. Very seldom is any one strong
enough to stand alone, so in certain social circles, by common consent,
all overcoats are cut one length—say, to come just above the knee. Then
this overcoat is gradually lowered: to the knee, just below the knee, to
the ankle—until it conceals the feet. Then an enormous collar is added,
which when turned up and viewed from behind completely hides the man.
But this thing cannot last; it is not many days before the same men are
wearing overcoats so short that the wearers look like matadors ready for
the fray.

Ladies wear hoops; the hoops expand and expand, until the maximum of
possibility in size is reached. Something must be done! The crinoline
contracts until these same ladies appear in clinging skirts, and the
pull-back lives its little hour. Then the former width of the dress is
used to lengthen it. The skirt touches the ground, trails two inches,
six, eight, a foot, two feet. Its length becomes too great to drag and so
is carried, to the great inconvenience of its owner; or in banquet halls
pages are employed. But this is too much, a protest comes and two hundred
women in Boston agree to appear on the streets the first rainy day in
skirts barely coming to the boot top. “Dress Reform” societies spring up,
magazines become the organs of the protestants and the printing presses
run over time.

The garb of the Quaker is only a revulsion from a flutter of ribbons and
towering headgear. From Beau Brummel lifting his hat with great flourish
and uncovering on slight excuse, we have William Penn who uncovers to
nobody; the height of Brummel’s hat finds place in the width of Penn’s.

All things move in an orbit.

Even theories have their regular times of incubation. They are hatched,
grow lusty, crow in falsetto or else cackle; then they proceed to scratch
in the flower beds of conservatism to the hysterical fear of good old
ladies, who shoo them away. Or if the damage seems serious, the ladies
set dogs—the lap-dogs of war—upon them.

“The sun do move;” Brother Jasper is right. All things move. And when
matters get pushed to a point where they fall on t’other side, a Reformer
appears. The people proclaim him king, but he modestly calls himself
“Protector.” He is spoken of in history as the Savior of the State.

There are only two classes of men who live in history: those who crowd a
thing to its extreme limit, and those who then arise and cry “Hold!” A
Pharaoh makes a Moses possible. The latter we write down in our books as
immortal, the first as infamous.

This is true of all who live in history, whether in the realm of
politics, religion or art. History is only a record of ideas (or lack
of them) pushed to a point where revulsion occurs. If Rome had been
moderate, Luther would have had no excuse.

Literature obeys the law; its orbit is an ellipse. The illustrious names
in letters are those of the men who have stood at aphelion or perihelion
and waved the flaring comet back.

The so-called great poets are the men stationed by fate at these pivotal
points. And as fires burn brightest when the wind is high, so these men
facing mob majorities have, through opposition, had their intellects
fanned into a flame.

More than thirteen decisive battles have taken place in the world of
letters. And the question at issue has always been the same: Radical
and Conservative calling themselves Realist, Romanticist, Veritist or
What-not struggling for supremacy.

Term it “Veritism” and “Impressionism” if you prefer—juggle the names and
put your Union troops in gray, but this does not change the question.

The battle between the two schools of literature is a football game.
The extreme goal on one side is tea table chatter, on the other an
obscure symbolism. “The difference is this:” said Dion Boucicault,
“when Romanticism goes to seed it is ‘rot;’ when Realism reaches a like
condition it is only ‘drivel.’”

In literary production why should we hear so much about the dignity of
this school and the propriety of that. Men who fail to appreciate the
individual excellence of a certain literary output, declare it to be
without sense and therefore base. In letters they assume that a style is
wholly good or it is wholly bad. They make no allowances for temperament;
they would have all men speak in one voice.

Yet liberty need not result in disorder, nor can originality serve as a
pretext for boozy inaccuracy. In a literary production the bolder the
conception the more irreproachable should be the execution.

There is a tendency for thought to get fixed in set forms, and this
form is always that which has been used by some great man. For any one
to express thought and feeling in a different way is blasphemy to the
eunuchs who guard the tents of Tradition.

Writers of different schools exist because their style fits the mind of
a certain style of reader. The sprightly, animated picturesqueness, the
play of wit and flights of imagination are only a full expression of
what many faintly feel. Thus their mood is mirrored and their thought
expressed: hence they are pleased.

In fact the only reason why we like a writer is because he expresses our
thought in a way we like. And the reason we dislike a writer is because
he deals in that which is not ours. We of course might grow to like
him, but the process is slow, for according to Herbert Spencer we must
hear a thing six hundred times before we understand. If we comprehend
a proposition at once, it is only because it was ours already. If the
portrayal of a situation in fiction fascinates us, it is because we (in
fancy or fact) have gone before and spied out the land.

There must be more than one school of literature, because there is more
than one mood of mind: just as in religion there must be many sects.
We worship God not only in sincerity and truth, but according to the
temperament our mothers gave us.

The emotional “school of religion” finds its votaries in Methodism:
Methodism fits a certain mind. The stately dignity of the Ritualist is
a necessity to a certain cast of intellect. And until we get a church
that is broad enough, and deep enough, and high enough to allow for
temperament in men, “church union” will exist only as an abstract idea.

Until we have a school of literature that will combine all schools and
give the liberty to a full expression of every mood, there will be a
warfare between the “sects” that give free rein to imagination and the
sect that, having no imagination, merely describes. When one school
driven by the jibes and jeers of the other tilts to t’other side, a heavy
man will start the teeter back, and he is the man we crown.

And let us ever crown the heavy man when we find him.

ELBERT HUBBARD.

THE LORD OF LANTURLU.

IDEA, METRE AND REFRAIN CRIBBED FROM THE FRENCH OF GABRIEL VICAIRE AS SET
FORTH IN _Le Figaro_ OF MARCH 30, 1895 (_q. v._).

When swallows southward flew,
Forth rode in armor fair
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

Vowed he to cross the brine,
Pausing not night nor day,
That he might Paynims slay
In Palestine.

Faithful a knight and true
As you’d find anywhere,
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

Half a league on his way
Met him a shepherdess,
Beaming in loveliness,
Sweet as young day.

Gazed in her eyes of blue,
Saw Love in hiding there,
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

“Let the foul Paynim wait,”
Plead Love, “and rest with me;
Sullen and cold the sea,
Here’s brighter fate.”

...

When swallows northward flew,
Back to his home did fare
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

Led he his charger gray,
Bearing a shepherdess
Beaming with loveliness,
Sweet as young day.

White lambs, beribboned blue,
Herded with anxious care
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.

Fine sport of him they made,
Knights famous, old and lone,
Strength, youth and hope all gone
In the Crusade.

But in their hearts they knew,
“He hath the better fare—
Guy, Lord of Lanturlaire
And Lanturlu.”

G. F. W.

A FREE LUNCH LEAGUE.

Before George Du Maurier created the one complaisant female who is
admitted into all the good society of Europe and America he achieved
some fame as the author of a recipe for keeping peace in families. The
good wife was to apply the prescription, and it read “Feed the Brute.”
Whether this meant to keep a good cook or to cater to the element
in human nature which the paradox of civilization constantly brings
into abnormal prominence among the overwrought people Mr. Du Maurier
describes, is not clear. The man as a whole or his grosser nature may be
the brute referred to. But the policy of feeding the unidentified fauna
of Mr. Du Maurier’s world is in no doubt. Modern custom has settled
the most direct road to satisfaction of the men and women who compose
society. You may see its sign boards at any formal social meeting, and
they all point to the dining room.

When THE PHILISTINE said some time ago that hospitality had become an
exchange he meant an exchange of food. There is no plainer way to state
the fact—short of nausea. Of course hospitality does not start at eating.
That is where it ends. The starting point is the purest courtesy—the
_caritas_ that “seeketh not her own,” “is not puffed up” and “abideth”
as the head of the trinity of eternal virtues. But on the most generous
of virtues grows the most selfish of vices, and ostentation is the
death-dealing parasite that destroys primitive hospitality.

Mrs. Moor Gage lives in the suburbs. It is the proper place to live—if
you can. She has neighbors and likes them. She calls, swaps cards with
the ladies, imbibes a little hot water, and then gets along where her
social position requires somebody should be fed. She is just as good as
Mrs. Taxsale on the other avenue, so hospitality alone won’t fill the
bill. A caterer must mince this dinner. Mr. Moor Gage must perspire later
on, but now is feeding time. At much expense the food is arranged for. At
more expense virgin dresses must be gotten together, if all hands stitch
and try on till the hour the dinner comes. When they are gone, feeders
and fed draw one breath of content. “It’s all over.”

Or, is it a reception. The hospitality is all in the front of the house.
That’s where the receiving party are. But the procession doesn’t linger
there. It moves rearward. The animals are to be fed. If one doubts the
sincerity of this movement let him recall the comments of those who
“couldn’t get to the dining room” at the last distribution of eatables.

Of course when Mrs. Taxsale opens her larder to her friends she will have
a little better “stuff”—they really do call it by that name in competent
society—and so the auction goes on. Sometimes card parties and other
social efforts not primarily connected with digestion get mixed up with
catering. The result is usually disastrous. Bidding gets too high for
some of the members. The bargain day pace is too fast. There ends the
card club.

There are persons, here and there, who think there is something
finer than feeding in courtesy. They are Philistines. They object to
materialism, even when it swamps only the things of this world. It is
also reported, on somewhat vague evidence, that refined literary people
are not so given to feeding as the common folks of Mr. Du Maurier’s
world. It is to bear a suggestion to these that this is written. Literary
persons being functionally the makers of custom have a great glory within
easy reach. Let them crystallize their scattered atoms of protest in an
Anti Free Lunch League. It may take some self denial, but there is the
compensating pleasure of mutual admiration when they gather at a call
like this:

Contemplation of the infinite fall will take the place of supper in a
most edifying way. It is to be presumed that literary people have had
something to eat at home.

The segregation of society thus begun will leave the materialists who
compose its majority to follow out their instincts, and it will be
reasonable to look for a vast improvement in eating entertainments in
consequence. Mrs. Moor Gage and Mrs. Taxsale will then be freer to
advertise their attractions—as thus:

“H. L.” means hot lunch, which may be varied indefinitely. It is plainly
a great improvement on “Dancing at 9.” You get dancing everywhere.
Specifications may be introduced. For those who don’t like bread pencils
and ice cream shingles something more solid may be put on the bill of
fare, which will in time serve as the invitation also.

The suggestion is made in the interest of sincerer living. If we are to
“feed the brute,” why not say so?

W. M.

THE NEW HAHNEMANN.

The taste for literature in homeopathic doses seems to be growing. If
this thing keeps on, the time may come when knowledge will be put up like
pills or wafers or tablets. And a great convenience it would be to the
busy sons of American toil. If one wished to prepare an article on some
historical subject, for instance, he could buy a box of Motley’s American
Pills or Gibbon’s Roman Tablets, and take one after another until the
requisite amount of historical information were absorbed. It would also
be pleasant, if a gentle titillation of the literary senses were desired,
to buy a few Richard Harding Davis wafers and lie down to delightful
dreams. Or in case one’s conscience became unusually obstreperous, he
could take Biblical tabules till his system was soaked with sanctity. If
one’s pessimism were temporarily upmost, he could find plenty of Nordau’s
pillules to help him enjoy his misery while the fit lasted. It’s a great
scheme. Methinks the dim distant future holds a publisher’s announcement
similar to this:

_JUST ISSUED_:

“SOME IMPRESSIONS AND A FIT.”

By Mark Nye Bunner. In twelve pills and two boxes. In plain
pasteboard boxes, $1.00 per box. In gilt edge boxes, uncut,
$2.00 per box. By all means the strongest work of this popular
condenser. It is not too much to say that there is more giggle
in each pill than can be found in any similar work. And the
fit at the end—well, it is wholly indescribable. Long Greens &
Co., Literary Dispensatory, Chicago and London. Sent prepaid by
telepath, on receipt of price.

A FEW CRITICISMS.

_Washington Roast_: “Not a dull pill in the box.”

_New York Rostrum_: “Very clever. After taking one pill, the
reader cannot put down the box until he has taken all its
contents.”

_Chicago Between-Seas_: “Cannot contain our disgust. Tried to
digest the contents of these boxes, but threw up the job after
taking one pill.”

_New Orleans Pickatune_: “The pills lead gently and pleasantly
up to the final mystery when the Fit clears everything up in a
very sensational manner. More such pills would have a highly
beneficial effect upon modern literature.”

HERBERT L. BAKER.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE DEVIL.

It is only during inclement weather that writers who cannot command
the oracular and prophetic freedom, which is the proud possession of
the morning and evening journals, can hope to gain even the smallest
audience; for the masses are more hungry for facts which lie, than for
the truth, or even those fine fantasies that afford us some surcease of
wide-open eyed sorrow. If this paper is ever read at all, it should be
read in gloomy weather. Indeed, it is intended to be read on a gray day,
as it was written on a wild night. Only very robust imaginations feel
the fascination or the eternal questions of life and death in the wide
ample world of broad, white sunlight; for their animal spirits get the
better of their reason. In rainy weather we writers flatten our noses
against the panes of strange windows, lost to all sense of propriety, in
the wild hope that some one within is reading one of our amusing works.
In the case of the present writer, however, it is all proper to say that
he has suffered disillusionment so often that he has espoused a chill
dignity, and sits at home and reads his own works in a spirit of grim
appreciation. Indeed, accepting the appalling vacuity of the million
noisy heads as an incurable fact—a fact that should chasten the vanity
of those whose hopes and ambitions and thought are borne and blown hither
and thither, like puff-balls upon the acclaiming wind of ten thousand
pairs of lungs—it may be said with perfect propriety that it is nothing
less than impertinence for any writer, who aims to rise above the biting
lechery of the common imaginations, to expect to find readers under clear
skies. Even the midsummer sun, which is surely innocent of any such evil
intention, seems to only ripen distracting noises in the minds of the
vast majority sunk in the turgid mean of commonplace; for how many good
souls can be bothered with anything more abstract than the very latest
soggy novel, just hot and dirty from the press, in sunshiny weather? Even
moonshine is wasted upon all but those feather-brains on the lookout for
ghosts.

And it may be noted, although it is not strictly relevant, that, with
the multiplication of periodicals of one sort and another, even stormy
weather is beginning to fail the few writers in our day who are audacious
enough to still cling to the old ambitions of letters, in spite of
worldly prudence and all the warnings of the literary tip-staffs who
infallibly know “the market”—for in the periodical world it is raining
hot-baked sensations and novelties every hour in the twenty-four—the
depressing vulgar commonplaces that have made up the round of human
existence from the dawn of history and always will. But we must make up
our minds to accept this as one of the small ironies of life: thought is
smothered in an immense spawn of crocodile words. The newspapers we have
always with us; and they succeed in making such an unceasing and damnable
din that only an insignificant minority of exceptionally cool heads can
hear themselves think.

It is worthy of remark that the printing press has contributed in no
small degree toward driving the Devil out of orthodox theology. This is a
fact, although Atheists, Rationalists and Materialists claim the credit
of it. Indeed, His Eminence confessed to me, over a bottle of Lachryma
Christi at the Theological Club, that he was completely discouraged,
and he announced that he was revolving in his mind the expediency of
abandoning the long and honorable career, which he has enjoyed in the
polity of human life. He said that he had found his old-fashioned and
painstaking tortuous methods of depraving men’s minds suddenly rendered
absolutely puerile, ridiculous and contemptible by comparison with the
unwearied and stupendous operations of the steam-presses of journalism.
The meeting depressed me greatly; for whatever opinions other folk
may profess to hold of the Devil, the more sober imaginations, the
humorous writers, will always be glad to testify to the ungrudged and
inestimable services he has continually rendered them in their arduous
and ill-paid calling. I have since learned definitely that the Devil was
in good earnest, and has retired into a voluntary exile, whence endless
deputations of learned, suppliant, apologetic and furious theologians
have endeavored to coax him, but entirely in vain. He has abdicated,
he replies steadfastly, forever; and the desperate situation of the
theologians, whose calling and character is seriously imperiled by his
obstinacy, leaves him perfectly unmoved. He declares he has been long
abandoned by those who flourished upon the pleasantries which he devised
to make life amusing, and being under no sort of moral obligation to
ingrates who have publicly held his name and character in abhorrence, he
cheerfully abandons them to their wretched fate. He himself is humbled;
let them taste of his bitterness, as they have shared in his prosperity,
without any honest acknowledgment of his benefaction. He is still great
enough to preserve his dignity; let them preserve their own as best they
can. And this ought not to be a difficult business; for there are still
a multitude of fools in the world, and any new noisy dogma is not more
than twenty-four hours old before a million credulous heads believe it
embodies the immanent truth of the universe. Such subtle wits as the
theologians, and those whom they serve, can assuredly find a way out of
the mire of misfortune, as the multitude is always hospitable to miracle
workers, though deaf and blind to facts and truth.

The Devil himself, however, has discovered the ironies of the ambition
that can only prosper upon the folly of fools. He recognizes the
omnipotence of his rivals, the omniscient journalists, in this vineyard,
and is content to let them discover in due time that wisdom does not
consist in the counting of noses, and that mere bawdy optimism brings
its own dissatisfaction. And, moreover, in retiring, the Devil is
sustained by the firm conviction that his old laborious schemes for the
befuddlement and bewilderment and corruption of mankind will not only be
ably continued, but improved and surpassed in subtlety and thoroughness
by these audacious and unscrupulous successors. So his decision is
irrevocable; he has abdicated forever. Emulation would but emphasize
the futile and ludicrous pretensions of his old ingrate protegees, the
theologians; and the Devil is not ungenerous, even in misfortune, even to
those base hypocrites who have enjoyed his protection and reviled him.
Then, retirement with dignity is better than embittered ambition and a
fall without dignity. As he points out—and those who have known him in
better days should assuredly sustain him in his noble and philosophic
humility, so rare among the great of fallen fortunes—it is worse than
useless for him to labor painfully to cultivate a deep and stirring
delight in original sin in one promising little urchin, spending weary
days and anxious and tender solicitude on the hard benches of the public
schools, when the great and omniscient newspaper press can at any given
moment set a whole nation, or even the whole civilized world, crawling
upon all fours, nosing and wallowing in filth. Only a few aboriginal
tribes escape, and the Devil does not deem these worthy of cultivation,
since civilization is encroaching upon them and their days are already
numbered.

The Devil was always notoriously an abandoned pessimist, and his dismal
view of the outcome of the great modern passion for literacy is probably
due to disappointed ambition and malevolence; for, granting all the
suffocating triviality and vulgarity of the Sabbatical literature dished
up in the seventh day’s newspapers, it must always in strict justice be
remembered that long and beautiful abstracts of sermons of soporific
platitude, and charmingly convincing illogic, appear regularly in the
Monday morning issues. And so optimists may feel that the morals of
civilization are safe.

But, on the other hand, evil tongues cannot be silenced. If the
accumulation of facts were not such a patently depraved, atrabilious
and libellous business, there would be fewer cynics, and cheerful, good
natured optimism would expire for want of that venomous opposition which
contracts hopeless stupidity into stony and barren virtue. Epigrams would
become dissipated in the most undivided passion for truth, in order to
diffuse it again into commonness among eager and hungry ears; but the
fact is, these ears are now enamored of such noises as cost them no sort
of intellectual effort.

It may as well be stated here that the Devil has somehow lost a great
deal of his popularity in the congregations of the elect, through the
continual assaults of Philistines and the unfortunate discovery of
natural facts, that have taken catastrophe out of the Devil’s hands and
transferred it to the domain of inflexible and insensible law. But the
moral cowardice revealed in this abandonment of the Devil is certainly
pathetic. Yet we must remember that it is ever so—for the people who turn
on us first are the ones we have most benefited. And this seems to be one
of Nature’s devices for diverting our energies into new channels of well
doing.

WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE.

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

_Bot._ Let me play the lion, too. I will roar, that I will do any man’s
heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the duke say, “Let
him roar again. Let him roar again.”

_Quin._ An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess
and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us
all.

_All._ That would hang us, every mother’s son.

_Bot._ I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of
their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but I will
aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove;
I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.

* * * * *

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the
heaven.

There is a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time
to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a
time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to
laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast stones and a
time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain
from embracing; a time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and
a time to cast away; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep
silence and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time
for war and a time for peace.

I have seen the tribulation that God has given to the sons of men; yet He
has made everything beautiful in its time: and I know that there is no
good but for a man to rejoice and to do the good that he can in life: and
I would have every man eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of his labor,
for this is the gift of God.

* * * * *

Our neighboring city of Buffalo is to be congratulated. The International
League of Press Clubs will convene there next summer. A plumber who was
accidentally blackballed by the Buffalo club writes me that they will
come “some in rags and some in jags.”

* * * * *

If the women who wheel did but know it they would undoubtedly be
influenced by the fact, patent to all men, that all the compromise
garments for bicycle wear are hideous. There is no beauty in and of any
of them. The more cut off they are the worse. There is only one element
of grace about drapery, and that is in its flowing lines. The cut-off
Russian blouses are no lovelier than a high hat or a hydrant cover. By
and by, when Philistine good sense shall have won dominion over the
ladies who bike, it will be discovered by them that there is no essential
impurity in dress. The woman who does masculine things should wear
masculine covering. Why not? Is it to be assumed that the pedal branches
of the human form divine are by any natural law under ban? Or is it
custom that makes the difference? If so, it will be deemed indecent one
of these days to drape the arms, now hidden in balloons, in the tight
sleeves of our elder sisters.

It may be guessed at a venture, there being no authority except that
nebulous tyranny that controls all matters of feminine custom, that the
difficulty would be met in some measure if the fair wheelers did not
have to get off the machine in public view. Even a man is apt to be
embarrassed when he walks the pavement with a clamp around his nether
drapery, both looking and feeling as if he had been through burdocks
and come away loaded. It is of easy recollection how one feels on the
board walk with clinging garments that were all right in the water a
moment ago. The ladies might be willing to wear knickerbockers—and they
ought to be told that in nothing else would they look so well—if by
some contrivance a fall of drapery sheltered the too-freely evidenced
pedestals of beauty when off the wheel. What Felix will invent such a
curtain and a way of keeping it out of the way when not wanted? Here
is an opening for genius—and a beneficent one, for by such devices is
civilization advanced.

* * * * *

Mrs. Frank Guesslie has written an article on _How My Husbands Proposed_.
It will be syndicated by the National Thought Supply and Newspaper
Feeding Company.

* * * * *

A newspaper that does much show printing announces in big headlines: “A
Woman Clown. The Only One Is With Barnum and Bailey.” Barnum and Bailey
reside in different climates just now. That “only” woman clown must be as
ubiquitous as Sydney Smith’s Scot.

* * * * *

The Boston Woman’s Rescue League has the champion non sequitur. The
league is against bicycling by women, and announces the startling
discovery that “thirty per cent of the girls that have come to the Rescue
League for aid were bicycle riders at one time.” Probably one hundred per
cent of the same were innocent girls at one time. Maybe it was when they
biked.

* * * * *

I understand there’s a movement in the Back Bay gravel pit of Boston,
Mass., to abolish the word “Mr.” on calling cards. Some of the
three-named have been a little crowded for space, perhaps, or it may be
that they dimly realize that it isn’t good taste to call oneself by a
complimentary title. Some clergymen refuse to sign “Rev.” before their
names, or put it in parenthesis as if to have it beyond their personal
reach, as New England ladies write “(Miss)” and others “(Mrs.)”. Good
Philistines need not be told that Mr. means Master and is a compliment in
the second person. It is of a piece with lifting the hat, theoretically
a helmet, to the person whom you respect. That was the old time vote of
confidence. You thus expressed the belief that he wouldn’t brain you with
a broadsword at the first opportunity. Giving the hand was another token
of disarmament as a mark of confidence. Bowing the head also invited the
knightly salute with any convenient weapon. With this went a more or less
sincere confession of his imputed power. You called him “master,” which
became “mister” by corruption. Our imitative good society has forgotten
the meaning of the thing it imitates, as usual. Our ready-made coats of
arms seldom fit. He that is greatest calls himself servant, according to
good authority, and not master. Even Beacon Hill and the adjacent desert
seems to have come to a realization of the fact. We may look for the
cards of John De Smythe Smythe or Perkins Hopkinson Revere with Mr. in
brackets or omitted one of these days.

* * * * *

“Mamma,” said seven-year-old, in the suburbs, “when will somebody’s house
or somebody’s barn burn up?”

“I don’t know,” said mamma, “I hope never. But I suppose they will
sometime.”

“Well,” said the son, with a sigh, “it’s an awful long time since we had
a good fire.”

Thus we see that even calamity may furnish entertainment for the simple
and sincere.

* * * * *

Rock & Bumball, of Chicago, announce a new volume by Gallbert Faker. Its
title is _Scenes in the Boshy Hills_.

* * * * *

Several mighty and high church bishops in this country are out against
“the new woman.” It is noted that they don’t say anything against “the
old woman” in general or in particular.

* * * * *

_How to Carry a Cat in a Basket_ is the attractive title of an article to
appear in the forthcoming _Ladies’ Fireside Fudge_, from the pen of its
gifted editor, Mr. E. W. Sok.

* * * * *

There are things in these maxnordo days that are enough to make a man
strike his father—for something besides a loan. For instance, a few weeks
since we had the peculiar spectacle of the Marquis of Queensbury being
done up by his son according to London rules; and now in the last issue
of the _Chip-Munk_ we see “A Recent Writer in _Scribner’s_” well cuffed
by a boy of whom he is the author. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth,”
etc.

* * * * *

Judge Tourgee is still making straw without bricks in the _Basis_.

* * * * *

Now that Mrs. Cady Stanton has launched her Woman’s Bible, let her
prepare to enter a woman’s heaven. The men won’t be in it.

* * * * *

Robert Grant is getting democratic. He is down as far as the summer girl
in the current _Scribner_.

* * * * *

_The Napoleon on the Hearth_ is a new magazine announced from New York.
It will bear the subtitle, _Every Man His Own Bonaparte Revival_.

* * * * *

A new book by Mr. Poultry Bigead is about ready. It will be called _My
Collection of Stones from Cherries Eaten by the German Emperor_, and will
contain a frontispiece of _Cavalry Horses Having Spasms_, by a well known
artist.

* * * * *

On what ought to be very good authority I am told that if the women who
wheel adopt knickerbockers, there will be more care of the female infants
of the next generation. Some of the ladies who most strongly object to
the advanced and advancing style are said to have good reasons in the
matter of physical conformation. I know parents who are very careful not
to let their boy babies stand alone too early, fearing bow legs. Perhaps
the parents of the future will be equally careful about their girlies, in
view of the changing fashion in nether drapery.

Apropos of this, I know a very pleasant little lady—pleasant, but
thin—whose brother is a sad wag. “Adelaide,” he said to her last Tuesday,
“if you wear those new knickerbockers of yours out on the street, you’ll
get yourself arrested for having no visible means of support.”

* * * * *

It is asserted that Mr. George A. Hibbard is perfectly serious.

* * * * *

It is really too bad that a magazine which lives up to its standard so
well as the _Overland Monthly_ should try to make us believe that its
illustrations are much better than those in Frank Leslie’s _Budget_.

* * * * *

_How I Wrote the Account of How I Wrote My First Book_, by General Louisa
Wallace, author of _Bob Hur_, is announced.

* * * * *

I have received through Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls, publishers of a
Methodist dictionary and other works of erudition and vital piety, an
invitation to vote aye on a large number of changes of words in common
use—mostly in the fonetic direction. Simplicity is the apparent aim.
There is a good deal of retrospect in the list. Some of the spellings
that were licked out of us when we were boys seem like old friends come
back to ask our pardon. The old days are with us when we are told to
spell “skul,” for example. The evisceration of sacred words is a little
arbitrary. “Savior” is spelt without the full-mouthed British “u,” dear
to every lover of the Prayer Book, but Antichrist isn’t economized at
all. “Pel-mel” looks it, if a word ever did. “Graf” is something to be
guessed at, and one may ask if “adulterin” is something to eat. The
fonetix didn’t reach Czar, or perhaps our M. E.—me friends are respecters
of persons. However, they shortened “pontiff” by an “f,” and I wouldn’t
be surprised if His Holiness masqueraded as “Pop” in the next circular.
It is interesting, if not impressive, this reform—like the abbreviation
of bicycle clothes and the sending of bad writing by wire.

* * * * *

That choking female on the cover of the _Mid-Continent_ is still
tottering, but hasn’t tumbled yet. Neither have the publishers, it would
seem.

* * * * *

A hammock and a book and a horse and a yacht are really enough to begin
with for Robert Grant. He says as much in _Scribner’s_ and he doesn’t
care a dam for Newport for a week or two. How little the things of this
vain world appeal to those who can have them by touching a button.

* * * * *

It runs in the Howl family. W. Dean has a daughter who puts her poems
under display ad heads in _Scribner’s_. The decorative head is the thing.
The poem just belongs.

* * * * *

The last _Century_ is not so distinctly medieval as some of its
predecessors.

* * * * *

Mrs. Robert Humphrey Elsmere Ward has quit twaddling for a space. “Bessie
Costrell” is ended, and it’s a toss up between jubilate and nunc dimittis.

* * * * *

The current _Atlantic_ is very pacific—not to say mild.

* * * * *

The June _Chautauquan_ really praises “newspaper English.” This is the
time of year when the Reservation wants all the newspaper English it can
get for nothing.

The amazing thing about that Amazing Marriage is the lot of talk the
proof reader has read about it.

* * * * *

Tarbell discovered Napoleon, but McClure discovered Tarbell. Now let’s
have a series of living documents—“Tarbell at 8,” “Tarbell at 9:30,”
“Tarbell at 46,” etc.

* * * * *

The World, the Flesh and the Devil have gone out of partnership in the
’Frisco _News-Letter_. The head of the firm retires.

THE SPOTTED SPRINTER.

AFTER THE MANNER OF MR. STEAMIN’ STORK.

I saw a man making a fool of himself;
He was writing a poem,
Scratch, scratch, scratch went his pen,
“Go ’way, Man,” says I; “you can’t do it.”
He picked up a handful of red devils and
Threw them at my head.
“You infernal liar,” he howled,
“I can write poetry with my toes!”
I was disquieted. I turned and
Ran like a Blue Streak for the Horizon,
Yelling Bloody Murder.
When I got there I
Bit a piece out of it
And lay down on my stomach and
Thought.
And breathed hard.

AN EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER.

ADDRESSED TO THE BAIRNS AND OTHER RELATIVES OF ALL SUCCESSFUL AUTHORS.

Ye kin of unco’ writing men,
How can ye sing sae weak, sae flat;
How can ye wag the little pen,
And I sae weary and a’ that!

A near relation ye may ain,
Wha’s joyed me muckle in the past—
That canna sooth my inward pain—
Ye’ll break my swelling heart at last!

Thou well mayst be a poet’s son,
And still shouldst gather trolley fare;
The daughter of a mighty one,
And yet shouldst maul the typewritair!

Oh, relatives of canny men,
Think ye that I’ve a heart to feel;
Stay, stay the wild cavorting pen,
And gie my wounds a chance to heal.

THE AHKOOND OF SWAT.

TO THE NICEST GIRL.

AFTER THE FRENCH OF PIERRE DE RONSARD.

Eyes of brown: The major key
In which, ’tis plain, days ought to be,
Seems all in minor chords; the strings
Have slipped down half-a-tone, and things
Are dark as blackest night to me.

And why? Because your brown eyes bring
The vision of a heart to me;
The vision of a heart to sing
Of Life and Love and Loyalty—
I may not win. That’s why the strings
Are out of tune.

H. P. T.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

ROCK & BUMBALL, Literary Undertakers.

Peacock Feather Caskets a Specialty. Caxton Building, Chicago.

* * * * *

USE BLISS CARMAN’S CONDITION Powders. Make poets lay. Chicago and Canada.

* * * * *

H₂ BOYSEN, Literary Analyst.

Ibsen interpreted while you wait. Columbia College, N. Y.

* * * * *

WALTER QUEER NICHOLS, ONE of Harper’s Young People, Manufacturer Castoria
Jokes. Warranted harmless. Address Harper’s Drawer, Franklin Square, New
York.

* * * * *

MAVERICK BRANDER MATTHEWS, Dealer in Local Color in bulk or tubes.
Columbia College, New York. Write for specimens. Reference, Bacheler,
Johnson & Bacheler.

* * * * *

WEE WILLIE WINTER, DESIGNER of graveyards. Weeps to order. References: A.
Daly, L. Langtry, A. Rehan.

* * * * *

CABLEGRAM.

Nice, 1 Juin.

To Bumball, Chicago:

PHILISTINE received. Fire Carman.

Rock.

Coll $7.61.

* * * * *

_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.

A series of well written essays, remarkable on the whole for observation,
refinement of feeling and literary sense. The book may be taken as a
wholesome protest against the utilitarian efforts of the Time-Spirit,
and as a plea for the rights and liberties of the imagination. We
congratulate Mr. Harte on the success of his book.—_Public Opinion_,
London, England.

Mr. Harte is not always so good in the piece as in the pattern, but he
is often 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.

For sale by all Booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by THE
PHILISTINE.

* * * * *

_LITTLE JOURNEYS_

To the Homes of Good Men and Great.

_A series of literary studies published in monthly numbers, tastefully
printed on hand-made paper, with attractive title-page._

By ELBERT HUBBARD

The publishers announce that Little Journeys will be issued monthly and
that each number will treat of recent visits made by Mr. Elbert Hubbard
to the homes and haunts of various eminent persons. The subjects for the
first twelve numbers have been arranged as follows:

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. Shakespeare

_LITTLE JOURNEYS: Published Monthly, 50 cents a year. Single copies. 5
cents, postage paid._

Published by G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS,

27 and 29 West 23d Street, New York.
24 Bedford Street, Strand, London.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I, No. 2, July 1895)" ***

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