The So-called Human Race

The melancholy days have comeFor him who’s naturally glum:But for the man whose liver’s rightThese Autumn days are pure delight.

“Complains He Was Called Sexagenarian – Candidate Says Many Voters Thought It Had to Do With Sex.” – Boston Herald.

Flattered, but unappreciative.

Lady Godiva writes from Loz Onglaze: “Have been having wonderful weather. Quite warm yesterday, the first of December. Riding around with just my fur cape on.”

Some people hold potatoes for higher prices, while others, like Scribner’s Sons, hold sets of Henry James’ novels at $130, an increase of $82 over the original price.

JUST ABOUT

Sir: How long do you suppose the Snow Ball Laundry will last in Quinter, Kansas? The proprietor is G. W. Burns. P. V. W.

In an almanack, which is printed once a year, or in a dictionary or encyclopedia, which is republished after ten or twenty years, you would expect to find fewer errors than in a daily newspaper; but apparently time has little to do with it. Consulting the Britannica’s article on Anatole France, we were inexpressibly shocked to find therein the atrocities, “L’Ile des Penguins” and “Maurice Bàrrès.”

We were looking through the France sketch to see whether there was mention of a story he wrote before he became well known, entitled “Marguerite.” A Paris publisher found it recently in a magazine and asked M. France to write a preface to it, that it might be issued as a book. Quoth France: “It would be an excess of literary vanity on my part to resurrect the story. But my vanity would, perhaps, be greater were I to try to suppress it.”

Reference books, as is well known, improve like wine with age, and the efficiency of our proof room is to be accounted for, in part, by the vintage volumes that line its library shelf. There are sixty of these rare old tomes, and five of them are useful; these being, we think, first editions. There is a Who’s Who of the last century that is still in good condition, and the dictionary of biography with which Lippincotts began business. Bibliophiles would, we believe, enjoy looking over the shelf.

JAW JINGLESIf a Hottentot taught a Hottentot totTo talk ere the tot could totter,Ought the Hottentot tot be taught to say “ought,”Or “naught,” or what ought to be taught her?If to hoot and to toot a Hottentot totBe taught by a Hottentot tutor,Ought the Hottentot tutor get hot if the totHoot and toot at the Hottentot tutor?G. B.“NATURE NEVER DID DECEIVE …”

No sooner had blundering man accomplished the ruin of Halifax than Mother Nature sent a blizzard with a foot or two of snow. A kindly dame – as kindly as the old lady of Endor. She has her gentle, her amorous moods, in which we adore her, and write ballads to her beauty; but we know, if we are wise, that her beauty is “all in your eye,” to speak in the way of science, not of slang, and that she is savage as a jungle cat. Like some women and much medicine, she should be well shaken before taken, and always one must keep an eye upon Nature, or one may feel her claws in one’s back. So we have reflected on a summer’s day in woods; but the forest seemed not less beautiful, nor was our meditation melancholy. To be saddened by the inescapable is a great mistake.

NO. 68, COUNTING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT[From the Goshen, Ind., Democrat.]

Albert E. Compton, 68, a former well known Elkhart taxi driver, went to California last summer and told his friends he was going into the movies. A communication from him yesterday informed them of his appearance in a mob scene.

“Mrs. Fred L. Olson is on the programme to sing vocal selections.” – Portland Telegram.

That’s the trouble. They will sing them.

Our young friend who is about to become a colyumist might lead off with the jape about the switchman who asked for red oil for his lantern. Then there is that side-stitching sign, “Pants pressed, 10 cents a leg, seats free.”

COMMERCIAL CANDOR

Sir: A tailor in Denver advertises: “If your clothes don’t fit we make them.” W. V. R.

Heard, by R. M., in a department store: Shoe-polish demonstrator: “And if you haven’t already ruined your shoes with other cleaners this will do the work.”

FAREWELL!(By Poeta.)Comet, Comet, shining brightIn the spaces of the night,Every hour swinging higherFrom the Sun of thy desire;Astral vagrant, stellar rover,Dipping under, dipping overPath of Venus, Earth, and MarsTill there’s naught beyond but stars;Cutting, in thy lane elliptic,Thro’ the plane of the ecliptic,Far beyond pale Neptune’s track —Good-by, Comet! Hurry back!AN UNCOMMONLY HAPPY THOUGHT(A. J. Balfour, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1891.)

“It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.”

THE SECOND POST[The editor of the Winneconne, Wis., Local to his flock.]

Dear Subscriber: You probably know that the Local editor and his wife have been away from Winneconne most of the time during the last ten months. Every month we expected to get back again. The suspense was somewhat hard. During the meantime Mrs. Flanagan, each week, would worry and talk about the paper as much as ever. The doctor desired to have it off her mind. During the meantime she did not want the plant closed for even a short time. Now it has been decided to take a holiday vacation, during which time Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan will release themselves from all business cares and build up in health. No doubt, you will realize the delicate situation of the affair, and bear with us in the matter until the Local again resumes its regular publication dates, for surely both of us are very much attached to the paper, the town, and its people, and the surrounding country. M. C. Flanagan.

THE DAY OF “DON’TS.”Thanksgiving was a holiday I welcomed when a boy,But now it is a solemn feast without a jot of joy.It used to be a pleasure to attack the toothsome turkey,But now when I approach the bird I’m anything but perky.A multitude of dismal “Don’ts” impair my appetite;A fear of what may happen me accompanies each bite.There hovers round this holiday a heavy cloud of dreadThat never lifts till I am safe, with water-bag, in bed.I used to drink a glass of wine, but that is bad, I’m told,So now I ship in water – just as much as I can hold.To fail to fletcherize my food were fatal, without question;I never touch the stuffing, as it taxes the digestion.When the lugubrious feast is done I hasten from my chairTo open all the windows wide, and let in lots of air;And then I sit around an hour and chew a wad of gumUntil the fullness disappears from my distended tum.That pleasant, dozy feeling I compel myself to shake,For should I venture on a nap I’d never, never wake;And if I sneeze I take alarm and hasten out of doors,To start a circulation in my poison-clotted pores.The fact that I am still alive is due, I’m glad to say,To heeding all the dinner “Don’ts” that went with yesterday.It was, from soup to raisins, by and large, and all in all,The solemnest Thanksgiving meal that ever I recall.A BALANCED TUITION

Sir: The fourth grade teacher in Roland, Ia., is Viola Grindem. Fortunately for the kids the high school principal is Cora Clement. T. B.

“We wish the coöperative factories, a success,” says an esteemed contemporary on our left. So do we, with this prediction, that if success is achieved it will be by the same methods that are employed in the iniquitous capitalistic system.

Although the name topic bores us to distinction, as a young lady of our acquaintance puts it, we should feel we were posing if we neglected to find room for the following:

Sir: Deedonk, can you provide a chaise longue in the Romance language department of the Academy for George E. Ahwee of Colon, Panama?

Rusty.

We knew what was meant, and yet it gave us a slight start to read in a Minnesota paper, “Pickle your own feet while they are cheap and clean.”

OPINION CONCURRED IN

Sir: My heart with pleasure filled when I saw that Riquarius quoted it as I always want to do, “with rapture fills.” While I realized it is the height of presumption to think I could improve on Wordsworth, don’t you agree with me that rapture is more expressive than pleasure? Jay Aye.

“Rapture” might be preferred for another reason: the accent falls on a stronger syllable. Suppose George Meredith had used “pleasure” in his lines —

“Lasting, too,For souls not lent in usury,The rapture of the forward view.”

Every good poet has left lines that could be bettered for another ear. Probably Wordsworth leads the list.

TRANSCENDENTAL CALM

Sir: Remember the story about Theodore Parker and Emerson? While they were walking in Concord a Seventh Day Adventist rushed up to them and said, “Gentlemen, the world is coming to an end.” Parker said, “That doesn’t affect me; I live in Boston.” Emerson said, “Very well. I can get along without it.” E. H. R.

So the President has been converted to universal military training – as a war measure. Better late than never, as Noah remarked to the Zebra, which had understood that passengers arrived in alphabetical order.

THIS REFERS, OF COURSE, TO FRANCE[From Faguet’s “Cult of Incompetence.”]

Democracy has the greatest inducement to elect representatives who are representative, who, in the first place, resemble it as closely as possible, who, in the second place, have no individuality of their own, who, finally, having no fortune of their own, have no sort of independence. We deplore that democracy surrenders itself to politicians, but from its own point of view, a point of view which it cannot avoid taking up, it is absolutely right. What is a politician? He is a man who, in respect of his personal opinions, is a nullity, in respect of education a mediocrity; he shares the general sentiments and passions of the crowds, his sole occupation is politics, and if that career were closed to him he would die of starvation. He is precisely the thing of which democracy has need. He will never be led away by his education to develop ideas of his own; and, having no ideas of his own, he will not allow them to enter into conflict with his prejudices. His prejudices will be, at first, by a feeble sort of conviction, afterward, by reason of his own interest, identical with those of the crowd; and lastly, his poverty and the impossibility of his getting a living outside of politics make it certain that he will never break out of the narrow circle where his political employers have confined him; his imperative mandate is the material necessity which obliges him to obey; his imperative mandate is his inability to quarrel with his bread and butter. Democracy obviously has need of politicians, has need of nothing else but politicians, and has need indeed that there shall be in politics nothing else but politicians.

AN IOWA ROMANCE[From the Clinton Herald.]

Lost – A large white tom cat with gray tail and two gray spots on body. Return to 1306 So. Third street and receive reward.

Lost – “Topsy” black persian cat. Any one having seen her kindly call 231 5th ave.

WE SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED[From the Idaho Falls Register.]

A lady’s leather handbag left in my car while parked on Park avenue two weeks ago. Owner can have same by calling at my office, proving the property and paying for this ad. If she will explain to my wife that I had nothing to do with its being there, I will pay for the ad. C. G. Keller.

COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD[From the Tavares, Fla., Herald.]

The home of Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Duncan was the center of attraction Sunday afternoon. All the relatives and a few special friends were there to celebrate two happy occasions, the anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan’s marriage and the marriage of Miss Cora L. Peet, Mrs. Duncan’s sister, to Mr. J. E. Hammond, and the soft winds of March had blown the planet of love over this beautiful home.

The composition of the decorations adhered with striking fidelity to nature. The wide veranda was completely screened in by wild smilax and fragrant honeysuckle vines, which entwisted themselves among the branches of sweet myrtle and native palms, fitly transforming it into a typical Arcadian scene beckoning to

“Come unto the garden, Maud;I am here at the gate alone;And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,And the muck of the rose is blown.”

Soon the sound of music greeted the impatient ear. With a voice full of individuality of flavor and unusual quality, Mr. Carl E. Duncan, perfectly accompanied by his mother at the pianoforte, rendered “I Hear You Calling Me.” Then the coming of the bridal couple was heralded by the solemn tones of Mendelssohn’s wedding march. Never was a bride more beautiful; never —

[Well, hardly ever.]

AND HOW CALM THE OCEAN IS![Correspondence from Florida.]

I’ve fallen in love with the salt water bathing. It feels wonderfully refreshing here, below the equator.

POEMS YOU MAY HAVE MISSEDBetween the Barn and the WoodhouseBetween the barn and the woodhouse,Where oft old Jersey would stand,I remember ’twas on this self-same spotWhere she kicked Elizabeth Ann.I could hear the clang of the bucket,And also poor Annie’s refrain,And when the family reached her,She was writhing and groaning with pain.Mother stooped dawn to caress herAs she lay there stunned on the ground,And our big, simple minded brotherThought he should examine the wound.Without halt or hesitation,He dropped to his knees in the dirt;Although she lay stunned and bleeding,He asked her where she was hurt.Then Annie, in a half sitting posture,While resting on mother’s arm,Feebly responded to brother,“Between the woodhouse and barn.”W. T. N.

“The Chicago convention left the Democratic party as the sole custodian of the honor of the country.” – Orator Cummings.

Some custodian, nous en informerons l’univers!

To the inspired compositor and proof reader of the York, Neb., News-Times he is General Denuncio.

“The plebicide showed an overwhelming majority in favor of King Constantine’s return.” – St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Very good word.

We were not alone in financing the war. An income tax payment of $14,000,000 was made in New York yesterday. The identity of the individual is not disclosed, but the painstaking Associated Press says that “he is obviously one of the richest men in the United States.”

“Thinking as One Walks.” – Doc Evans.

“Meaning,” conjectures Fenton, “that if one is bow-legged one is likely to think in circles.” Or if one limps, one is likely to come to a lame conclusion. Or if – Roll your own.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BALDNESSOne by one the hairs are graying,One by one they blanch and fall;Never stopping, never staying —W. t. h. and d. i. all!W. R.A DEAD SHOT[From the Mt. Carmel, Ill., Republican.]

The Mount Carmel Gun club held its weekly shoot this afternoon, the chief feature being the demonstration of expert marksmanship by Mr. Killam of the Du Pont Powder Co.

IT WOULD PUT ’EM ON THE STAGE

Why does not some pianist give us a really popular recital programme? Frezzample:

Moonlight Sonata.The Harmonious Blacksmith.Mendelssohn’s Spring Song.Old Favorites:Recollections of Home.Silvery Waves.Monastery Bells.Etincelles.Waves of the Ocean.Gottschalk’s Last Hope.Clayton’s Grand March.The Battle of Prague.The Awakening of the Lion.

There is an encouraging growth of musical understanding and appreciation in this country. Even now you hear very many people say, “I liked the scherzo.”

“He sat down in a vacant chair,” relates a magazine fictionist. It is, everything considered, the safest way. Much of the discord in the world has been caused by gentlemen – and ladies as well – who sat down in chairs already occupied.

A Kenwood pastor has resigned because some members of his flock thought him too broad. The others, we venture, thought him too long.

“Prof. Hobbs Will Make Globe Trot” – Michigan Daily.

Giddap, old top!

Vacation Travels

It is a great pleasure to be free, for a time, from the practice of expressing opinion; free to read the newspapers with no thought of commenting on the contents; free to glance at a few hectic headlines, and then bite into a book that you have meant to get to for a long time past, to read it slowly, without skipping, to read over an especially well done page and to put the book aside and meditate on the moral which it pointed, or left you to point. Unless obliged to, why should anybody write when he can read instead? One’s own opinions (hastily formed and lacking even the graces of expression) are of small account; certainly they are of less account than Mr. Mill’s observations on Liberty, which I have put down in order to pen a few longish paragraphs. (I would rather be reading, you understand; my pen is running for the same reason some street cars run – to hold the franchise.) And speaking of Mill, do you remember the library catalogue which contained the consecutive items, “Mill on Liberty” and “Ditto on the Floss”?

One can get through a good many books on a long railway journey. My slender stock was exhausted before I reached Colorado, and I am compelled to re-read until such time as I can lay in a fresh supply. At home it is difficult to find time to read – that is, considerable stretches of time, so that one may really digest the pages which he is leisurely taking in. Fifty years ago there were not many more books worth reading than there are to-day, but there was more time to assimilate them. A comparatively few books thoroughly assimilated gave us Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. Not long ago my friend the Librarian was speaking of this short classic. “Did you ever,” said he, “read Edward Everett’s address at Gettysburg?” “No,” said I, “and I fear I shall never get to it.” “It is stowed away among his collected orations,” said he. “Not half bad. Unfortunately for its fame, Mr. Lincoln happened along with a few well chosen remarks which the world has preferred to remember.”

Another advantage of a long railway journey is the opportunity it affords to give one’s vocal cords a (usually) well-merited rest. It is possible to travel across the continent without saying a word. A nod or a shake of the head suffices in your dealings with the porter; and you learn nothing from questioning him, as he has not been on that run before. Also, business with the train and Pullman conductors may be transacted in silence, and there is no profit in asking the latter to exchange your upper berth for a lower, as he has already been entreated by all the other occupants of uppers. When the train halts you do not have to ask, “What place is this?” – you may find out by looking at the large sign on the station. Nor is it necessary to inquire, “Are we on time?” – your watch and time-table will enlighten you. You do not have to exclaim, when a fresh locomotive is violently attached, “Well, I see we got an engine” – there is always somebody to say it for you. And you write your orders in the dining car. There is, of course, the chance of being accosted in the club car, but since this went dry the danger has been slight. And conversation can always be averted by absorption in a book, or, in a crisis, by pretending to be dumb.

Not everybody can travel three or four days without exchanging words with a fellow traveler. Mr. George Moore, for example, would be quite wretched. Conversation is the breath of his being, he says somewhere. I understand that Mr. Moore has another book on press, entitled “Avowals.” Avowals! My dear!.. After the “Confessions” and the “Memoirs” what in the world is there left for the man to avow?

What a delightful fictionist is Moore! And never more delightful than when he is writing fiction under the appearance of fact. No one has taken more to heart the axiom that the imaginary is the only real. As my friend the Librarian observed, the difference between George Moore and Baron Munchausen is that Moore’s lies are interesting.

Travelers must carry their own reading matter under government ownership. The club car library now consists of time-tables, maps, and pamphlets setting forth the never to be forgotten attractions of the show places along the way. These are all written by the celebrated prose poet Ibid, and, with a bottle of pseudo beer or lemon pop, help to make the club car as gay a place as a mortician’s parlor on a rainy afternoon.

The treeless plateau over which the train rolls, hour after hour, is the result of a great uplift. It was not sudden; it was slow but sure. This result is arid and plateautudinous, in a manner of speaking – not the best manner. It makes me think of democracy – and prohibition. To this complexion we shall come at last. To be sure, the genius of man will continue to cut channels in the monotonous plain; erosion will relieve the dreary prospect with form and color, but it bids fair to be, for the most part, a flat and dry world, from which many of us will part with a minimum of regret. There will remain the inextinguishable desire to learn what wonders science will disclose. Perhaps – who knows? – they will discover how to ventilate a sleeping car.

At Albuquerque I remarked a line of Mexicans basking in the sun (having, perhaps, finished jumping on their mothers). They looked happy – as happy as the Russian peasants used to be. Men who know Russia tell me that the peasants really were happy, even under the twin despotisms of Vodka and Czar. It was not, of course, a reformer’s idea of happiness: a reformer’s idea of happiness is perpetual attention to everybody’s business but his own. People who are interested academically in other people’s happiness usually succeed in making everybody unhappy. Now, the Russian’s happiness was a poor thing, but his own. In reality he was wretched and oppressed, and his voice and bearing should have expressed his misery and hopelessness, instead of a foolish content and a silly detachment from political affairs. But he is at last emancipated, and, as was said of Mary’s fleecy companion, now contemplate the condemned thing!

Liberty, equality, international amity, democracy, the kingdom of heaven on earth – All that is very well, yet Candide remarked to Dr. Pangloss when all was said and done, “Let us cultivate our garden.”

There are so many interesting things along the way that I should, I suppose, be filling a notebook. But why mar the pleasure of a journey by taking notes? as the good Sylvestre Bonnard inquired. Lovers who truly love do not keep a diary of their happiness.

In Phoenix, Arizona, distance lends enchantment to the view. But the hills are far away, and as I did not visit the Southwest to contemplate the works of man, however ingenious, I followed the westering sun to where the mountains come down to the sea. I do not fancy the elevated parts of New Mexico and Arizona; and as there was no thought of pleasing me when they were created, I feel free to express a modified rapture in their contemplation. I should have remembered enough geology to know that granite is not found in this section, except at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The hills I like are made of old-fashioned stuff, not young upstart tufa and sandstone that was not thought of when the Laurentians were built. One really cannot have much respect for a rock that he can kick to pieces. The gay young buttes in this land of quickly shifting horizons are not without their charm; they look well in certain lights, and they are decidedly better than no hills at all. Although immature, they have an air of pretending to be very ancient, to be the ruins of mountains. They are picturesque and colorful. And I would swap a league of them for one archaic boulder the size of a box-car, with a thick coverlet of reindeer moss.

When I left the train at Pasadena I saw what I took to be a procession of the K. K. K. It proved to be citizens in flu masks. I was interested, but not alarmed; whereas a lady tourist who debarked on the following day fell in a swoon and was conveyed to the hospital. The newspapers charged her disorder to the masks, but as she was from Chicago I suspect that her reason was unsettled by the sudden revealment of a clean city. And Pasadena is clean – almost immaculate. I was obliged to join the masqueraders, and I found the inconvenience only slight. The mask keeps the nose warm after sundown, and is convenient to sneeze into. And I have never remarked better looking folks than the people of Pasadena. The so-called human race has never appeared to better advantage. The women were especially charming, and were all, for once, equally handicapped, like the veiled sex in the Orient.

Whoever christened it the Pacific ocean was the giver of innocent pleasure to every third person who has set eyes on it since. “There’s the Pacific!” you hear people exclaim to one another when the train reaches the top of a pass. “Isn’t it calm! That’s why it is called the Pacific. And it is pacific, isn’t it?” Some such observation must have escaped the stout adventurer in Darien, before he fell silent upon his peak.