 
Sixty-two right-foot shoes, toe to heel, they reached from my bedroom I was in despair when a small-footed man named Box proposed to me. I looked at his feet and accepted him. (I was sure the shoes would fit.) As soon as he was asleep I approached his prostrate form (my axe was sharp {I ground it myself} and my mind was set). Sixty-two soles inspired me. Note: I had cut off the wrong foot! Ah, yes, I wrote the “Purple Cow”— image But I can tell you Anyhow image The Lark Book II., Nos. 13-24, NOTES ON THE PASSING OF THE LARK Literary Review.—“Its ways were ways of pleasantness, and all its paths were peace. It had no enemies and all its friends were true ones. We see it go with a real regret and a feeling that we could have better spared a better paper.”—Carolyn Wells. New York Times.—“Regret moderately deep and thoroughly sincere will be felt all over the country, at the announcement that The Lark has ceased publication. A considerable number of people could see no humor and less meaning in its songs, but thousands of others had keener eyes and ears, and looked and listened with delight.” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.—“The Lark is dead, and the Epilark has come and gone, leaving behind them only a haunting echo of joyous song and a love of living delicious to contemplate.” St. Paul Daily Globe.—“But the mood in which we turn the Japanese pages of the last Lark is anything but flippant. It is something to have known youth and gayety, enthusiasm and a bravery which flies in the face of day, and now—something to have lost them. The Lark has lived and now dies well, and, to some at least, the time of its irregular appearance will no longer be a red-letter day.” The Philosopher.—“And now The Lark announces its end. It was the freshest, purest breath of air that ever blew across the atmosphere of letters.” London Times.—“So unique in literature and illustration, we are sorry to note that its publication is to be suspended. The bound volumes for the two years it has been running deserve a place in the libraries of all lovers of the odd and advanced in literature.” Paragraphs.—“No more shall its cool notes delight the tree-tops, and no longer may we follow in the footsteps of Vivette. It is a pity, of course; but what can you expect? Larks must be fed, and—no one thinks of feeding them.” Trenton Tribune.—“Its clever foolery shows how big a void was created when The Lark decided to sing no more. The Lark was the one new thing in junior magazinedom that did not outlive its welcome.” St. Louis Mirror.—“It smacked of Robert Louis Stevenson. It was ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in picture. It was art through a crazy looking-glass. It was the realism of nonsense. The whole country laughed at the strange pictures with the brilliantly unintelligible verses. But much of it was not understood of the people who need diagrams. The Lark was always too high in the blue for the many; but for those who might mount with him or to him—for those the magazinelet was published. Those enjoyed it; and now they regret it—for The Lark is no more. It was so original that its death is its only unoriginality.” The Lark Almanac for 1899: Being a collection of vagaries from The Lark, with original designs by Porter Garnett; uniform in size with “The Purple Cow.” Price, 50c. Published by Wm. Doxey, at the Sign of the Lark, San Francisco W HO’ll be the Clerk!” |
|
