Inveniat, quod quisque velit; non omnibus unum est, Quod placet; hic spinas colligit, ille rosas.
—Petronius.
THE PASSING OF SUMMER.
Summer is gone with its roses,
Summer is gone with its wine;
Likewise a lot of dam choses
Not so ideal and benign.
King Sol is visiting Virgo,
On his Zodiacal way.
’Morrow’s the twenty-third! Ergo,
Summer will vanish to-day.
Summer in town is a synonym for dullness. The theaters offer nothing of importance; only trivialities are to be found on “the trestles.” Musical directors appeal only to the ears—chiefly the long ears mentioned by Mozart. Bookstores offer “best sellers,” “the latest fiction,” and “books worth reading” on the same counter; and the magazines become even less consequential. Art in all its manifestations matches our garments for thinness and lightness.
During the canicular period intellectual activity [p 252] />is at a stand, and we should be grateful for the accident which tilted earth’s axis at its present angle; for when the leaves begin to fly before the “breath of Autumn’s being” we plunge into the new season with a cleared mentality and a great appetite for things both new and old.
A man asks the Legal Friend of the People, “Will you kindly publish whether or not it is illegal for second cousins to marry in the state of Illinois?” and the Friend replies, “No.” Aw, go on and publish it. There’s no harm in telling him.
WHYNOTT?
[From the Boston Globe.]
From this date, Sept. 25, 1920, I will not be responsible for any bill contracted by my wife, Mrs. Bernardine Whynott. G. Whynott.
In all the world the two most fragile things are a lover’s vows and the gut in a tennis racket. Neither is guaranteed to last an hour.
It would help along the economic readjustment, suggests Dean Johnson, of New York University’s school of commerce, if we all set fire to our Liberty Bonds. We can’t go along with the Dean so far, but we have a hundred shares of copper stock that we will contribute to a community bonfire.
[p 253]
The height of patriotism, confides P.H.T., is represented by Mr. Aleshire, president of the Chicago Board of Underwriters, who, billed to deliver a patriotic address in an Evanston theater, paid his way into the theater to hear himself talk.
IT MUST BE ABOUT TIME.
Sir: The Federal Reserve bank at New Orleans has received a letter from a patriot who wants to know where and when he shall pay the interest on his Liberty bond. Rocky.
“In fact, I’ve finished—would you say a sonnet?”—concludes H.G.H., to whom we recommend the remark of James Stephens: “Nobody is interested in the making of sonnets, not even poets.”
Referring to the persons who are given to the making of sonnets, Norman Douglas wrote: “I have a sneaking fondness for some of the worst of these bards.… And it is by no means a despicable class of folks who perpetrate such stuff; the third rate sonneteer, a priori, is a gentleman, and this is more than can be said of some of our crude fiction writers who have never yielded themselves to the chastening discipline of verse composition, nor warmed their hearts, for a single instant, at the altar of some generous ideal.”
[p 254]
The trouble with minor poets is well set forth by Conrad Aiken in The Dial, who refers to the conclusions of M.Nicolas Kostyleff after a tentative study of the mechanism of poetic inspiration: “An important part in poetic creation, he maintains, is an automatic verbal discharge, along chains of association, set in motion by a chance occurrence.”
POETRY.
(Lord Dunsany.)
What is it to hate poetry? It is to have no little dreams and fancies, no holy memories of golden days, to be unmoved by serene midsummer evenings or dawn over wild lands, singing or sunshine, little tales told by the fire a long while since, glow-worms and briar rose; for of all these things and more is poetry made. It is to be cut off forever from the fellowship of great men that are gone; to see men and women without their halos and the world without its glory; to miss the meaning lurking behind the common things, like elves hiding in flowers; it is to beat one’s hands all day against the gates of Fairyland and to find that they are shut and the country empty and its kings gone hence.
Why is it that in nearly all decisions of the Supreme court the most interesting opinions are delivered by the dissenting justices?
[p 255]
“New Jack-a-Bean dining room furniture, used two months; will sell cheap.”—El Paso Herald.
That is the kind that Louis Canns has his apartment furnished with.
A CHANGE FROM LATIN ROOTS.
[From the Reedsburg, Wis., Free Press.]
Miss Edna White resumed her school duties after a week’s vacation for potato digging.
OUR FAVORITE AUTUMN POEM.
(By a New Jersey poetess.)
Autumn is more beautiful, I think,
Than Spring or Winter are.
For then trees change at the river’s brink—
How beautiful they are.
I love to see the different colors so bright—
That grow around brooks & grottoes.
Leaves that are pressed are a pleasant sight
To make photograph frames & mottoes.
Dr. Johnson or somebody said that a surgical operation was necessary to get a joke into a Scotchman’s head; but the Glasgow Herald, reporting the existence of a London detective named Leonard Jolly Death, conjectures that it was probably [p 256] />an ancestor of his who was drowned in the butt of Malmsey wine.
One is usually mistaken in such matters, but we visualize Mr. Imer Pett, general manager of the Bingham Mines, in Salt Lake City, as quite otherwise.
THE SECOND POST.
[Received by a wholesale grocery house, from an Italian customer.]
Gentlemen: My wife wants me to suggest that you observe one of our Italian customs by remembering her with a bit of Christmas cheer. As she is the only wife I got I trust you will help me keep her. Joe.
DENTAL FLOSS.
Sir: D. Seiver is a dentist on Kedzie avenue. If I were a complete contrib, I might head this, “Now, this isn’t going to hurt a bit,” but, as I am not, I merely proceed to nominate C.O. Soots, of North Salem, Ind., as chief chimney sweep to the Academy, and propose the Rev. Ed. V. Belles of the First Presbyterian Church of Northville, Mich., to ring in the new for the members. As a substitute for Mr. D. Seiver, you might induce the nominating committee to accept Dr. J. Byron Ache, a dentist of Uniontown, Pa. Ballysloughguttery.
[p 257]
The melancholy days have come
For him who’s naturally glum:
But for the man whose liver’s right
These 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 [p 258] />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.
If a Hottentot taught a Hottentot tot
To 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 tot
Be taught by a Hottentot tutor,
Ought the Hottentot tutor get hot if the tot
Hoot 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.
[p 260]
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.”
[p 261]
FAREWELL!
(By Poeta.)
“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, [p 262] />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 dread
That 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.
[p 263]
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 chair
To open all the windows wide, and let in lots of air;
And then I sit around an hour and chew a wad of gum
Until 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.
[p 264]
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.”
[p 265]
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 [p 266] />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.
[p 267]
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.
[p 268]
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.
[p 269]
POEMS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED.
Between the Barn and the Woodhouse.
Between the barn and the woodhouse,
Where oft old Jersey would stand,
I remember ’twas on this self-same spot
Where 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 her
As she lay there stunned on the ground,
And our big, simple minded brother
Thought 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!
[p 270]
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 BALDNESS.
One 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.
[p 271]
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.
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.”
[p 272]
“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!
