Bert Leston Taylor

“Fay ce que vouldras.”

“FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS.”

That was an amusing tale of the man who complained of injuries resulting from a loaded seegar. He knew when he smoked it that it was a trick weed, and knew that it would explode, but he “didn’t know when.” He reminds us very strongly of a parlor bolshevist.

[p 40]
“Man,” as they sing in “Princess Ida,” “is nature’s sole mistake.” And he never appears more of a rummy than when some woman kills herself for him, in his embarrassed presence. His first thought is always of himself.

A history exam in a public school contains this delightful information: “Patrick Henry said, ‘I rejoice that I have but one country to live for.’”

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. There are some who, like a certain capable rounder, lately departed, have time to manage a large business, maintain two or more domestic establishments, razz, jazz, get drunk, and fight; while others of us cannot find time in the four and twenty hours to do half the things we wish to achieve. Although your orator has nothing to do but “write a few headlines and go home,” as Old Bill Byrne says, night overtakes him with half his chores undone. Time gallops withal.

“They know what they like.”

There are exceptions. The author of “Set Down in Malice” mentions a number, the most conspicuous being Ernest Newman. And we recall an exception, Mr. Jimmie Whittaker, merriest of critics, who was so far from knowing what he liked that he adopted the plan, in considering the Symphony concerts, of praising the even [p 41] />numbers one week and damning the even numbers the following week.

Like Ernest Newman, we shall never again hear the Chopin Funeral March without being reminded of Mr. Sidgwick’s summary: “Most funeral marches seem to cheer up in the middle and become gloomy again. I suppose the idea is, (1)the poor old boy’s dead; (2)well, after all, he’s probably gone to heaven; (3)still, anyhow, the poor old boy’s dead.”

Our readers, we swear, know everything. One of them writes from La Crosse that Debussy’s “Canope” has nothing to do with the planet Canopus, but refers to the ancient Egyptian city of that name. Mebbe so (we should like proof of it), but what of it?—as Nero remarked when they told him Rome was afire. The Debussy music does as well for the star as for the city. It is ethereal, far away, and it leaves off in mid-air. There is a passage in “Orpheus and Eurydice” which is wedded to words expressing sorrow; but, as has been pointed out, the music would go as well or better with words expressing joy.

“Lincoln,” observed Old Bill Byrne, inserting a meditative pencil in the grinder, “said you can fool all the people some of the time. But that [p 42] />was in the sixties, before the Colyum had developed a bunch of lynx-eyed, trigger-brained, hawk-swooping, owl-pouncing fans that nobody can fool for a holy minute.”

Fishing for errors in a proof-room is like fishing for trout: the big ones always get away. Or, as Old Bill Byrne puts it, while you’re fishing for a minnow a whale comes up and bites you in the leg.

Whene’er we take our walks abroad we meet acquaintances who view with alarm the immediate future of the self-styled human race; but we find ourself unable to share their apprehension. We do not worry about lead, or iron, or any other element. And human nature is elemental. You can flatten it, as in Russia; you can bend, and twist, and pound it into various forms, but you cannot decompose it. And so the “new order,” while perhaps an improvement on the old, will not be so very different. Britannia will go on ruling the waves, and Columbia, not Utopia, will be the gem of the ocean.

“Woman’s Club Will Hear Dr. Ng Poon Chew.”—Minneapolis News.

We believe this is a libel on Dr. Poon.

[p 43]
The Greek drachma is reported to be in a bad way. Perhaps a Drachma League could uplift it and tide it over the crisis.

THE DELIRIOUS CRITIC.
[From the Sheridan, Wyo., Enterprise.]

Replete with fine etherially beautiful melody and graceful embellishments, it represents Mozart at his best, expressing in a form as clear and finely finished as a delicate ivory carving that mood of restful, sunny, impersonal optimism which is the essence of most of his musical creations. It is like some finely wrought Greek idyl, the apotheosis of the pastoral, perfect in detail, without apparent effort, gently, tenderly emotional, without a trace of passionate intensity or restless agitation, innocent and depending, as a mere babe. It is the mood of a bright, cloudless day on the upland pastures, where happy shepherds watch their peaceful flocks, untroubled by the storm and stress of our modern life, a mood so foreign to the hearts and environment of most present day human beings, that it is rarely understood by player or hearer, and still more rarely enjoyed. It seems flat and insipid as tepid water to the fevered lips of the young passion-driven, ambition-goaded soul in its first stormy period of struggle and achievement; but later, it is welcomed as the answer to that inarticulate, but ever [p 44] />increasingly frequent, sign for peace and tranquil beauty.

SOMEWHERE IN THE MICHIGAN WOODS.

Sir: Last night I disturbed the family catawollapus—nÉe Irish—with, “Are you asleep, Maggie?” “Yis, sor.” “Too bad, Maggie; the northern lights are out, and you ought to see them.” “I’m sorry, sor, but I’m sure I filled them all this morning.” What I intended to say was that I have taken the liberty of christening a perfectly good he-pointer pup Jet Wimp. Hope it is not lese majestÉ against the revered president of the Immortals. Salvilinus Fontanalis.

A Sheboygan merchant announces a display of “what Dame Nature has decreed women shall wear this fall and winter.”

In considering additions to the Academy of Immortals shall Anna Quaintance be forgot? She lives in Springfield.

A box-office man has won the politeness prize. Topsy-turvy world, did you say?

We lamp by the rural correspondence that Mrs. Alfred Snow of Chili, Wis., is on her way to Bismarck, N.D. It is suggested that she detour to Hot Springs and warm up a bit.

[p 45]
BLAKE COMES BACK.

EVERYBODY CAME IN A FORD.
[From the Milwaukee Sentinel.]

Miss Evelyn Shallow, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Shallow, and Raymond Bridger, both of Little River, were married recently at Oconto.

[p 46]
Considering the pictorial advertisements, A. B. Walkley finds that that triumphant figure of the active, bustling world, the business man, divides his day somewhat as follows: He begins with his toilet, which seems to center in or near his chin, which is prominent, square, firm, and smooth; even the rich, velvety lather cannot disguise it. The business man collects safety razors; he collects collars, too. He seems to be in the habit of calling in his friends to see how perfectly his shirt fits at the neck. Once dressed, he goes to his office and is to be found at an enormous desk bristling with patent devices, pleasantly gossiping with another business man. You next find him in evening dress at the dinner table, beaming at the waiter who has brought him his favorite sauce. Lastly you have a glimpse of him in pajamas, discoursing with several other business men in pajamas, all sitting cross-legged and smoking enormous cigars. This is the end of a perfect business day.

Mr. Kipling has obtained an injunction and damages because a medicine company used a stanza of his “If” to boost its pills. While we do not think much of the verses, we are glad the public is reminded that the little things which a poet dashes off are as much private property as a bottle of pills or a washing machine.

[p 47]
Animals in a new Noah’s Ark are made correctly to the scale designed by a London artist who studies the beasts in the Zoo. Would you buy such an ark for a child? Neither would we.

Social nuances are indicated by a farmer not far from Chicago in his use of table coverings, as follows: For the family, oil cloth; for the school teacher, turkey red; for the piano tuner, white damask.

SHE SAT APART.

Sir: We were talking across the aisle. Presently the girl who sat alone leaned over and said: “You and the lady take this seat. I’m not together.” A.H.H.A.

THE G.P.P.

Sir: What is the gadder’s pet peeve? Mine is to be aroused by the hotel maid who jiggles the doorknob at 8a.m., when the little indicator shows the room is still locked from the inside. It happened to me to-day at the Blackhawk in Davenport. W.S.

BEG YOUR PARDON.

W.S. writes, after a long session with his boss, that the recent announcement he was disturbed at 8o’clock by the rattling of his hotel door was a [p 48] />typographical error committed in this office (sic), the hour as stated by him really having been 6.30a.m.

The manager of the Hotel Pomeroy, Barbados, W.I., warns: “No cigarettes or cocktails served to married ladies without husband’s consent.”

It is years since we read “John Halifax, Gentleman,” but we must dust off the volume. The Japanese translation has a row of asterisks and the editor’s explanation: “At this point he asked her to marry him.”

Gadders have many grievances, and one of them is the small-town grapefruit. One traveler offers the stopper of a silver flask for an authentic instance of a grapefruit served without half of the tough interior thrown in for good measure.

If Jedge Landis has time to attend to another job, a great many people would like to see him take hold of the Senate and establish in it the confidence of the public. It would be a tougher job than baseball reorganization, but it is thought he could swing it.

YES?

[p 50]
The dissolution of Farmer Pierson, of Princeton, Ill., from rough-on-rats administered, it is charged, by his wife and her gentleman friend, is a murder case that reminds us of New England, where that variety of triangle reaches stages of grewsomeness surpassed only by “The Love of Three Kings.” How often, in our delirious reporter days, did we journey to some remote village in Vermont or New Hampshire, to inquire into the passing of an honest agriculturist whose wife, assisted by the hired man, had spiced his biscuits with arsenic or strychnine.

On the menu of the Woman’s City Club: “Scrambled Brains.” Do you wonder, my dear?

We quite understand that if Mr. Moiseiwitsch is to establish himself with the public he must play old stuff, even such dreadful things as the Mozart-Liszt “Don Giovanni.” It is with Chopin valses and Liszt rhapsodies that a pianist plays an audience into a hall, but he should put on some stuff to play the audience out with. Under this arrangement those of us who have heard Chopin’s Fantasie as often as we can endure may come late, while those who do not “understand” Debussy, Albeniz, and other moderns may leave early. The old stuff is just as good to-day as it was twenty years ago, but some of us ancients have got past that stage of musical development.

[p 51]
THE MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT.

Sir: This story was related to me by Modeste Mignon, who hesitates to give it to the “Embarrassing Moments” editor:

“Going down Michigan avenue one windy day, I stopped to fix my stocking, which had come unfastened. Just as my hands were both engaged a gust of wind lifted one of my hair tabs and exposed almost the whole of my left ear. I was never so embarrassed in my life.” Ballymooney.

THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER.
[From the White Salmon Enterprise.]

The bridal couple stood under festoons of Washington holly, and in front of a circling hedge of flowering plants, whose delicate pink blossoms gave out a faint echo of the keynote of the bride’s ensemble.

EVERYTHING CONSIDERED, THE COMMA IS THE MOST USEFUL MARK OF PUNCTUATION.
[From the El Paso Journal.]

Prof. Bone, head of the rural school department of the Normal University, gave an address to the parents and teachers of Eureka, Saturday evening.

[p 52]
Galesburg’s Hotel Custer has sprung a new one on the gadders. Bub reports that, instead of the conventional “Clerk on Duty, Mr. Rae,” the card reads: “Greeter, Rudie Hawks.”

A communication to La Follette’s Magazine is signed by W.E.T.S. Nurse, N.Y. City. What is the “S” for?

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.
[From the Walsh County, N.D., Record.]

A quiet wedding occurred Friday, when Francis A. Tardy of Bemidji, Minn., was united in marriage to Miss Leeva Ness.

THE ENRAPTURED REPORTER; OR, IT INDEED WAS.
[From the St. Andrew’s Bay, Fla., News.]

Mrs. Paddock, Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Templeton, and Mrs. Cottingham, all of whom are visiting Mrs. Turesdel, the hostess of Monday’s picnic, were keenly appreciative of such bits of beauty as the day revealed. Florida, herself a hostess of lavish hospitality, seemed to be more radiant, and when night came and the boat pulled her way out into the bay, still another surprise awaited the northerners. In the wake of the boat shimmered a thousand, yea, a million jewels. The little waves crested with opals and pearls. The [p 53] />weirdly beautiful phenomena filled the visitors with delighted wonder as they leaned over the water and watched the flashing colors born of the night. As the lights of our city hove into view, the voice of Mrs. Templeton, a voice marvelously sweet, sang “The End of a Perfect Day,” as indeed it was.

A “masquerade pie supper” was given in Paris, Ill., last week. The kind of pie used is not mentioned, but it must have been either cranberry or sweet potato.

CONTRETEMPS IN WYOMING SOCIETY.
[From the Sheridan Post.]

No finer dressed party of men and women ever assembled together in this city than those who took part in the ball given by the bachelors of Sheridan to their married friends. Many of the costumes deserve mention, but the Post man is not capable of describing them properly. The supper and refreshments were of the kind that all appreciated, and was served at just the right time by obliging waiters, who seemed to enter into the spirit of the times and make every one feel satisfied. Only one deplorable thing transpired at the dance, and it was nobody’s fault. Dr. Newell had the misfortune to lean too far forward when bowing to a lady and tear his pants across the [p 54] />seams. He had filled his program, and had a beautiful partner for each number, but he had to back off and sit down.

MERCIFULLY SEPARATED.

Sir: A fellow-gadder is sitting opposite me at this writing table. It seems that some old friend of his in Texas, out of work, funds, and food, has written him for aid, and he is replying: “Glad you’re so far away, so we sha’n’t see each other starve to death.” Sim Nic.

Freedom shrieked when Venizelos fell. But Freedom has grown old and hysterical, and shrieks on very little occasion.

The attitude of the Greeks toward “that fine democrat Venizelos” reminds our learned contemporary the Journal of the explanation given by the ancient Athenian who voted against Aristides: he was tired of hearing him called “the Just.” It is an entirely human sentiment, one of the few that justify the term “human race.” It swept away Woodrow the Idealist, and all the other issues that the parties set up. If it were not for the saturation point, the race would be in danger of becoming inhuman.

The allies quarreled among themselves during the war, and have been quarreling ever since. A [p 55] />world war and a world peace are much too big jobs for any set of human heads.

ACADEMY NOTES.

Sir: If there is a school of expression connected with the Academy I nominate for head of it Elizabeth Letzkuss, principal of the Greene school, Chicago. Calcitrosus.

Members of the Academy will be pleased to know that their fellow-Immortal, Mr. Gus Wog, was elected in North Dakota.

We regret to learn that one of our Immortals, Mr. Tinder Tweed, of Harlan, Ky., has been indicted for shooting on the highway.

TO MARY GARDEN—WITH A POSTSCRIPT.

It is chiefly a matter of temperament. And more impudence and assurance is required to crack a safe or burglarize a dwelling than to cancel a shipment of goods in order to avoid a loss; but one is as honest a deed as the other. Or it would be better to say that one is as poor policy as the other. For it is not claimed that man is an honest animal; it is merely agreed that honesty profits him most in the long run.

ACADEMY JOTTINGS.

J.P.W.: “I present Roley Akers of Boone, Ia., as director of the back-to-the-farm movement.”

C.M.V.: “For librarian to the Immortals I nominate Mrs. Bessie Hermann Twaddle, who has resigned a similar position in Tulare county, California.”

[p 57]
This world cannot be operated on a sentimental basis. The experiment has been made on a small scale, and it has always failed; on a large scale it would only fail more magnificently. People who are naturally kind of heart, and of less than average selfishness, wish that the impossible might be compassed, but, unless they are half-witted, or are paid agitators, they recognize that the impossible is well named. Self-interest is the core of human nature, and before that core could be appreciably modified, if ever, the supply of heat from the sun would be so reduced that the noblest enthusiasm would be chilled. The utmost achievable in this sad world is an enlightened self-interest. This we expect of the United States when the peace makers gather. Anything more selfish would be a reproach to our professed principles. Anything less selfish would be a reproach to our intelligence.

I SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR, IT WENT RIGHT THROUGH MISS BURROUGHS’ HAIR.
[From the Dallas Bulletin.]

We quote Miss Burroughs: “I don’t think B.L.T. is so good any more—it takes an intelligent person to comprehend his meaning half the time.”

[p 58]
The world is running short of carbonic acid, the British Association is told by Prof. Petrie. “The decomposition of a few more inches of silicates over the globe will exhaust the minute fraction of carbonic acid that still remains, and life will then become impossible.” But cheer up. The Boston Herald assures us that “there is no immediate cause of alarm.” Nevertheless we are disturbed. We had figured on the sun growing cold, but if we are to run out of carbonic acid before the sun winds up its affairs, a little worry will not be amiss. However, everybody will be crazy as a hatter before long, so what does it matter? Ten years ago Forbes Winslow wrote, after studying the human race and the lunacy statistics of a century: “I have no hesitation in stating that the human race has degenerated and is still progressing in a downward direction. We are gradually approaching, with the decadence of youth, a near proximity to a nation of madmen.”

AS JOYCE KILMER MIGHT HAVE SAID.
[Kit Morley in the New York Evening Post.]
“The Chicago Tribune owns forests of pulp wood.”
—Full-page advt.

“Remake the World” is a large order—too large for statesmen. Two lovers underneath the Bough may remake the world, remold it nearer to the heart’s desire—or come as near to it as possible; but not a gathering of political graybeards. For better or worse the world is made; all we can do is modify it here and there.

THE SECOND POST
[A Swedish lady seeks congenial employment.]

Madam: A few days ago I were happy enough to meet Mrs. J. Hansley and she told me that you migh possible want to engauge a lady to work for you. I am swede, in prime of like, in superb health, queite of habits, and can handle a ordinary house. I can give references as to [p 60] />characktar. If you want me would you kindly write and state wadges. Or if you don’t, would you do a stranger a favour and put me in thuch wit any friend that want help. I hold a very good situation in a way, but I am made to eat in the kitchen and made to feel in every way that I am a inferior. I dont like that. I dont want a situation of that kind. They are kind to me most sertainly in a way, but as I jused to be kind to my favorite saddle horse. I dont want that kind of soft soap. Yours very respecktfully, etc.

A WISCONSIN PARABLE.
[From the Fort Atkinson Union.]

A friend asks us why we keep on pounding La Follette. He says there is no use pounding away at a man after he’s dead. Maybe we are like the man who was whaling a dead dog that had killed his sheep. “What are you whaling that cur for?” said a neighbor. “There is no use in that; he’s dead.” “Well,” said the man, “I’ll learn him, damn him, that there is punishment after death.”

Another way to impress upon the world the fact that you have lived in it is to scratch matches on walls and woodwork. A banged door leaves no record except in the ear processes of the [p 61] />persons sitting near the door, whereas match scratches are creative work.

HE SHOULD.

Sir: Mr. Treetop, 6 feet 2 inches, is a porter at the St. Nicholas Hotel, Decatur. Would he add anything to the landscape gardening surrounding the Academy of Immortals? W.N.C.

WHY THE EDITOR BEAT IT.
[From the Marengo Republican-News.]

Baptist Church, 7:30p.m.—Popular evening service. Subject, “Fools and Idiots.” A large number are expected.

Speaking again of “experience essential but not necessary,” it was a gadder who observed to a fellow traveler in the smoker: “It is not only customary, but we have been doing it right along.”

“Even now,” remarks an editorial colleague, “the person who says ‘It is I’ is conscious of a precise effort which exaggerates the ego.” No such [p 62] />effort is made by one of our copyreaders, who never changes ‘who’ or ‘whom’ in a piece of telegraph copy; because, says he, “I never know which is right.”

HERE IT IS AGAIN.
[From the classified ads.]

Saleslady, attractive, energetic, ambitious hustler. Selling experience essential but not necessary. Fred’k H. Bartlett &Co.

Her attractiveness, perchance, is also essential but not necessary.

We see by the lith’ry notes that Vance Thompson has published another book. Probably we told you about the farmer in Queechee at whose house Vance boarded one summer. “He told me he was going to do a lot of writing,” said the h. h. s. of t. to us, “and got me to hitch up and drive over to Pittsfield and buy him a quart bottle of ink. And dinged if he didn’t give me the bottle, unopened, when he went back to town in the fall.”

AFTER READING HARVEY’S WEEKLY.

The Nobel prize for the best split infinitive has been awarded to the framer of the new administrative code of the state of Washington, which contains this:

“To, in case of an emergency requiring expenditures in excess of the amount appropriated by the legislature for any institution of the state, state officer, or department of the state government, and upon the written request of the governing authorities of the institution, the state officer, or the head of the department, and in case the board by a majority vote of all its members determines that the public interest requires it, issue a permit in writing,” etc.

“‘When this art reaches so high a standard the Post deems it a duty to publicly commend it.’—Edward A. Grozier, Editor and Publisher the Boston Post.”

But ought a Bostonian to split his infinitives in public? It doesn’t seem decent.

Every now and then a suburban train falls to pieces, and the trainmen wonder why. “What do you know about that?” they say. “It was as [p 64] />good as new this morning.” It never occurs to them that the slow but sure weakening of the rolling stock is due to Rule 7 in the “Instructions to Trainmen,” which requires conductors and brakemen to close coach doors as violently as possible. Although not required to, many passengers imitate the trainmen. With them it is a desire to make a noise in the world. If a man cannot attract attention in the arts and the professions, a sure way is to bang doors behind him.

DOXOLOGY.

[p 65]
We like Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, Kubla Khan, and many other unfinished things, but we have always let unfinished novels alone—unless you consider unfinished the yarn that “Q” finished for Stevenson. And so we are unable to appreciate the periodical eruptions of excitement over “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” Were we to read it, we dessay we should be as nutty as the Dickens fans.

Mr. Basso, second violin in the Minneapolis Orchestra, would seem to have missed his vocation by a few seats.

MY DEAR, YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN FRED!
[From the Milwaukee Sentinel.]

In this one, the orchestra became a troupe of gayly appareled ballerinas, whirling in splendid abandon, with Mr. Stock as premiÈre.

One lamps by the advertisements that the Fokines are to dance Beethoven’s “Moonshine” sonata. The hootch-kootch, as it were.

OFT IN THE STILLY WISCONSIN NIGHT.

Sir: California may have the most sunshine, but I’ll bet Wisconsin has the most moonshine. E.C.M.

[p 66]
Did ever a presidential candidate say a few kind words for art and literature, intimate the part they play in the civilizing of a nation, and promise to further them by all means in his power, that the people should not sink deeper into the quagmire of materialism? Probably not.

“Hercules, when only a baby, strangled two servants,” according to a bright history student. Nobody thought much about it in those days, as there were plenty to be had.

Absolute zero in entertainment has been achieved. A young woman recited or declaimed the imperishable Eighteenth Amendment in an Evanston church.

With Jedge Landis at the head of grand baseball and Mary Garden at the head of grand opera, the future of the greatest outdoor and indoor sports is temporarily assured.

Rome toddled before its fall.