The Philistine: a periodical for curious persons (Vol. II, No. 6, May 1896)

G. W. STEVENS.

LIFE’S VOYAGE: A MOOD.

Dark and tumultuous seas Have quenched the lurid sun. Vapors, flame riven, writhingly ascend, And night comes winging on ’Cross sullen waves, While Death upon the bowsprit waiting sits.

Bereft of hope, Life’s running sands low spent, No rudder steers—nor beacon’s flame Tells us the course to sail. Alone, alone, breathed on by awful fears, Groping amidst life’s way for light, we drift.

WILLIAM B. FAVILLE.

OUR SYNDICATE LETTER.

I have been greatly amused quite recently by two little items that were printed in one of those short-lived magazinelets. One article was by Neith Boyce and the other by Emma Eggleson, both of which ladies are subscribers to _The Homely Ladies Journal_. If I am not mistaken one of these ladies raised a club for the _Journal_ (not at it), and when Mr. Curtis and me offered to send her abroad to be educated, the amusing fact was discovered that she already had a lovely education.

But the articles that amused me so much were about the penchant of editors to monkey with manuscript. Both articles were on the same theme, but the article by Neith Boyce was the longest. As Mr. Howells has not improperly spoken of one of Neith Boyce’s short stories as a crackerjack, and as this master of letters has also referred to a poem by Emma Eggleson as hotstuff, I feel that I am justified in saying that both of these ladies are arriving successward in the merry and dizzy field of literature very rapidly.

I have sometimes thought in my thoughtful way that the reason an editor is called by that appellation is because he loves to edit. A young literary aspirant told me of a case in point the other day. He wrote a lovely triolet which was accepted on its seventeenth trip by a paper which shall be nameless. When he sent it out it ran thus:

TRIOLET.

A nosegay of roses white Stands on my loved one’s table. Would I were they tonight, A nosegay of roses white, Placed on her brow so bright, To deck her tresses sable. A nosegay of roses white, Stands on my loved one’s table.

This is how it was printed:

A nosegay of roses white Is quite a pretty sight, Upon my loved one’s table. (Far better than in a stable.) It would be pleasant quite To be those roses white And deck her tresses sable— That is if I were able.

You see much of the poetic effluvia was lost when it had been edited.

A very witty novelist, author of a novel, by the way, said an awfully bright thing to me the other day. He was speaking of the way that certain houses had of sending you a postal saying your manuscript would receive attention. “That,” said he, “keys you up to concert pitch. But there isn’t any concert generally. Your manuscript is refunded: that’s all.” I had to laugh, it was so witty.

A well known poet told me the other day that an editor should be a judge of good poetry. Said he, “when an editor cuts two or three lines out of your sonnet to a wild flower or a wild animal, or anything whatever, and retains the distinguishing label, it is like passing off XX milk for the XXX article and the real connoisseur is justly indignant. An honest and self respecting poet wishes to give full measure in his sonnets and it is an injury to his moral character that the editor works when he palms off ten or a dozen for the usual fourteen or fifteen lines of a sonnet.”

Poets are not practical. Why didn’t he write that out himself and sell it for a dollar a line instead of giving me the chance?

I’m an editor myself in a small way.

I ask celebrated authors, actors, preachers, presidents, doctors, lawyers, generals, naval officers and the like to send in any old thing they happen to have on the hook and then I have it beautifully illustrated and print it just as it is; no matter how bad it is, I never change a line. It’s a matter of principal—not to say of interest. For above all things I wish to be honest and successful.

EDWARD W. TOK.

“IF LOVE WERE ALL.”

(THE PRISONER OF ZENDA.)

If Love were all! Sore smitten at the start, “Alas, is Love not all in all?” we cry, And lost in wretched egoism try Only to heal the individual smart. Then at Life’s summons from our dreams we start And seek, lest Life’s great stakes should pass us by, What labor nearest to our hands may lie, So half-knowingly, find our nobler part. Love is not all for us; perchance some few Love leadeth by the hand to higher ways— What matter since for us he is not king?— And some, more blessed yet, their labor through, Still in the golden glory of their days Shall garner love at a ripe harvesting.

ELIZABETH C. CARDOZO.

SIDE TALKS WITH THE PHILISTINES: BEING SOUL EASEMENT AND WISDOM INCIDENTALLY.

Dr. Robertson Nicoll, of London, England, a good Scot, is the present day discoverer of Scotch genius, and Ian Maclaren is largely the creation of his splendid audacity of prophecy and executive ability.

Dr. Nicoll is a noticeable and interesting personality in contemporary literature. He fully deserves his wide celebrity, for he has put into the chronicling of monotonous literary news and criticism an element of newsyness and vim that is characteristic of the best American journalism. He has made mere literary news as exciting and mysterious as politics or horseracing. We now bet on the sales of new poets as well as on the Derby favorites. This adds a great deal to the picturesqueness and interest of “The Literary Show,” and Dr. Nicoll deserves the credit due to a bold innovator. He marks an epoch in literary journalism, and his “Scotch era” will be remembered in history. But fashions change and Ian Maclaren, and some of Dr. Nicoll’s other inventions and discoveries, will pass into well deserved oblivion, in a very little while.

They are significant simply as striking examples of the creative genius of criticism. As “famous authors” they are purely factitious. In a word, they must be considered at par amply as the shadows and phantoms of Dr. Nicoll’s picturesque power of criticism and great creative gifts.

The literature of the Kailyard is having its day, but happily it will not last forever. It will eventually go the way of negro dialect fiction, when its unique adaptability as a conveyance for the perfectly obvious and the perfectly absurd come to be more generally recognized than is possible in this hour of perfervid enthusiasm.

All the Scots who want to be in the Scotch Sweepstakes and win, had better mount their nags in this hour of favor and get away. A few discerning and canny critics are still alive, and the suspicion is gaining ground among them from a perusal of Ian Maclaren’s pages, that the great literary prophet of Paternoster-Row, while a delightful chroniqueur and a generous soul, is not altogether an infallible judge of the permanent and essential elements of robust and distinctive literature.

* * * * *

The one man of the Nineteenth Century who will be remembered when all others are forgotten, and whose name will go clattering down the Corridors of Time like a tin kettle to a dog’s tail, is Professor J. Dorman Steele. This man covers all Science and all Philosophy. He has compiled text books on seventeen subjects and over three million volumes of his works have been sold. Darwin, Humboldt, Spencer, Huxley—all fade into misty nothingness when we think of Steele, and bless my soul! what a suggestive name that is anyway!!

* * * * *

The _Forum_ for March had an article concerning your Uncle Kruger and his folks. It was headed “Manners and Customs of the Boers.” But the compositor got it “Manners and Customs of the Boors,” just as if every one did not know only too well what they were already. I understand that nearly half of the edition was run before the mistake was discovered.

* * * * *

“If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d rent Texas and live in Hell,” once said Phil Sheridan. But now comes _The Fad_, one of the _Chip-Munk_ brood, printed on green paper at San Antonio, and claims that Texas has more real, sure-enough Culture than all of New England. This is only truism—Rodents!

* * * * *

Speaking of a certain very New Woman, Quilp says, “God made her, let her pass for a man.”

* * * * *

On sighting the Crookes tube in the direction of East Aurora we find there are some very choice things to appear in THE PHILISTINE within the next few months.—_Exchange._

* * * * *

So far no charge has been made that the Philistines were mixing up in the theatrical business; but on every hand the air is full of complaints because the stage has fallen into the hands of the Children of Israel. Even Mr. Howells has turned _Harper’s Weekly_ into a Periodical of Protest, and declares that the greed for dollars has dropped histrionics to a point where the drama is not only artistically decadent but positively demoralizing.

But a friend of mine takes issue with Silas Lapham and declares that there is a sure reaction just now in favor of plays with a strong ethical purpose. To prove his point he cites a certain curtain raiser called _The Flea Hunt_.

The scene opens, in this choice little fantasy, on the _ennui_ of a pretty young woman, whose husband, a sea captain, is far across the water. The afternoons pass slowly for her; she cannot read and tosses on her boudoir lounge distressfully. To add to her uneasiness a young man across the way has had the impudence to send her flowers and a note, with a rendezvous for 3 o’clock. Indignation. Pride of conscious strength. Admiration. Curiosity. Hesitation. Remorse. Prayers to her husband’s portrait. Sighs. Wriggles. Pillowtossing. Thoughtfulness.

The clock strikes 2. _Zut!_ She starts up guiltily, tiptoes across the room, and turns her husband’s picture to the wall. Now she is in a tempest of preparation with her street toilette. The time is growing short. She has her gloves, her hat, her cloak, her muff, her veil, her parasol, and stands at the open door to give a last apologetic look. Ouch! What is that! Can it be! Ouch! again. Certainly a flea is biting her neck—she reaches for it! Then the trouble begins. In the search for the nimble flea nearly everything the lady has on is cast aside. At last she finds it. But by this time she has revealed a very roly-poly tenement of clay with a center of gravity like a sofa pillow. Lingerie is strewn over chairs, tables, sofa and floor. She is clad only in very scanty, but dainty dimity. The clock is striking 3. Too late! she looks at the flea, first revengefully, then thoughtfully, then gratefully. Hesitatingly she slips across the room and turns her husband’s portrait to the light. Saved—providentially saved, saved by a flea! Curtain.

* * * * *

In 1859 there lived three miles north-east of Skowhegan an Old Farmer, and he subscribed for the New York _Tribune_. The reason he subscribed was because the Editor, one Horace Greely, wrote Hot Stuff. Now the Old Farmer was a great admirer of Mr. Greely and of the Hot Stuff and he induced several of his neighbors to subscribe for the _Tribune_ on account of the Hot Stuff and the greatness of Mr. Greely. Now it chanced that Mr. Greely wrote on many themes and on a certain day he produced Hot Stuff on a certain subject about which no man should write unless he has had a Call. When the Old Farmer read that particular editorial he was very wroth and he wrote a very angry personal letter to Mr. Greely, cancelling his subscription; and he also induced his neighbors to cancel theirs.

About a year after this the Old Farmer went to Skowhegan with a load of slipperyellum, and walking into a grocery he found the Grocer reading the New York _Tribune_. The Old Farmer started, stared, and exclaimed, “What er—eh—what er that paper you be readin’?”

“The New York _Tribune_,” was the answer.

“My! Judas Priest—that can’t be—me and three other fellows ordered it stopped a year ago!”

* * * * *

I hear that an article by Mr. Cudahy is soon to appear in _The Ladies Home Journal_. The subject is not yet announced but it probably will be “The Pigs that Have Helped Me.”

* * * * *

Latest advices from the Librarian of Congress confirm the report that Mr. Brander Matthews’ whiskers are fully covered by copyright.

* * * * *

Who says that woman has more feeling than man? Her feelings are more shallow, and this being so more ripple on the surface is seen, that’s all. So says Nax Moredough.

* * * * *

No doubt but that Mr. Howells is a great man, but he would be a greater if he never used in print those tattered and attenuated expressions, “so to speak” and “as it were.” These ancient terms belong with the hoary oratorical, “If I may be allowed the expression.” Further than this, I have gibes and jeers in store for any man who says “from time immemorial.”

* * * * *

In the _Forum_ for April Mr. Brander Matthews has a preachment entitled, _On Pleasing the Taste of the Public_. No man has made more anxious efforts to do it than Mr. Matthews.

* * * * *

I certainly have nothing against Mr. MacArthur nor against Mr. Dodd, who hires him. They are both nice men, and as an advertising sheet the _Bookman_ is certainly skilfully conducted. But they shall not mislead the dear public if I can help it. On page 36 of the March issue the _Bookman_ makes bold to tell us that Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were married “in September of 1866.” And then in the next column “on March 9th, 1869, was born their son.” If James Russell Lowell were alive today I can imagine him saying, “I may be a bookman, but by the eternal I’m not the kind issued by Dodd, Mead & Company.”

* * * * *

Philosopher and prophet, Edward S. Martin, avers that when the _Chip-Munk_ doubled its size it reduced its value one-half.

* * * * *

Way & Williams, Chicago, the publishers of Mrs. Wynne’s book, _The Little Room and Other Stories_, say that THE PHILISTINE’S mention of the volume sold seven thousand copies. Advertising rates made known on application.

* * * * *

“Should we have an Eleventh Commandment?” asked a youth of the Greatest Living Actress. “Most assuredly, no—we have ten too many now!” answered the divine Sara.

* * * * *

The fact that we have no “serving class” in America, and that some of us (or you) have wealth and insist on being waited upon, is a stream of tendency that makes for misery. The wives of very many of our rich men make a business of keeping up an establishment. They are not producers in any sense, and their one excuse for living is put out of court when we consider that “society” to them means neither affinity nor friendship. Their woes are in exact proportion to the number of servants that play tennis with their peace of mind. Or, more strictly speaking, the size of the house, showing the bigness of their cares, their happiness is in inverse ratio to the square of the domicile.

* * * * *

Writers who can gain an audience in a foreign and distant country reap some of the advantages of the cool and impartial interest of posterity. The English authors enjoy this advantage, and something more with the contemporary American reading public; but the English critics and public do not reciprocate our hospitality and impartiality in any degree, though there is a reported demand in England for American text books on electric lighting and improved methods of agriculture.

However, the future of the English speaking race is with us on this continent, and in Australia and in Africa, and so certain characteristics of the English mind and English literature will be remolded and touched and broadened by other racial influences. They have already been so modified and changed here since Emerson’s day. So, eventually, instead of Americans looking obsequiously over to Paternoster Row and Fleet street in all intellectual concerns, England will shrink into a small and insignificant provincial community, cut off from the rest of the race and its great centres of thought. Modern civilization will upset all the traditions of the old intellectual centres by making new ones. Thus our posterity will have a revenge on British condescension we can only enjoy in anticipatory imaginings. I wish I could live as long as Methusaleh to be alive then. England and English’ literature will perhaps finally hold the importance of the Provencal literature in France—it will be an archaic survival in the midst of the great throbbing heart of a great modern people. Our descendants will roar over our adulation of English female theological novelists.

* * * * *

The _Chip-Munk_ “Notes” are all long past due; and most depressing to contemplate. It was after trying to make sense of them that Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote:

I am tired, and that old sorrow Sweeps down the bed of my soul, As a turbulent river might suddenly break Away from a dam’s control. It beareth a wreck on its bosom, A wreck with a snow-white sail, And the hand on my heartstrings thrums away, But they only respond with a wail.

* * * * *

Here is a true story that I have pinched for the benefit of the Hivites, the Moabites, the Hittites and the Parasites: A nice young man in Scranton called on a nice young lady and spent the evening. When he arrived there was not a cloud in the sky, so he carried no umbrella and wore neither goloshes nor mackintosh. At ten o’clock when he arose to go, it was raining cats and dogs; the gutters o’erflowed and if it had been in Johnstown, it could properly have been called a Johnstown flood.

“My, my, my!” said the nice young lady, “if you go out in all this storm you will catch your death a’ cold!”

“I’m afraid I might!” was the trembling answer.

“Well, I’ll tell you what—stay all night; you can have Tom’s room, since he’s at college. Yes, occupy Tom’s room—excuse me a minute and I’ll just run up and see if it’s in order.”

The young lady flew gracefully up the stairs to see that Tom’s room was in order. In five minutes she came down to announce that Tom’s room was in order, but no Charles was in sight. Like old Clangingharp, he had passed out—no one knew where or how. But in a very few moments he appeared, very dripping and out of breath from running, a bundle in a newspaper under his arm.

“Why, Charles, where have you been?” was his greeting.

“Been home after my night shirt,” was the reply.

One dollar will secure this magazine for one year and twelve Little Journey booklets, which will be sent in a complete package, charges prepaid. Each of the Little Journey books treats of recent visits made by Mr. Elbert Hubbard to the homes and haunts of various eminent persons. They are delightfully unconventional sketches of places forever associated with the lives and works of some of the greatest names in English art and literature. The subjects are:

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. Shakspeare.