The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I, No. 5, October 1895)

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Concerning Mr. Grant Allen’s book and the manner in which its title has been made the basis of several others more or less reminiscent, my most valued correspondent writes me that the novelists are missing much by not calling a story _The Woman Who Is Simply Dying To_. In my well known philanthropic way I throw out this suggestion hoping that somebody may make many dollars by the adoption of the title for a decadent tale.

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The Vanastorbilts are really under great obligations to Mrs. Rorer’s _Household News_ for the simple daily menus for poor folks which are a feature. There’s nothing so cheap as good living—in a magazine. When bread sticks and banana chutney and peaches and rice and cantaloupe can be mowed away by a poor man before the seven o’clock whistle blows no hard worker ought to lack muscle for his daily toil. We have printed assurance of Mrs. Bellow that “These menus have been arranged on a scientific plan, are thoroughly hygienic, and contain all that is necessary for proper living.” It is luck after all that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the hygienic mouth aforesaid.

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Messrs. Lo & Behold, publishers of works on moral pathology, Boston, are making great efforts to club the _Arena_. I understand they propose offering season tickets to museums of morbid anatomy as prizes.

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I note a somewhat guarded statement by Dr. Swan M. Burnett denying that he and his wife have separated or are undergoing that mutually humiliating process. All there is of it, he says, is that her work keeps her abroad and his keeps him in Washington. The doctor’s friends say, however, that the doctor and the writist live apart and have done so for years and that he is tired of being referred to as Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s husband. I think more likely he objects to being identified at the banks and elsewhere as the father of Little Lord Fauntleroy.

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The _Pell Mell Gazette_ of last Saturday contains a cablegram from Mr. Hall Caine, dated at East Aurora, N. Y., wherein the author of _The Manxman_ reports that the prospect for next year’s crop of ginger is very promising.

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I suppose it’s all right for the publisher of _Munsey’s_ to tell how he made that magazine jump from 20,000 to half a million copies a month by shutting out middlemen and reaching the hungering and thirsting public direct. That’s his cue. If the publisher didn’t blow his horn who would? I opine, however, that the fish would sell without it, and that the editor of _Munsey’s_ could tell them something a good deal more interesting in the same space. What does the great public, with its multitude of aims and desires, care how such an effect was accomplished? All that could safely remain within the veil. It would be more to the point if the editor or publisher of Mr. Bok’s collection of wax works would tell by what miracle he got a circulation. It is easy in the other case, regardless of the smart publisher. The time passed long ago when a horse being led to water could be forced to drink. The public must have wanted _Munsey’s_ when it was shut out by the middleman or they wouldn’t have compelled the dealers to send for it, and that implies that there’s something in it besides self-consciousness and the publisher’s tactical brilliancy. But how on earth came the embodied ego and its sisters and cousins and aunts to get a hearing anywhere? Is Ruth Ashmore, _alias_ Bab, at the bottom of it?

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A certain gentleman of my acquaintance, having heard until he is sick of it that it takes nine Taylors to make a man, continues to boldly assert that it takes two Chatfields to make a Taylor.

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When the PHILISTINE was started six months ago I had no idea that it would now have half a million subscribers.

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I am reminded by a Boston newspaper of the continued existence of a belief that criticism of books and other things more or less remotely connected with literature is largely a matter of prejudice and that the imprints on title pages determine the authors’ fate. Yet the same article goes on to quote the _Chip-Munk_ firm as proof that merit will win sometimes in spite of such drawbacks. It seems to me the instance proves too much.

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And here, just at the last, I want to set down what I have just read in a delightful book written by Katherine Cheever Meredith—Johanna Staats—because it seems to fit one’s mood at this time of year. This is it:

“Oh, I play with Miss Gray Blanket and I play with Fanny.”

“Fanny? The little girl?”

“Yes. After it’s dark, you know, I play with her. Then I talk to her. She never answers. But I play she’s so tired she can’t. Of course I can’t play _that_ when it’s light. For then I could _see_ that she wasn’t there. But in the dark she _might_ be.”

“Exactly,” responded Poole abstractedly. He was thinking that many men and women indulge in the same game. Sometimes with their faith in each other; but more often, though, with their creeds.

FANFARRONADE.

Let no man deem himself of Fate the King, Or challenge Fortune with a voice defiant— A tiny pebble in a shepherd’s sling Once overthrew a proud and boastful giant.

CLARENCE URMY.

NOTHING BUT LEAVES.

It was one of those November days when the wind swoops down the mountain sides, bringing an avalanche of leaves—disked oak leaves—and then leaving them for a moment in the valley basin, gathers them in her mighty hands and tosses them again almost to the mountain tops.

Chris found a sympathy in the dizzy, whirling, swirling leaves. His hopes had withered so, and now a girl’s changeful hand had been as reckless with him as was the wind with these: like wrath in death and envy afterwards.

Poor Chris’s spiritual kingdom was suffering the nature of an insurrection, for though he loved her he was too proud to tell her she had misjudged him. The dissipation of his hopes now was tinged with regret, just as the wanton winds seem to us ruthless as we remember when these leaves were planes and green, not disked and brown.

Mockingly came the dance of leaves around his feet—each like a thing alive—to beckon him here, there, to elude him, to laugh at him.

“It’s too hard to bear!” groaned Chris, between his teeth. “How could she believe it! How could she!”

A flurry of hurrying, scurrying leaves swept past him, a company of mocking, dancing leaves; from right and left they came, and scarce ten steps before him they met and swirled up—up into a monstrous wraith with beckoning hands. Chris’s conflict took form. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll show her! She’ll regret this day!” and he threw back his head and with flashing eyes started forward with resolute steps.

A lost leaf wavered, dipped, paused, then with a timid wafture touched his crisp curls.

His blood surged up, for it was like the caress of a loving hand.

“Oh no,” said Chris, “I may be wrong—I’ll tell her so;” and holding the lost leaf very gently between his two hands he walked swiftly back.

HONOR EASTON.

[Illustration: A FLOWER FROM THE CENTURY PLANT.

BY CHARLES DINNEH GIVES’EM.

The Princess Stony-eye kept on saying nothing.]