The So-called Human Race Part 34

At a concert in Elmira, N. Y., according to the Telegram, William Kincade sang "Tolstoi's Good Bye." Some one sings it every now and then.

Among the forty-six professors removed from the universities of Greece were, we understand, all those holding the chair of Greek. Another blow at the cla.s.sics.

LITERATURE.

A great deal of very good writing has been done by invalids, but it is not likely that anybody ever produced a line worth remembering while suffering with a plain cold.

We were saying to our friend Dr. Empedocles that we kept our enthusiasms green by never taking anything very seriously. "That's interesting,"

said he: "I, too, have kept my enthusiasm fresh, and I have always taken everything seriously." The two notions seemed irreconcilable, but we presently agreed that by having a great number and variety of enthusiasms one is not likely to ride any of them to death. We all know persons who wear out an enthusiasm by taking it as solemnly as they would a religious rite.

We were sure that the headline, "Mint at Chicago Greatly Needed, Houston Says," would inspire more than one reader to remark that the mint is the least important part of the combination.

We are reminded of the experience of a friend who has a summer place in Connecticut. At church the pastor announced a fund for some war charity, and asked for contributions. Our friend sent in fifty dollars, and a few days later inquired of the pastor how much money had been raised, "Fifty-five dollars and seventy-five cents," was the answer. The pastor had contributed five dollars.

SONG.

[In the manner of Laura Blackburn.]

_I quested Love with timid feet, And many qualms and perturbations-- Hoping yet fearing we should meet, Because I knew my limitations._

_When Love I spied I fetched a sigh-- A sigh a Tristan might expire on: "I must apologize," said I, "For not resembling Georgie Byron."_

_Love laughed and said, "You know I'm blind,"

And pinched my ear, the little cutie!

"Her heart and yours shall be entwined, Tho' you were twice as shy on beauty."_

Throwing self-interest to the winds, a Chicago sweetshop advertises: "That we may have a part in the effort to bring back normal conditions and reduce the high cost of living, our prices on chocolates and bon-bons are now one dollar and fifty cents per pound."

Persons who are so o. f. as to like rhyme with their poetry may discover another reason for their preference in the following pa.s.sage, which Edith Wyatt quotes from Oscar Wilde:

"Rime, that exquisite echo which in the Muse's hollow hill creates and answers its own voice; rime, which in the hands of the real artist becomes not merely a material element of material beauty, but a spiritual element of thought and pa.s.sion also, waking a new mood, it may be, or stirring a fresh train of ideas, or opening by mere sweetness and suggestion of sound some golden door at which the Imagination itself had knocked in vain; rime which can turn man's utterance to the speech of G.o.ds"--

We promised Miss Wyatt that the next time we happened on the parody of Housman's "Lad," we would reprint it; and yesterday we stumbled on it.

Voila!--

THE BELLS OF FROGNAL LANE.

They sound for early Service The bells of Frognal Lane; And I am thinking of the day I shot my cousin Jane.

At Frognal Lane the Service Begins at half-past eight, And some folk get there early While others turn up late.

But, come they late or early, I ne'er shall be again The careless chap of days gone by Before I murdered Jane.

We have been looking over "Forms Suggested for Telegraph Messages,"

issued by the Western Union. While more humorous than perhaps was intended, they fall short of the forms suggested by Max Beerbohm, in "How Shall I Word It?" As for example:

LETTER IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WEDDING PRESENT.

Dear Lady Amblesham,

Who gives quickly, says the old proverb, gives twice. For this reason I have purposely delayed writing to you, lest I should appear to thank you more than once for the small, cheap, hideous present you sent me on the occasion of my recent wedding. Were you a poor woman, that little bowl of ill-imitated Dresden china would convict you of tastelessness merely; were you a blind woman, of nothing but an odious parsimony. As you have normal eyesight and more than normal wealth, your gift to me proclaims you at once a Philistine and a miser (or rather did so proclaim you until, less than ten seconds after I had unpacked it from its wrappings of tissue paper, I took it to the open window and had the satisfaction of seeing it shattered to atoms on the pavement). But stay! I perceive a flaw in my argument. Perhaps you were guided in your choice by a definite wish to insult me. I am sure, on reflection, that this is so.

_I shall not forget._

Yours, etc.

Cynthia Beaumarsh.

PS. My husband asks me to tell you to warn Lord Amblesham to keep out of his way or to a.s.sume some disguise so complete that he will not be recognized by him and horsewhipped.

PPS. I am sending copies of this letter to the princ.i.p.al London and provincial newspapers.

We hope that Max Beerbohm read far enough in Bergson to appreciate what Mr. Santayana says of that philosopher. He seems to feel, wrote G. S.

(we quote from memory), that all systems of philosophy existed in order to pour into him, which is hardly true, and that all future systems would flow out of him, which is hardly necessary.

To a great number of people all reasoning and comment is superficial that is not expressed in the jargon of sociology and political economy.

Expand a three-line paragraph in that manner and it becomes profound.

SING A SONG OF SPRINGTIME.

Sing a song of springtime, things begin to grow; Four and twenty bluebirds darting to and fro; When the morning opened the birds began to sing.

Wasn't that a pretty day to set before a king!