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

The report that Miss Jeannette Gilder has been engaged as Editor of the Philistine is entirely unfounded. No such arrangement has been thought of.

It’s getting so that ’tis harder to find a gentleman than a genius.

“What did you do when the contralto flew into a passion and berated you for choosing your own hymns?” asked the Fledgling of the Wise Pastor. “What did I do? why, I did nothing—simply sat there and watched her grow old.”

Florence Turner fires at me A Deduction and A Query, thus:

All animals having the cloven hoof chew a cud. The Devil has the cloven hoof, ergo—he chews a cud. Is it the cud of sweet and bitter fancy?

Heaven bless me! how do I know? But still I have no doubt but that he chews—probably “Tin Tag.”

Verily, in the midst of life we are in debt.

The loyalty of men to their Alma Mater is ever charming, but the loyalty of a youth to his prospective Mother-in-Law is sublime. In the past two weeks every mail has brought me letters from Harvard men protesting against a certain preachment that appeared in the May Philistine entitled, “By Rule of Three.” For the most part the literary style of these missives corroborates the strictures made as to English as she is writ at Harvard. But the crowning feature of the paper fusilade is a foolscap proposition signed by four sophomores wherein they offer to put the author of “By Rule of Three” under the pump if he will name a day and hour when he dare walk across Harvard Yard. The author, I believe, is not a Baptist, but even if he were, and if the rite referred to should be performed (in lieu of argument), why, Barrett Wendell would still be an Anglomaniac and the facts about English at Harvard would remain unchanged!

Mr. S. E. Kiser, that good honest Wit, writes me after this wise:

At present not more than three out of every possible five persons to be met in this country are possessed of the honest conviction that Nature intended them for dalliance with the Muse.

Why does this deplorable state of affairs exist? The answer is not far to seek. We do not give our poets enough encouragement. On the contrary, there seems to be a widespread conspiracy to keep them down. Every time champing Pegasus is mounted by a new aspirant you may see a score of critics flirt their lassoos at him, with the hope of yanking him from his perch; unless, perchance, he be an adept in the Free Masonry that occasionally exempts some favored one from the onslaughts of the iconoclasts.

To come to a case in point, Duncey’s endeavors to dispose of a few bards who are presumed to have furnished Uncle Frank’s critic with complimentary volumes of their own make. One of them, a Mr. W. B. Yeats, is taken to task for asserting that “Down by the salley gardens he and his love did meet.” The salley garden is objected to, forsooth, upon the ground that nobody but the inventor knows what it is. Here is a fine proposition! What would some of our most prosperous bards amount to in the estimation of the public if their verses were always couched in terms that anybody could understand? In the very number of the magazine that contains the raillery against Mr. Yeats’ salley garden, Samuel Minturn Peck warbles in this wise:

This, it is fair to presume, was paid for “at the regular rates” for such matter, and published as an example of praiseworthy song, notwithstanding the fact that mighty few of Duncey’s million subscribers could depose and say whether a jasmine star is sweet or sour, or whether it would be necessary, in order to get the full benefit of its flavor, to peel it and slice it as one would an apple, or suck it like a lemon. It would also be difficult to explain to the satisfaction of a hypercritical person why, “with every grief far banished,” any one could have the faintest shadow of an excuse for possessing an aching heart; or, that point cleared up, how the aching heart aforesaid could still be timothy. But these are trifles that ought not to be permitted to embarrass the sweet singer. I mention them only to illustrate the unfairness with which Mr. Yeats has been treated. Mr. Peck is in vogue, to a certain extent, while Mr. Yeats is not. Ergo: Yeats and his muse must not fool around in the salley garden.

This matter disposed of, Sophie M. Almon-Hensley is chided for asseverating that

“It must,” says Duncey’s astute critic, “be a consolation to the writer of these inspired lines to know that her various possessions are where they belong. After all, there is nothing like having a place for everything and everything in its place.” Which may be witty as well as true, but why ridicule Sophie M. Almon-Hensley on one page and on the next laud Robert Louis Stevenson—God rest his soul—for such verses as these:

and so on. No one is likely to suppose for a moment that the scythes went up and down, or that the grass was cut up to soak, or that the green and sweetly smelling crops were led away from home in top buggies. Yet, from an artistic standpoint, Stevenson was justified in acquainting us with the details of the operation, which fact makes the attack upon Sophie M. Almon-Hensley particularly aggravating.

The truth seems to be that a large majority of the publishers do not like the idea of breeding up a new race of poets. Those who are already in the field must be tolerated, and those who are well dead may be quoted ad. lib. without fear of the copyright law. It is gratifying to note one shining exception to this rule. The editor of the transitory Chip-Munk has evidently determined to publish anything and everything in the shape of verse that falls into his hands. This, if not actually announced, is clearly implied in his Easter number, where, among other things, are to be found these lines:

After this, the amateur may comfort himself with the assurance that he has at least one friend, with a helping hand outstretched. While young Mr. Bumball’s paper, ink and type hold out, there is no reason why every state, every county, every town and every hamlet may not have a rhymesmith of its very own. This is encouraging, and leads to the hope that in time, if the brood of the mother hen keeps on increasing, it may come to pass that he who runs may rhyme and get his rhyme in print.

How far can a woman go to win in love’s race? A step backward is often good policy.

Beg pardon—but who is this Richard Arden Davies that The London Bookman is chewing about?

That good savage and excellent Wm. T. Hornaday is about to fall into line and start a magazinelet, patterned after the Chip-Munk brood. It will be called The Dyak and the cover will be cut decolette.

Way & Williams are sending out A Mountain Woman. We used to have only two kinds of women, the good and the bad, but now we have many. The book is as good as The Essays of Elia, and that is high praise.

The poor writers we have always with us—if we take the daily paper.

No one knows the vanity of riches save he who has been rich; therefore I would have every man rich, and I would give every youth a College education that he might know the insignificance of it.

A Good Philistine is known by his never saying:

“As it were.”

“So to speak.”

“Red letter day.”

“Seldom if ever.”

“Macedonian cry.”

“All along the line.”

“Signs of the times.”

“Peace to his ashes.”

“The blush of shame.”

“The deadly upas tree.”

“We are pained to learn.”

“The devouring element.”

“Will not soon be forgotten.”

“Our loss is his eternal gain.”

“None knew him but to love.”

“They are left to mourn his loss.”

“The right man in the right place.”

“If I may be allowed the expression.”

To recognize the accidentally impolitic from the essentially wrong is a step always first taken by a Philistine. The Chosen People damn him for his pains, after which they adopt his view and swear on their beards that they always held it.

Who are the bores? Oh, you make me weary—the others, the others, the others!

Mr. Wallace, of Chicago, publisher of Wallace’s Stud-Book, disputes the statement that the Windy City is losing her literary prestige.

Clangingharp says the sanest sentiment ever expressed by any of the Vanderbilt family was when the Commodore remarked, “The Public be damned!”

“Be not righteous overmuch,” said the Preacher. Of course such advice to the average mortal is quite needless—the matter may safely be left in his hands. Still, good things can be overdone: industry for instance. There is a sort of pismire activity that makes for bankruptcy. I once knew a man who used to get up at four o’clock in the morning to hammer and saw (those very early risers always hammer and saw), yet I believe the administrator found hardly enough to pay forty cents on the dollar. The reason was that the man pounded too much early in the morning and not enough in the middle of the day; and the sleek-headed men who sleep o’ nights overmatched his petty busyness and got the trade.

Nothing is so pleasant as to air our worldly wisdom in epigramatic nuggets. To sit quiet and listen to another do it—well that is another matter!

It is called A School for Saints, and the perpetrator is John Oliver Hobbes. I have sent my name to Mrs. Cragie, entering as a Freshman.

Little Journeys

SERIES FOR 1896

Little Journeys to the Homes of American Authors.

The papers below specified were, with the exception of that contributed by the editor, Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a book entitled Homes of American Authors. It is now nearly half a century since this series (which won for itself at the time a very noteworthy prestige) was brought before the public; and the present publishers feel that no apology is needed in presenting to a new generation of American readers papers of such distinctive biographical interest and literary value.

No. 1, Emerson, by Geo. W. Curtis.

” 2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland.

” 3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard.

” 4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs.

” 5, Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant.

” 6, Walt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard.

” 7, Hawthorne, by Geo. Wm. Curtis.

” 8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin.

” 9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman.

” 10, Longfellow, by Geo. Wm. Curtis.

” 11, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard.

” 12, Bancroft, by Geo. W. Greene.

The above papers will form the series of Little Journeys for the year 1896.

They will be issued monthly, beginning January, 1896, in the same general style as the series of 1895, at 50 cents a year, and single copies will be sold for 5 cents, postage paid.

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON

A MOUNTAIN WOMAN. By Elia W. Peattie. With cover design by Mr. Bruce Rogers. 16mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.

The author of “A Mountain Woman” is an editorial writer on the Omaha World-Herald, and is widely known in the Middle West as a writer of a number of tales of Western life that are characterized by much finish and charm.

THE LAMP OF GOLD. By Florence L. Snow, President of the Kansas Academy of Language and Literature. Printed at the De Vinne Press on French hand made paper. With title-page and cover designs by Mr. Edmund H. Garrett. 16mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.

PURCELL ODE AND OTHER POEMS. By Robert Bridges. 16mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net.

Two hundred copies printed on Van Gelder hand-made paper for sale in America.

HAND AND SOUL. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Printed by Mr. William Morris at the Kelmscott Press.

This book is printed in the “Golden” type, with a specially designed title-page and border, and in special binding. “Hand and Soul” first appeared in “The Germ,” the short-lived magazine of the Pre-Raphælite Brotherhood. A few copies remain for sale at $3.50. Vellum copies all sold.

For sale by all booksellers, or mailed postpaid by the publishers, on receipt of price.

WAY & WILLIAMS, Monadnock Block. Chicago.

Quarterly. Illustrated.

“If Europe be the home of Art, America can at least lay claim to the most artistically compiled publication devoted to the subject that we know of. This is Modern Art.”—Galignani Messenger (Paris).

“The most artistic of American art periodicals. A work of art itself.”—Chicago Tribune.

Fifty Cents a Number. Two Dollars a Year. Single Copies (back numbers) 50 Cents in Stamps. Illustrated Sample Page Free.

Arthur W. Dow has designed a new poster for Modern Art. It is exquisite in its quiet harmony and purely decorative character, with breadth and simplicity in line and mass, and shows the capacity of pure landscape for decorative purposes.—The Boston Herald.

Price, 25 Cents in Stamps, Sent Free to New Subscribers to Modern Art.

L. Prang & Company, Publishers. 286 ROXBURY STREET, BOSTON

We make a specialty of Dekel Edge Papers and carry the largest stock and best variety in the country. Fine Hand-made Papers in great variety. Exclusive Western Agents for L. L. Brown Paper Company’s Hand-mades.

GEO. H. TAYLOR & CO., 207-209 Monroe Street, Chicago, Ill.

Have you seen the Roycroft Quarterly? The May issue is a “Stephen Crane Number.” 25c. a copy or one dollar a year.

The Roycroft Printing Shop, East Aurora, New York.

THE ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP at this time desires to announce a sister book to the Song of Songs: which is Solomon’s. It is the Journal of Koheleth: being a Reprint of the Book of Ecclesiastes with an Essay by Mr. Elbert Hubbard. The same Romanesque types are used that served so faithfully and well in the Songs, but the initials, colophon and rubricated borders are special designs. After seven hundred and twelve copies are printed the types will be distributed and the title page, colophon and borders destroyed.

IN PREPARATION of the text Mr. Hubbard has had the scholarly assistance of his friend, Dr. Frederic W. Sanders, of Columbia University. The worthy pressman has also been helpfully counseled by several Eminent Bibliophiles.

Bound in buckram and antique boards. The seven hundred copies that are printed on Holland hand-made paper are offered at two dollars each, but the twelve copies on Japan Vellum at five dollars are all sold. Every book will be numbered and signed by Mr. Hubbard.

The Roycroft Printing Shop, East Aurora, N. Y.