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

I observe that the New Woman still sharpens her lead pencil with the scissors.

The Chicago Times-Herald, realizing that owing to emanations from the Stock Yards, the Pierian Spring might need a drainage canal, is making an effort to dam the obnoxious flow, by offering prizes for the very best machine-made prose and verse. The literary editor who was selected to do the damning has recently, in a marked manner, proved his competency for the “job.” He awarded the prize for the best original poem on the romantic subject, “Chicago,” to a young lady from Indianapolis who sent him a copy of B. F. Taylor’s Fort Dearborn, which was an original and a favorite twenty years ago. When the editor’s attention was called to the prehistoric flavor of the prize poem, he treated the matter with fine scorn, admitting that it was true, that there had been a “writer of some local reputation named Taylor who had originally written the poem.” He then intimated that any plumber’s daughter from Indianapolis, who would thus attempt to deceive a guileless Chicago editor, ought to be well spanked. And straightway he impaled her on the turnspit of public opinion and “roasted” her like an articled literary chef, and in fact the girl deserved it for wasting her time in copying poetry when she could have employed it more profitably in making out her father’s bills. The literary editor handled this matter so diplomatically that the proprietors of the journal rewarded him with an order on McClurg for a copy of B. F. Taylor’s Old Time Pictures which contains the poem.

In China there is no copyright law. An author’s reward consists in the thought that he has expressed his idea and thereby benefitted mankind. My reward so far for good work has been the pure Chinese article.

Walter Blackburn Harte has engaged board at the Widow Blannerhassett’s, second door east of the blacksmith shop. At Johnson’s grocery last night Harte beat old Si Emery three straight games at checkers—and that is no small matter.

Aunt Polly, of the old school, lives with a niece who is a modern of the moderns. Hearing the expression “decadent” used in connection with sundry articles in The Yellow Book and The Chip-Munk, she looked into the matter herself when left alone after dinner and the young folks had gone to see and hear The Scarlet Letter.

She read until her spectacles began to quiver and her cap strings heaved upon her breast like signals of distress in a brooding tempest.

The books suddenly fell with a dull thud.

“Decayed! well, I should say so!” groaned Aunt Polly, as she began rocking in her chair at the rate of a mile in two forty. What could she have been reading?

It’s a curious comment on our civilization that a priest in the Catholic Church should (or could) make himself obnoxious to a very large number of his townsmen by advocating total abstinence from strong drink. Yet this is exactly what the Rev. Father George Zurcher of Buffalo has done. It seems some merry brewers have been playing pranks on the good Father by sending him cases of bottled lager with four-horse teams, brass bands and decorated vehicles. It was awfully funny to see the big wagons rattle up to the little house that stands beside the church and then behold fat men with faces like full moons and noses like glowing oriflammes lug in the lager and deposit it on the priestly steps. Then other jokers took the matter in hand and sent hurry-up telephone orders for wet goods to be delivered at the Rectory. But Father George is a bit of a joker himself and at the same time is dead in earnest as the true humorist always is. And now when invoices of “Old Tom,” or “Triple XXX,” or “Monongahela” arrive Father George walks out in sight of the people who have gathered to see the fun, solemnly crosses himself, murmurs a prayer and proceeds to slam the bottles against the side of the pretty brick church. Slap-dash, spang, bang, zipp they go! Corks fly, red moisture flows and glass covers the sidewalk like hail after a Kansas blizzard. Some of the assembled citizens laugh, some cheer, others look solemn and deprecate the waste of valuable goods that might be sold and the proceeds given to the poor. Still others, sadder still, with sensitive spirits, deem it sacrilege to throw things at a sacred edifice, and ask for Bible justification.

But Father George, being a most unreasonable man, and a perverse, says that the best use a church can be put to is that of a barricade on which to smash bottles of Extra Triple XXX. In fact, he earnestly declares that his church was built with this special idea in mind and that the foundation is so deep and the walls so solid that if all the demijohns in Buffalo were banged plumb against it, it would still stand secure.

And the upstart of it all is that over a hundred bicycle tires have been punctured in that block during the last month and no wheelman feels safe from broken glass within a mile limit in any direction of St. Joseph’s church. So the police have notified the Father that he must smash no more bottles in the street on penalty. And furthermore, on the statute books of the State of New York is a law known as “The Bottlers’ Protective Act.” This law makes it a misdemeanor to wilfully break a beer bottle in the great Empire State. The Beer Bottlers’ Association, in order to uphold its dignity, is about to bring action against Father George under this law, all as legally provided, and the end is not yet.

We now have the Lotus, the Lotos and the Lettuce. The latest is The Prairie Dog. Its hole is in Lawrence, Kansas, and it is patterned after the Chip Munk. Verily, like begets like.

The Drumtochty folks are both good and witty. And it looks a bit as if that old idea that a joke cannot be gotten into the head of a Scotsman without trepanning is a mistake. Some say, though, that there is no such place as Drumtochty; yet the same remark has been made about East Aurora. But Dodd, Rott & Company declare that Drumtochty exists, and in their last Price List they insert this poem, which they say fitly describes the Land of parritch:

No Scot has arisen so far to deny the allegations set forth; but an Englishman has, and he winds up with this:

And now Mr. H. O. Mac Arthur, who edits The Bookman, has offered a reward of seven dollars and fifty cents for the name and address of the Englishman aforesaid.

If Rider Haggard had been Lew Wallace what would She have been?

Conan Doyle used to print good things before he made a success; but now that he has found a market, what’s the use!

I have wrestled patiently and mightily with a volume called A Study of Death, by H. M. Alden, and have been worsted. Any man who will chase Mr. Alden into a corner and get a plain simple answer to anything shall be crowned with honor.

“You may talk of all subjects save one, namely, your maladies,” said Emerson. Yet in each issue of the Cosmopolitan Andrew Lang takes the public into his confidence concerning his bodily ills.

The tendency to play flim-flam with their names is a penchant of the Inklings. No sooner does a mortal have a bit of manuscript accepted than he gives himself a middle name if he hasn’t one, and drops it out if he has. Some in fact petition the legislature for brand new handles and have themselves rechrisumed by a priest, as recently was the case in Boston; the man’s age being thirty-six. Others add a hyphen and join two names with a philological integument that makes one think of the Siamese twins.

The queerest freak of this kind perhaps is the case of the Gilder-Family-Robinson. The name as it first appears on the Parochial Register is Gildersleeve. But when Judge Gildersleeve shot in the American Rifle Team and made a bad score at Wimbledon, the sleeve was cut off in certain instances. In other words, the name was raveled and worn with short sleeves—or no sleeves at all, like a bodice or stomacher.

Now that William Watson has been knighted we see it is spelled Watson-Guilder. But the latest development in this peculiar evolution is a letter from Sir William Watson disclaiming all relationship with the Watsons of America. The closing paragraph of this epistle is worthy of note: “It is true that I was caught and knighted by the Queen, as a certain flippant American paper has put it; but any American who hopes to add lustre to his name by claiming kinship with me should be caught and knouted.”

The London Graphic thinks that Judge Grant is not so great a man as his father, the General. That’s a matter of opinion.

The Frederick A. Stokes Company has issued a pretty book, written by Mrs. Walford, entitled A Bubble. I will prick it in my next number.

If literature does not pay, we can still beg—if to dig we are ashamed!

Union Down by Mr. Scott Campbell is not an imitation of Thistle Down, as has been sometimes stated. And furthermore is the Boston Library right in classing Thistle Down as light literature?

The Lynx-Eyed being yet on a journey the Chip-Munk spells it “Carlysle.” Or is it only a pricking of conscience for quoting in dead earnest from the works of Carlisle, who now is only spoken of by scholars in connection with Imogen Such, Abe Slupsky, Thomas Collins and Wigelow Vorse?

William Marion Reedy, who holds The St. Louis Mirror up to Nature, is one of the strongest writers that this glorious Republic contains. He has wit and better still he has humor. He writes with a pen that does not scratch; and in his ink there is a goodly dash of Attic salt but no vitriol. Yet when Reedy declined the Ph. D. offered him by the Chicago University, and said in his letter “I hardly consider myself worthy to be so honored by Chicago’s great institution of learning,” was it tincture of iron or what? Anyway, Rockefeller’s mad.

A Boston paper describes Mr. Hornaday’s book, The Man Who Became a Savage, as “an artistic romance, penned by a man who believes in art for art’s sake.” From other sources I hear it spoken of as “a novel with a purpose, written by a crank with a tandem hobby.” The National Brewer’s Gazette calls it “a musty piece of bombastic fustian, written by a ranting Methodist preacher.”

I understand that a movement is on foot in Chicago to treat divorce as a sacrament. And as a straw that tells which way the wind blows in the Windy City, please note that Judge Gibbons has recently issued an order that a certain man shall be paid twenty-five dollars per week alimony by his former wife.

Last week all of the Boston papers contained a large picture of J. Stilman Smith, secretary to Dr. Edward Everett Hale. It was explained that Dr. Hale is the author of etc., etc., etc., and the reason that Smith is shown to the world is because he had a severe attack of influenza coupled with poster-mania, and was cured by taking two boxes of Dr. Muckyroot’s pills. Great is Dr. Hale! Great is Dr. Muckyroot! Great is Smith!

I warn the public against a book called Youth: A Poem of Soul and Sense, by Mr. Michael Monahan. It is dedicated to “The True and the Chaste,” which evidently was an attempt to flatter me. But I’m not for sale. Still, I read the book—read it to Her—read it through, and we two voted that it could not be safely recommended: for many people on reading it would be very much shocked and the dear public shall not be shocked if I can help it. Portions of the book are addressed to the poet’s wife, and several of the poems (the best) I believe were written by her. Now a man who is not enough of a man to do his work without calling in his wife to help him is not much of a man after all—that’s just what I mean and I don’t care who knows it!

And here comes from Emma Eggleson, Sumner, Iowa, something that is too choice even for my Waste Basket:

Hail to thee, Neith Boyce! Suffering makes a sisterhood and I embrace thee.

The desire to “edit” every article printed in its columns is often a ruling force in the career of the Presiding Elder of a Newspaper. Especially is this illustrated in the walk and conversation of sundry publications that pour out chronic sweetness at stated periods on the classic air of the Hub.

It is meat and drink to the modest Literary Aspirant to see himself in type, even if his “effort” is served with a few modifications in style, but when he beholds the offspring of his genius scalped on the crown, shorn on each side, and whittled down to a sickly wedge of small talk at the close, the swift flow of interesting narrative converted to a sluggish bayou with the cream ideas carefully skimmed from its surface and discarded, he stares helplessly at the title and signature, which are all the recognizable features left, and resolves to become—a kicker.

Yet this is Boston, that sits upon her throne of Baked Beans sandwiched between hills of Brown Bread, and discourses to hungry souls on the occult sciences of philosophical research, and the inscrutable never-the-less-ness of the More-over.

Boston, the mystic sea-kine, wearing horns of pearl, a ring in her nose whereby Wisdom leads her, and a board before her placid countenance on which is printed “Inquire Within,” so that even the ships in the harbor may read the sign and profit thereby!

Farewell, thou Press of a traditional city! Smitten on both cheeks by the blade of thy pruning knife, I withdraw my MS. from thy sanctum and seek for it a field where its individuality is not thrown aside like a worthless banana-peel. The world is wide, and if a publisher offends in this manner, though he may have been like one’s right hand, he should be cut off and cast away entirely. The blue pencil has many privileges, but when it rides too high on the wave of editorial presumption, a halt must be called. Better the comforting printed slip that offers thanks to the obliging contributor for submitting unavailable matter for consideration and announces it “returned herewith,” (probably unread).

I welcome David B. Hill to the ranks of the Philistines. There are some things about the more or less disingenuous David that I don’t like, but when he slings a pebble at the gluttony that calls itself public life in Washington, he strikes twelve. It was Emerson who spoke of “the riot of the senses to be seen in American Hotels,” and when Mr. Hill stands in the gilded bar-room of the Ebbitt House and asks “Are we a Christian people?” the question is in order.

My brother Anthony’s little girl calls all medicine Nasty Stuff. The little girl much resembles her uncle. Not many grown-ups know as much as she. She is very smart, which surely is better than to be big, for instance like Conan Doyle, who was described by that Barnum of Art, James B. Pond, in his catalogue as “a large man, weighing full two hundred and twenty pounds.” Now the distinguished Veterinary, just named, besides lecturing, also writes on medical topics, putting his theses in form of novels. He just grovels in pathology and wallows in therapeutics. He is ever administering boluses to his heroes and emetics to his heroines—and readers. In that story of a box-stall, The Stark-Monroe Letters, he displays vials, bottles, droppers, corks, iodoform gauze, trepanning tools, silver treacheas, catgut thread, antiseptic cotton and scalpels. The man who can read two of the Stark-Monroe Letters without being salivated shall have The Philistine gratis for a year. I beg of Dr. Doyle that he will read Science and Health by Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, and forever eschew Nasty Stuff in literature.

Brander Matthews’ little tinkle is heard again in Harper’s this month. He arrives with a belated Vignette, in which he tells as usual all about Many Things. The Maverick’s plan is simple. It doesn’t tax the inventive powers and at the same time it is capable of almost infinite extension, for it consists merely in describing the places of amusement and the familiar parks and street corners of the metropolis. Slight variations in the attenuated love story are necessary and care must be taken to work in something appropriate to the season or that has a newspaper vogue, but all the rest is purely topographical. There is absolutely no end to it, for the hero can be made to have his emotion of triumphant or disappointed love at the football game, at the opening night at the opera, at a chrysanthemum show, at St. Thomas church or at the Duke’s wedding, and in each case there is material for a separate story. It is a limitless sausage with link added to link so it can go clear around the world, and the Maverick’s world is small, anyway. The scheme is glorious; it is limitless. All up and down Fifth Avenue bits of romance can be woven into every block. A case of disappointed affection at Washington Square for story No. 1; true love at the Brevoort House for No. 2; hopeless longing at the corner of Tenth street for No. 3, and so on up to Harlem. Call these Vignettes of Fifth Avenue. They would be the first of The Avenue Series, which when completed, would be followed by The Side Street Series, and this in turn by a set of sketches arranged according to wards or voting precincts in the lower part of the city. Then take up all the parks in order, the theaters, the hotels, the music halls.

You see, the breezy Brander is doing in fiction what has so often been done with success in our recent drama. His description of Carmencita’s dancing, of a Broadway cable car, or Macy’s by moonlight, corresponds exactly to the introduction on the stage of a live baby, or a really and truly fire engine, or a genuine puddle of water into which one of the characters falls with a bona fide splash, to the great delight of the galleries. The reader’s simple heart rejoices at the recognition of familiar lamp posts and L stations as the hero walks through Twenty-third street and takes the Sixth avenue car to Herald Square. He loves to hear how the electric lights flicker and sputter, how the clock on the Herald Building strikes nine and how the cabs drive up and down, for sakes alive! he has seen these very things with his own eyes.

He is clever—is the unbranded Maverick—to have hit on this method. It is a mine that can be worked without effort. To twaddle lucratively and prattle with profit, ah! that is an art worth knowing! It brings the Harper smiles and the soft sinecures of literature.

Of this issue there have been printed, in addition to the regular edition, one hundred copies of The Philistine on Ruisdael hand-made paper, with the advertising pages on Japanese Vellum. These numbers are stitched with silk, have extra wide margins and are bound in a special Holland paper, purposely imported by John Dickinson & Company, Limited, for this issue. Each copy will be numbered and signed by one of the editors. The price of these de luxe numbers is one dollar each. Address

THE PHILISTINE, East Aurora, New York.

THE AMERICAN.

The Leading Exponent of Bimetallism and Protection in the United States.

A national weekly journal, Truthful, Fearless and Aggressive in the discussion of Public Affairs and other events of general interest, in which those who are literary, as well as those who desire to be fully informed on current events of Public Importance will find what they want.

WHARTON BARKER, Editor.

The American is fighting the battle of the masses against those who would fix the gold standard permanently upon the country; holding that the supreme duty of the American People is to conserve, protect and fortify the interests of the United States. $2.00 per annum. Sample copies free.

$3.00 for $2.00.

JUST THINK OF IT! For $2, the regular price of subscription, we will send The American and any one of these well-known periodicals:

To Date.

Munsey’s.

Cosmopolitan.

The Black Cat.

McClure’s.

Peterson’s.

Book Buyer.

Godey’s.

Romance.

American Sentinel.

Farm Journal.

American Agriculturist.

Rural New Yorker.

Art in Advertising.

Ladies’ Home Journal.

Sunday School Times.

American Gardening.

National Temperance Advocate.

American Woman’s Magazine.

The name of the subscriber must be one not now on our list. Mention this advertisement.

THE AMERICAN, No. 119 SOUTH FOURTH St., PHILADELPHIA.

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

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.

RUSSIAN FAIRY TALES: Translated by R. Nisbit Bain. Illustrated by C. M. Gere. 8vo., Ornamental Cloth, gilt top, $1.50.

OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES: By S. Baring Gould. With illustrations by F. D. Bedford. Octavo. Cloth, $2.00. London: Methuen & Co.

SHELLEY’S TRANSLATION OF THE BANQUET OF PLATO: A dainty reprint of Shelley’s little-known translation of “The Banquet of Plato,” prefaced by the poet’s fragmentary note on “The Symposium.” Title-page and decorations by Mr. Bruce Rogers. 16mo., $1.50. Seventy-five copies on hand-made paper, $3.00 net.

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 also on Vellum.

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

WAY & WILLIAMS, Monadnock Block. Chicago.

1. RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM.

RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY EDWARD FITZGERALD.

This is not a mere reprint of “The Bibelot” edition, but has been edited with a view to making FitzGerald’s wonderful version indispensable in its present OLD WORLD shape.

The following are special features that as a whole can only be found in THE OLD WORLD edition:

I. An entirely new biographical sketch of Edward FitzGerald by Mr. W. Irving Way of Chicago.

II. Parallel texts of the First and Fourth editions, printed the one in Italic and the other in Roman type on opposite pages, the better to distinguish them.

III. Variorum readings giving all textual changes occurring in the Second, Third and Fourth editions.

IV. The omitted quatrains of the rare Second Edition of 1868. To the student of literature these cancelled readings are of the greatest interest and value.

V. A bibliography of all English versions and editions revised to date.

VI. Finally, three poems upon Omar and FitzGerald, not generally known, are here given, just as in The Bibelot Edition, two poems were there reprinted as fitting foreword and finale.

925 copies on Van Gelder’s hand-made paper at $1.00 net.

100 ” ” Japan Vellum (numbered) at $2.50 ”

Address THOMAS B. MOSHER, Portland, Maine.

A SHELF OF BOOKS.

LITTLE JOURNEYS.

To the Homes of Good Men and Great.

By Elbert Hubbard. Series 1895, handsomely bound. Illustrated with twelve portraits, etched and in photogravure. 16mo., printed on deckle-edge paper, gilt top. $1.75.

THE ELIA SERIES.

A Selection of Famous Books, offered as specimens of the best literature and of artistic typography and bookmaking. Printed on deckle-edge paper, bound in full ooze calf, with gilt tops, 16mo., (6½ x 4½ inches), each volume (in box), $2.25.

⁂ There are three different colors of binding—dark green, garnet and umber.

First group: The Essays of Elia, 2 vols. The Discourses of Epictetus. Sesame and Lilies. Autobiography of Franklin. Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius.

NO ENEMY: BUT HIMSELF.

The Romance of a Tramp. By Elbert Hubbard. Twenty-eight full-page illustrations. Second edition. Bound in ornamental cloth, $1.50.

EYES LIKE THE SEA.

By Maurus Jokai. (The great Hungarian Novelist.) An Autobiographical Romance. Translated from the Hungarian by Nisbet Bain. $1.00.

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

FOOTLIGHTS,

that weekly illustrated paper published in Philadelphia (pity, isn’t it?), is a clean (moderately so) paper, chock full of such uninteresting topics as interviews with actor and actress (bless ’em); book gossip, news from Paris and London, (dear, old Lunnon), woman’s chatter, verse and lots more of idiocy that only spoils white paper. It sells for five cents a copy, or $2.00 a year.

VERY SPECIAL: Send two dollars and Footlights and The Philistine will be sent you for one year. Address

THE PHILISTINE, East Aurora, N. Y.

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 art 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.

The seven hundred copies that are printed on Holland hand-made paper are offered at two dollars each, and the twelve copies on Japan Vellum at five dollars. Every book will be numbered and signed by Mr. Hubbard. Orders are now being recorded, but Book Lovers are requested not to send remittances until the volume is in their hands.

THE ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP, East Aurora, New York.