Read Ebook: The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. I No. 5 October 1895) by Various Taber Harry Persons Editor

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Ebook has 1649 lines and 62357 words, and 33 pages

or--more particularly for the pretty visitors:

DON'T EXCITE THE PSYCHOLOGISTS.

Several solemn newspapers have taken seriously to the extent of half a column or so the proposal of a San Francisco publishing house to "bring out good literature in a cheap form," which sounds much like the advance agent talk of most publishing houses. It isn't a joke, to be sure, but a good deal depends on what is meant by "good literature." Thundering in the prologue is not a novelty, but there may be a storm coming for all that.

I note that the brilliant Bok has gone to writing proverbs. Here is one culled at random from "A Handful of Laconics," printed under his honored signature in his September output:

It is singular and yet a fact that what we are most loath to believe possessed by others is what we are incapable of ourselves.

It is my wish to call the particular attention of my readers to this nugget. From a literary and philosophic standpoint literature contains nothing like it. Examine Rochefoucauld, Montaigne, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger or Solomon, and you will not find its fellow. Read it again, and read it slowly: "It-is-singular-yet-a-fact-that-what-we-are-most-loath-to-believe- possessed-by-others-is-what-we-are-incapable-of-ourselves." This is undoubtedly the finest thing in the language and a reward of one million dollars will be paid to any PHILISTINE who will furnish the solution. There is no bar against reading it backwards. It reads a little better backwards than forwards, but I do not think that is it.

I desire to record a discovery. I found a magazine the other day with the advertising pages uncut.

My dear Mr. Sprat, I really am grat- Ified at your offer. So down they both sat.

Said the Sprat to the Whale, I admire your tail; I should think it would be Of great use in a gale.

How Mr. Metcalfe ever allowed such drivel to get into his columns I cannot understand. Possibly while he was in Japan the compositor set the stuff in the waste basket instead of that on the copy hook.

Because Mr. Rockefeller sneers at Mr. Pullman for giving but a paltry hundred thousand for a church at Albion, Orleans County, New York, Mr. Pullman retorts that Rockefeller is only a malmsey-nosed varlet anyway, whose grease his axles are not worthy to unloose. I am not quite ready to take George M. into the Philistinic fold, but he is surely coming my way.

It may be so, but I did not know that Pluto had whiskers. And how does Miss Boyce dispose of the legend concerning the smooth face and giddy ways of old Mr. Pluto when he took to wife the young and blooming Persephone? Charon wears a Vandyke as we well know; while Mephisto is usually represented as clean-shaved or at best a moustache and goatee; but hereafter I'll never think of Pluto without calling up in mind Mr. Peffer of Kansas. Go to, Fair Lady! think you because barber shops are closed in York State on Sundays that they are shut in Hades all the week? Next!

A lecturer on Egypt, telling the natives of Buffalo, N. Y., about the marvels in stone built on that strip of mud, illustrated the proportions of the Nile Valley by saying "It it eleven hundred miles long in Egypt proper and seven miles wide for most of its length. If the city of Buffalo were laid crosswise in the valley, it would bisect the kingdom." And a Rochester man who had strayed into the fold was mean enough to add: "And if Buffalo was there, that's the way it would lie--cross-ways." That's the way they talk in Rochester.

All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera glass. At last he said, "You're travelling the wrong way," and shut up the window and went away.

On his way to Montreal Mr. Hall Caine stopped off one day at East Aurora. The Pink Tea given in his honor at the office of THE PHILISTINE was largely attended by the farmers from both up the creek and down the creek. In fact, as my old friend Billy McGlory used to say, "Ye cudden't see de street fer dust."

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.

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.

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

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?"

"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.

de faire la guerre; profitez de ses dispositions pacifiques; donnez quelque raison, bonne ou mauvaise, de ce qui s'est pass?; et, au mois d'avril, nous entrerons en campagne avec tous nos moyens.

>>Sur ce, et la pr?sente n'?tant ? autre fin, je prie, mon tr?s-cher fr?re, cousin et oncle, alli? et conf?d?r?, que Dieu vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde.

>>FRAN?OIS.>>

--Et, maintenant que vous venez de lire la pr?tendue copie, dit le roi, lisez l'original, et vous verrez s'il ne dit pas tout le contraire.

Et il passa au cardinal la lettre falsifi?e par Acton et par la reine, lettre qu'il lut tout haut, comme il avait fait de la premi?re.

Comme la premi?re, elle doit ?tre mise sous les yeux de nos lecteurs, qui se souviennent peut-?tre du sens, mais qui, ? coup sur, ont oubli? le texte:

La voici:

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>>Tr?s-excellent fr?re, cousin et oncle, alli? et conf?d?r?,

>>Rien ne pouvait m'?tre-plus agr?able que la lettre que vous m'?crivez et dans laquelle vous me promettez de vous soumettre en tout point ? mon avis. Les nouvelles qui m'arrivent de Rome me disent que l'arm?e fran?aise est dans l'abattement le plus complet; il en est tout autant de l'arm?e de la haute Italie.

>>Chargez-vous donc de l'une, mon tr?s-excellent fr?re, cousin et oncle, alli? et conf?d?r?; je me chargerai de l'autre. A peine aurai-je appris que vous ?tes ? Rome, que, de mon c?t?, j'entre en campagne avec 140,000 hommes; vous en avez de votre c?t? 60,000; j'attends 40,000 Russes; c'est plus qu'il n'en faut pour que le prochain trait? de paix, au lieu de s'appeler le trait? de Campo-Formio, s'appelle le trait? de Paris.

>>Sur ce, et la pr?sente n'?tant ? autre fin, je prie, mon tr?s-cher fr?re, cousin et oncle, alli? et conf?d?r?, que Dieu vous ait en sa sainte et digne garde.

>>FRAN?OIS.>>

Le cardinal demeura pensif apr?s avoir achev? sa lecture.

--Eh bien, ?minentissime, que pensez-vous de cela? dit le roi.

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