The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. III, No. 3)

One, two, three—five men that call themselves my friends, all wishful to borrow money! Statilius, you will please to make a note of these five gentlemen, and give orders that on no account are they to pass my vestibule again. The settlement of society under our Prince has done much to stamp out the dangerous classes, but we have not yet got rid of the borrowers. I think it a little hard that after I have neglected my estate for half my life to expel roguery by the front door that it should creep in at the back.

Did you inquire, Statilius, why my cook served white sauce with quails last night? Very well; I have made it a rule to deal with my people in person: send for him. It is not possible to maintain a household well regulated, unless the servants come personally into touch with the master.

Plato, you served me last night a dish which, had any of my friends been present, would have shamed me forever. As it was, my dinner was ruined. It is incompetence such as yours whose ill effects Rome has struggled these eight lustrums to efface. You will be sold in the market tomorrow. Go.

You see now, Statilius, the wisdom of my rule to permit no freedman in my household: all my servants are my own property. You will buy me the best cook in Rome in three hours. What, sir? You are a free man, and I employed you only to work at my pedigree and my library? True: I am satisfied with you. But understand that if I bid you litter my horses you will do it, or I sell you up tomorrow. Now, sir, the best cook in Rome is Iulus Antonius’s Dama: buy him. Antonius is a rich man? Very true, but I think we need not be afraid of that. We can tempt him, I imagine, Statilius. At any price whatever: do you understand? And not a penny more than he will sell at: understand that also. If he is stubborn, hint at my influence with the Prince; that will be sufficient. Go.

Iulus knows that he is whispered against, and he looks to me to prop him up. I shall not do so. Again and again I have urged on Octavian the necessity of putting these malcontents out of the way. His father’s son cannot but be a danger to a settled State, however soundly disposed himself. It appears to me that Octavian is losing his aptitude for politics, and Agrippa exercises the worst possible influence upon him. This stupid, expensive system of banishment: it should never have had my voice had I remained in politics.

Thucydides, I have told you once already I am not to be disturbed in meditation. The poet Horace is in attendance? Horatius, I think you mean; avoid these vulgarisms, Thucydides. Bid Horatius wait. Indeed, I doubt not whether Octavian had at any time any real grasp of the principles of government. I was deceived by the facility with which he lent himself to my views. He is a man incapable of understanding any system between militarism and license. Of the finer arts of statecraft I am afraid he knows very little. How often have I explained to that man how the law of treason might be developed into an infallible engine of sound government! Yes: I was wise to leave politics, though Octavian is ungrateful to his Mentor. Well, I will see Horatius. He, at least, with all his faults, is a faithful soul. A man I have made.

Good-day, Horatius. I hope you are well and keeping sober. Have you brought the work I commissioned? Very well; let me see it. There has been a very great improvement in your manner of writing, Horatius, since I took you up: the large P’s are very much bolder than they were. But what is this? This is not the Epistle Dedicatory I ordered. That comes second? Ah! yes, here it is; you should have given it to me first.

Quite right: “grandsire kings” is very good. It is not, of course, literally correct, but one may, in poetry, fairly write the particular term “grandsire” for the general “ancestor”—

“Proud delight.” Now I think I shall correct that to “dear delight.” I think the alliteration is well worth securing, and you may allow yourself a familiarity in literature, Horatius, where all men are equal, which, as I have no doubt you felt in writing, would be highly unbecoming in society. “Proud delight” does you credit as a man, my good Horatius; as a poet I permit—nay, I invite you to write “dear.”

The piece gets a little tame in the middle, Horatius, ... ah! what is this?

Yes, very happy. A very good ode, Horatius. You have distinctly added to your reputation. I am very glad to note that you disavow that most dangerous tendency, which I am sorry to see is growing among some of my poets, to defer to the popular judgment. Even poor Virgil is tainted by it in this last epic, as he calls it, published in one of those measly magazinelets. I am afraid Virgil is coming to think more of the so-called glories of Rome than of his truest friends. Such defection on your part, I warn you candidly, I should feel very deeply. Now what is this other? I hope none of that Epicurean stuff which is such a handicap, if I may so phrase it, upon your best powers for good....

I think you might have found a fitter name than Postumus; but it is very passable. I suppose you have verified all these mythological allusions in the Greek; it is not your industry I need ever distrust.

Yes, the tone of the work is quite good.... And then—really Horatius, you are too annoying—then you must spoil all again in the last stanza. I have warned you a thousand times against that, Horatius. Listen, sir, to what you say here—

Now, understand once and for all, Horatius, that I will not have such pernicious and disloyal trash as this put out to pollute the State. You say you meant nothing impious? Well, then I will ask you, Horatius, who is Chief Pontiff? The prince; so I had thought. And then you say you had no intention of disloyalty? In that case I will merely answer that you have expressed yourself very badly. You will agree, I suppose—even you who were out with Brutus, when I understand you threw away your shield—that what we must all work for in Rome, is a settled social order? And I suppose that you are not incapable of perceiving that this is impossible without the maintenance of religion? And perhaps you may have heard that His Highness is supreme head of our religion? And then, do you tell me, sir, that you did not see that this last stanza—this Pontiff’s ambition, or whatever it is—is pernicious in the highest degree? Now this is what I shall do. I shall make you, Horatius, write an ode of fourteen stanzas in praise of His Highness as Chief Pontiff. Take your tablets and write down the heads of the poem, as I dictate them.

First: The deplorable desuetude.

I beg your pardon: I think I was asking you to take down the heads of the ode. What! I? You say that I gave you the subjects of this one? Very possibly, though I do not remember: with the ode as a whole I am very well satisfied. You say I gave the hint of the Pontiff? Very true; I recollect it quite well, but it was not to be used, or wasted, in the spirit in which you have used it here. Perhaps, however, you meant it to refer to the Pontiffs of the old regime, whose unworthy excesses I may have doubtless mentioned to you at some time? I could wish, Horatius, that your execution were on a level with your intention: you lay yourself open to a great deal of misconstruction. I think we must substitute “late” for “while.”

What is that you are sputtering about Minucius? I told you to glance at Minucius? Well, in one respect you are quite right. I do not remember that I ever spoke of him to you, but the extravagance of Minucius not only makes him a man impossible to be seen abroad with, but constitutes a great scandal on the pontificate. And I tell you, sir, I tell you that that man’s insolence to his betters is more than any well-ordered State could endure. He has got the Prince’s ear, and presumes upon it. Yes, you may jab at Minucius whenever you can, and as hard as you can. I am very glad I suggested that, and you have taken up the hint very cleverly. Sit down, my good Horatius; you must be tired of standing, and we men of letters are all equal, whatever our social position. I will read you a chapter of my own history that I threw off last night. You will remember, of course, what happened while I was Urban Prefect.

G. W. Stevens.

Amongst them there was one colossal form, on which the sun poured with its full radiance.

This was the form of a man grinding at a mill-stone; the majestic, symmetrical, supple form of a man who was also a god.

In his naked limbs there was a supreme power; in his glance there was a divine command; his head was lifted as though no yoke could ever lie on that proud neck; his foot seemed to spurn the earth as though no mortal tie had ever bound him to the sod that human steps bestrode: yet at the corn-mill he laboured, grinding wheat like the patient blinded oxen that toiled beside him.

It was the great Apollo in Pherae.

The hand which awoke the music of the spheres had been blood stained with murder; the beauty which had the light and lustre of the sun had been darkened with passion and with crime; the will which no other on earth or in heaven could withstand had been bent under the chastisement of Zeus.

He whose glances had made the black and barren slopes of Delos to laugh with fruitfulness and gladness—he whose prophetic sight beheld all things past, present, and to come, the fate of all unborn races, the doom of all unspent ages—he, the Far-Striking King, laboured here beneath the curse of crime, greatest of all the gods, and yet a slave.

In all the hills and vales of Greece his Io paean sounded still.

Upon his holy mountains there still arose the smoke of fires of sacrifice.

With dance and song the Delian maidens still hailed the divinity of Leto’s son.

The waves of the pure Ionian air still rang forever with the name of Delphinios.

At Pytho and at Clarus, in Lycia and in Phodis, his oracles still breathed forth upon their fiat terror or hope into the lives of men; and still in all the virgin forests of the world the wild beasts honored him wheresoever they wandered; and the lion and the bear came at his bidding from the deserts to bend their necks and their wills of fire meekly to bear his yoke in Thessaly.

Yet he labored here at the corn-mill of Admetus; and watching him at his bondage stood the slender, slight, wing-footed Hermes, with a slow, mocking smile upon his knavish lips, and a jeering scorn in his keen eyes, even as though he cried:

“O brother, who would be greater than I! For what hast thou bartered to me the golden rod of thy wealth and thy dominion over the flocks and the herds? For seven chords strung on a shell—for a melody not even thine own! For a lyre outshone by my syrinx hast thou sold all thine empire to me. Will human ears give heed to thy song now thy sceptre has passed to my hands? Immortal music only is left thee, and the vision foreseeing the future. O god! O hero! O fool! what shall these profit thee now?”

Thus to the artist by whom they had been begotten the dim white shapes of the deities sometimes speak. Thus he sees them, thus he hears, whilst the pale and watery sunlight lights up the form of the toiler in Pherae. For even as it was with the divinity of Delos, so is it likewise with the genius of a man, which, being born of a god, yet is bound as a slave to the grind-stone. Since even as Hermes mocked the Lord of the Unerring Bow, so is genius mocked of the world, when it has bartered the herds, and the grain, and the rod that metes wealth, for the seven chords that no ear, dully mortal, can hear.

He can bend great thoughts to take the shapes that he choose, as the chained god in Pherae bound the strong kings of the desert and forest to carry his yoke; yet, like the god, he likewise stands fettered to the mill to grind for bread.

Ouida.

The man on a bicycle came panting up a hill at the beginning of a large town.

“Hello! Knickerbockers,” cried the man on foot; “do you call that the gait for a scorcher? Why, it aint more’n a pair uv bars.”

“That’s all right, little boy,” returned he of the wheel.

“Little boy, yourself! Didn’t you know it was five dollars fine for ridin’ on the sidewalk?”

“Is it? All right? I’ll pay when I come back;” and the man on a bicycle, encountering a level piece of road, put an end to further conversation by a sudden spurt.

But the cyclometer was not to make a steady advance that evening. A surface crossing lay ahead, blocked by a belated freight train. The engineer knew his business and meddled continually with the throttle. After going about two car-lengths in one direction, the train would stop, remember something left behind, and back up. That is the way to keep a crowd pacific. Give them plenty to hope for and they forget to fight.

The wheelman rode in slow circles for a while, but finding the slush and snow too deep for this exercise, was forced to a humiliating dismount.

“Misder!” shouted a dirty urchin with a cold, “did yer know yer ’adn’d god no lighd? Fibe dollars fine an’ the cop’s in the deepo.”

“O, break away, break away!” snarled the wheelman.

“Young man,” lisped a willy boy, “I thought those things weah called in, you know.”

“I wish some one would call that thing in.”

This retort was pointed at the willy boy, and raised a laugh.

“How long are they going to keep us waiting here in the cold?” muttered a querulous old gentleman. “It’s against the law, and the company ought to be prosecuted.”

“The present company?” ventured a bashful young man, who was dressed as if going somewhere.

“No, the present company is always excepted,” came from obscurity.

The man with a bicycle snapped his bell uneasily. He was in a hurry, of course; if you live much on a wheel, hurry becomes chronic, engendered perhaps by the accustomed sense of rapid motion; but, like many of his class, he had that fellow feeling for petty law breakers, which comes by taking chances against city ordinances.

The fellow at the valve was taking his chances too, with excellent success. The patience of an American crowd approaches the miraculous. Fifty engagements were being broken and ten times as many toes were freezing, all because one railroader was too lazy to draw a coupling-pin. Yet so long as the cars continued to move, no one felt called upon to interfere.

“How many minutes may a crossing legally be blocked?” demanded the querulous old gentleman, pulling out his watch.

“Ten, I believe,” answered the flagman, soothingly.

“Ten? Why, we’ve been here most fifteen now!”

“S’posin’ that train on the down track ud move up just as this un was movin’ away, which ud you have ’rested then?”

The querulous old gentleman looked at the newsboy reprovingly, but said nothing.

“Might try and have the president pulled,” suggested some one.

“What of? The Road? Wopey dick! He’s got a pull himself.”

The newsboy smiled approvingly upon his mot, during a silence that might be felt. It was a relief when the wind picked up the tones of a brass band, playing in front of the theatre, and wafted them in that direction.

“Sub ud oughd to pud runners on thad bike, see?” volunteered the dirty urchin with a cold.

This aroused the newsboy to a stroke of business.

“New Yawk Evening Sun or Worl! One cent! Sunorworl?”

Here the bashful young man who was dressed as if going somewhere, separated himself, and cried:

“Conductor, cut this train in two, or I will have you arrested.”

“There, you’re done!”

“Cut it short!”

“Go, take a walk!”

were expressions which greeted this sally.

The bashful young man took up the thread of his private life where it had broken off, and wished he had separated himself further.

A touch on the sleeve aroused the man with a bicycle. There stood the man on foot.

“Hello! Knickerbockers. Horse tied, eh? Thought I’d ketch up to you. Where is your century run? Didn’t I say that there was no scorchin’ gait?”

The man with a bicycle said something that commenced with “damn,” and then, seeing a pale frightened-looking girl near by, wished he hadn’t. In the forgetfulness of his remorse he smirched the newsboy with his machine.

“You most certainly want to get done hittin’ me with that there last year’s safety,” began the latter, speaking loud enough to be heard by all—but his philippic was cut short by the arrival of train orders, and the clearing of the road. The man with a bicycle did a handsome pedal mount and spun skillfully through the surging mob, catching cries of “See that burning safety!” “Gimmie a ride, boss?” and the like, from those left behind. But the man on a wheel continued to ride.

The man on foot continued to walk.

And the band played on.

Harvey Lewis Wickham.

’Tis an odd old world, this of ours that is round like an orange, and slightly flattened at the poles. It drives not well, and it hath but moderate fondness for gall. Why, then, seek to drive it? Why harass it with the hurtful attrition of gall-dippen pens? For in truth, its small love for gall is yet greater than its use therefor. It needs not that we should make it smart. ’Tis smart enough, and clever enough, already, towering the hearts of the angels, and affording a spectacle for the little fishes. Application of gall will not help it. Rightly used, a little may ease thy own jaundice, but in thy ink it erodes the pen that uses it.

Are we vexed at the follies of the round old world? Is our taste offended by the unripe things written and painted and sung by those who are not perfect as we are? We ought to consider the words of the gentle stoic: “For it is natural that these things should be done by such persons. It is a matter of necessity, and if a man will not have it so he will not allow the fig-tree to have juice.”

To what end do we Philistines write? Is it not because we are seeking after the truth? Is it not for the expression of that which to us seems beautiful and helpful and desirable to be in the world?

And for what, let us suppose, do the armies of the aliens put pen to paper? Is it not for the same end? And if they see not purely, do we then hope to clarify their vision with gall? Rather we ought not to thwart them in the pursuit of that which seems to them excellent and worthy of effort. It is unphilosophic, and in contravention to the scientific spirit, to deny others the right which we claim for ourselves. We ought rather to do the thing which to us seems lovely, and let that protest, for us, against unloveliness, by its life and realty—the only effectual protest this world has ever known. Already there is too much of strife, too much of denial in the world. Nature argues the questioning life in the affirmative, for well she knows, the ancient wise one, that denial is deadly. “I believe” is the password into the secret places of good.

The single vision, that sees truest, the simple heart, that loves it; the direct thought that sends it forth to bless—the world needs these more than that we should camp upon its trail with gall in our ink and our pens tipped with bitterness.

Gall can never fill a vacuum. “If you don’t want a boy to do that,” said a wise teacher (putting thumb to nose), “teach him something prettier.”

This, then, must we do for this hulking schoolboy world of ours; the half-grown, growing world, that knows enough to recognize that gall is neither good nor beautiful, yet sees not that the thing it does is, as well, unlovely.

Let us strive to look out on life with open vision and simple soul, seeing that it is fair; that no plant cometh forth to face the winter’s blight, but when the winter is over then green, tender things of beauty push upwards to meet the sunshine—first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. Then cometh the insect, with his drop of gall, and ugliness and excrescence follow.

That which gives heat and light and blessing; that which generates force, and yields beauty in the burning wood that cheers our hearth, is the warm brightness of the sun’s rays that, in the process of liberating oxygen into the outer air, were stored up in the growing tree. If these had not been actually caught and incorporated in the wood by Nature’s subtle chemistry, do you think the fire would warm us, sitting by it?

And that in our literature, and in our art, that shall make them real, and able to offer coming ages anything in the warmth and light of this, must be what we shall manage to incorporate with their growth of the pure and wholesome, the life-making forces of our time. Negation is not life. Disease is not power. Abnormality is not truth. These are forces that make for death; and life, in its scientific ultimate, is the sum-total of the forces that resist death. So, I say again, that work of ours which is to carry life forward, which is to warm and light the ages, must be what we can perpetuate of the life-giving, growing elements of this one. Let there be gall enough in thy ink. To what purpose? Gall is not a promoter of growth. It is a result of hurt, and where it touches it leaves even a bad thing worse than it found it.

Adeline Knapp.

Now it came to pass in the still night watches, when my body was asleep, that my soul dreamed a dream.

And in my dream I heard a voice say, “Unstop his ears that he may hear.”

And I became aware of the presence of an Angel, and he touched mine ears, saying, “When thou hearest a sound, a great sound, as of many mighty waters rushing headlong, listen, and fear nothing.”

Then, verily, did burst on my hearing a mighty noise, a most discordant frush, and I stretched out my hand to the Angel, who said, “Fear not! Now tell me what thou hearest.”

After pondering a long time I turned me to the Angel and said, “This discordant sound is that of many and diverse petitions, of which some are directed to the Eternal but more to the Spirit of Evil. I further perceive that well-nigh each and every voice thinks its own tone the right and the only right tone, and some few voices there be which desire all the others destroyed. Yet, I hear faintly a few that are as pure and sweet as the voices of the morning stars when they sing together.”

And the Angel said, “These are all the voices of the religions, the sects, the churches, and the individual hearts, upon your planet. They are many in number. They are wondrously many in number. Yet, the understanding of your little heart is darkened: none of these petitions are directed to the Spirit of Evil, though only God and we know the heart of man, and the love of only God is great enough to forgive your many strange desires. Those few and sweet voices—ah! those few sweet voices redeem—redeem the world!”

As I listened again to the strange murmur I wept, and cried saying, “Would that these voices were as one!”

And the Angel answered and said, “They will be when in that state you call ‘Heaven.’”

Then did my soul face eagerly the face of the Angel and say to him, “They will verily attain Heaven, then—all these many jangling voices?”

Bending on me a wondering look he answered, “They will. All who strive for Right and Light shall be happy. Worship they not all as truly and deeply as they know? Strive they not all to love—to be unselfish, although some half-heartedly? From the north and the south, from the east and the west shall they be gathered, and there shall carilloux harmonious ascend to The Eternal, as from one sweet and glorified tongue.”

And as I listened again I sighed and said, “God is very patient.”

“God is very patient. He is Love, and his ways are past finding out,” murmured the Angel.

Again he touched mine ears, saying, “Have you learned? Go, return to earth, and live in the spirit of Love. Love, and judge not. Love, and be very charitable, for you yourself jar on Heaven’s peace.”

And I awoke, and beheld the impartial sun.

Charles P. Nettleton.

The Sons of Melchizedek are a most peculiar people.

So far as I know the Society for Psychic Research has not yet taken up the subject of these men who are without beginning of days or end of time. Yet surely it is a most vital theme. These beings who were never born and cannot die form a tribe that obeys no natural edict—they are a law unto themselves. They appear and disappear, like Clangingharp, to reappear again. Like vagrant comets, their orbit cannot be determined.

They are visible only under peculiar and extraordinary conditions. They materialize at will and disappear without explanation. After a lecture I have seen one of them rush forward and greet the speaker with a glow that must have gladdened the orator’s heart for months. In fact, your son of Melchizedek is an orator himself and therefore knows the orator’s need for a fervent word of appreciation after his “effort.”

Once at a Methodist love feast, when there was a lull in the program and the minister asked “And is there not just one more who is willing to add a word of testimony?” I felt a slight cold feeling go over me and knew at once that the Unknown was rising to his feet behind. I heard him clear his throat and begin with “My friends, I have been thinking while sitting here,” in a low, musical voice—a voice all a-tremble with fervor. He spoke for fully fifteen minutes—spoke with ease, and to the point. At first there was a craning of necks and whispered questions as to who he was; but this was soon lost in admiration. After the service he shook hands with many, then disappeared, none knew where.

This mysterious being often helps to carry in the piano, and in crowded street cars he has been known to supply the necessary nickle when ladies could not find their pockets. When old gentlemen fall in a fit on the street, he is on hand. Should a woman faint in church, he gently carries her out. He opens the windows in cars, and looks after the ventilator at all times, and at barbecues and outdoor public meetings he calls up the stranger to the feast, introducing shy countrymen to others still more shy, thus thawing the social ice and making all secure.

When church debts are to be raised he sometimes arises in his seat and subscribes a large amount. At mass meetings where volunteers are called for to pass the hat he always responds. He greets you cordially on the railway train, shaking hands as he passes; asks after the wife and babies and shames you into smirking idiocy because you cannot call him by name, and as he departs he waves his hand and charges you thus: “Take care yourself, old man!”

He is always large, usually stout, and the true type has a dun colored chin whisker. At least he should have.

He carries a glow of good nature that warms like wine; he is never cast down, nor is his heart dismayed. At country funerals he often appears, consoles the friends, takes care of the flowers, and arranges the chairs in a column circle against the wall. At the churchyard he walks with uncovered head by the side of the clergyman, fetches the reins from the nearest team to lower the coffin, and handles the shovel with an unction that savors of joy.

Surely, the Sons of Melchizedek, although not Philistines, are Peculiar Persons.

She—“Don’t you think him rather thick-headed?”

He—(Who has lately been presented with a book of Familiar Quotations) “Yes, indeed: his head is as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa.”

The most biting bit of irony that passes as a current coin is that reference to Boston as a city of culture—or it would be, were it not for the insight shown in Paragraphs.

There were two Ballestiers. The good one, beloved of the gods (and men), died young; but the one that resides near Brattleboro will probably live to be a hundred. Rudyard benefitted the man and as a sure result got his enmity. He is just literary enough in his instincts to read his brother-in-law’s books for gibes and jeers at himself. He imagines that every villain in the Kipling books is a black attempt to paint a Beatty Ballestier portrait: not knowing that an author (like Diety) creates in his own image. So the Ballestier reads and rages and cuts hickory clubs and lies in wait for Mowgli, who dares not venture out of sight of the bungalow except after dark. Has Rudyard Kipling written the best he ever will? is a question that the bad Ballestier proposes to answer by sending the soul of Kipling to join that of Tomlinson. Some folks are saying “Good hunting to you, Kaa Ballestier,” but Kipling in the meantime has had the rogue elephant put under bonds to keep the peace, this as preliminary to the killing, should the rogue continue to fool around the ’rickshaw.

In the story of “Kate Carnegie,” now running in The Bookman, Ian Maclaren uses the exclamation “Dod!” about three times to a page. This is understood to be a little advertising scheme suggested by Mr. MacArthur. Your Scot is a very thrifty person.

Mr. Percival Pollard who fights in the Commissariat, and once received a red badge, by being bumbasted with a pie (although he swears ’twas a tart) is uttering rank heresy in the New York Journal concerning Stephen Crane. The statement is made that Crane is only a producer of “Bloomingdale symbolistic hash.” But now behold Mr. Pollard has discovered Nankivell “King of Colorists and Past Master of all living Draughtsmen”—bless my soul! when up pops a writer in the Art Amateur and declares that the only fit man to illustrate The Black Riders is this same Nankivell.

They do say that ’Enery James has resolved to write a novel with an incident. Gosh!

Is it true that a folio periodical issued in Philadelphia is to have a serial story entitled, “People Who Have Bored Me,” and that the first chapters will be written by Mr. Howells, with comments on Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Dumas, Shakespeare, Moses, Phidias, the critics of the daily papers and Henry Clay?

“Algernon wondered vaguely if he had done right in leaving the handkerchief where she had dropped it, on the center table. If only it had been the arm chair, now, what a different complexion it would have put upon this dilemma—if it was a dilemma—no, hardly a dilemma, rather a quandary, or even a question. And she—did she, too, brood upon the handkerchief? Did she justify herself in dropping it, in the way she did? He arose, wearily. ‘I dunno,’ he said, defiantly, yet hopelessly, and sat down.”—Advance sheets from H. James.

That the Stage has fallen into a very bad way none dispute, and under present conditions I cannot do better than to commend this ordinance, passed in London in 1642, to the earnest consideration of His Honor, the Mayor, and the Honorable Common Council of the City of New York:

The presciences of the Seventeenth Century often held morning conversazioni, receiving their callers in bed. Like cyclones, fashions have a spiral movement; and now the good old custom of the presciences has returned, and like the cyclone, manifests itself in the West: a Chicago woman giving a weekly “Thursday Morning.” The bed on which the hostess languishes is a Louis the Fourteen Times—a gigantic four poster, with curtains partially drawn. When each caller is announced a thin blue-veined hand is held out from behind the curtains, and visions of a snowy lace-trimmed, Marchale Field night gown swim before his eyes as the thin hand is reverently kissed. The room is dimly lighted, the air is heavy with strange mysterious perfumes and all the conversation is held in undertone. It may not be amiss to state also that the coverlet of the bed is a very modern crazy quilt that has been duly certified to by a commission de lunatico enquirendo.

Certainly the people of Boston are a generous folk: in their walk and conversation they even add an R to “banana,” and spell “law” with four letters when three suffice—for hoi polloi.

The pink tea for Authors was a pretty failure. A Fictionist standing behind a teacup with a pink tidy on his chest and pink bows on his legs is a depressive sight, everywhere but in Philadelphia. But while five o’clock tea does not work, eleven o’clock beer is a roaring success.

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