The So-called Human Race Part 30

Another candid merchant in Ottumwa, Ia., advises: "Buy to-day and think to-morrow."

MUSIC HINT.

Sir: P. A. Scholes, in his "Listener's Guide to Music," revives two good laughs--thus: "A fugue is a piece in which the voices one by one come in and the people one by one go out." Also he quotes from Sam'l Butler's Note Books: "I pleased Jones by saying that the hautbois was a clarinet with a cold in its head, and the ba.s.soon the same with a cold in its chest." The cor anglais suffers slightly from both symptoms. Some ambitious composer, by judicious use of the more diseased instruments, could achieve the most rheumy musical effects, particularly if, a la Scriabin, he should have the atmosphere of the concert hall heavily charged with eucalyptus.

E. Pontifex.

"I will now sing for you," announced a contralto to a woman's club meeting in the Copley-Plaza, "a composition by one of Boston's noted composers, Mr. Chadwick. 'He loves me.'" And of course everybody thought George wrote it for _her_.

"Grand opera is, above all others, the highbrow form of entertainment."--Chicago Journal.

Yes. In comparison, a concert of chamber music appears trifling and almost vulgar.

At a reception in San Francisco, Mrs. Wandazetta Fuller-Biers sang and Mrs. Mabel Boone-Sooey read. Cannot they be signed for an entertainment in the Academy?

We simply cannot understand why Dorothy Pound, pianist, and Isabelle Bellows, singer, of the American Conservatory, do not hitch up for a concert tour.

Richard Strauss has been defined as a musician who was once a genius.

Now comes another felicitous definition--"Unitarian: a Retired Christian."

Dr. Hyslop, the psychical research man, says that the spirit world is full of cranks. These, we take it, are not on the spirit level.

The present physical training instructor in the Waterloo, Ia., Y. W. C. A. is Miss Armstrong. Paradoxically, the position was formerly held by Miss Goodenough. These things appear to interest many readers.

THE HUNTING OF THE PACIFIST SNARK.

(_With Mr. Ford as the Bellman._)

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried, "Just the place for a Snark, I declare!"

And he anch.o.r.ed the _Flivver_ a mile up the river, And landed his crew with care.

He had bought a large map representing the moon, Which he spread with a runcible hand; And the crew, you could see, were as pleased as could be With a map they could all understand.

"Now, listen, my friends, while I tell you again The five unmistakable marks By which you may know, wherever you go, The warranted pacifist Snarks.

The first is the taste, which is something like guff, Tho' with gammon 'twill also compare; The next is the sound, which is simple enough-- It resembles escaping hot air.

The third is the shape, which is somewhat absurd, And this you will understand When I tell you it looks like the African bird That buries its head in the sand.

The fourth is a want of the humorous sense, Of which it has hardly a hint.

And last, but not least, this marvelous beast Is a glutton for getting in print.

Now, Pacifist Snarks do no manner of harm, Yet I deem it my duty to say, Some are Boojums----" The Bellman broke off in alarm, For Jane Addams had fainted away.

Concerning his reference to "Demosthenes' lantern," the distinguished culprit, Rupert Hughes, writes us that of course he meant Isosceles'

lantern. The slip was pardonable, he urges, as he read proof on the line only seven times--in ma.n.u.script, in typescript, in proof for the magazine, in the copy for the book, in galley, in page-proof, and finally in the printed book. And heaven only knows how many proofreaders let it through. "Be that as it may," says Rupert, "I am like our famous humorist, Archibald Ward, who refused to be responsible for debts of his own contracting. And, anyway, I thank you for calling my attention to the blunder quietly and confidentially, instead of bawling me out in a public place where a lot of people might learn of it."

SORRY WE MISSED YOU.

Sir:... There were several things I wanted to say to you, and I proposed also to crack you over the sconce for what you have been saying about us Sinn Feiners. I suppose you're the sort that would laugh at this story:

He was Irish and badly wounded, unconscious when they got him back to the dressing station, in a ruined village. "Bad case," said the docs.

"When he comes out of his swoon he'll need cheering up. Say something heartening to him, boys. Tell him he's in Ireland." When the lad came to he looked around (ruined church on one side, busted houses, etc., up stage, and all that): "Where am I?" sez he. "'S all right, Pat; you're in Ireland, boy." "Glory be to G.o.d!" sez he, looking around again. "How long have yez had Home Rule?"

Tom Daly.

OUR BOYS.

[From the Sheridan, Wyo., Enterprise.]

Our boys are off for the borders Awaiting further orders From our president to go Down into old Mexico, Where the Greaser, behind a cactus, Is waiting to attack us.

The skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crisped and sere, as I sat in the porch chair and regarded our neighbor's patch of woodland; and I thought: The skies may be ashen and sober, and the leaves may be crisped and sere, but in a maple wood we may dispense with the sun, such irradiation is there from the gold of the crisped leaves.

Jack Frost is as clever a wizard as the dwarf Rumpelstiltzkin, who taught the miller's daughter the trick of spinning straw into gold. This young ash, robed all in yellow--what can the sun add to its splendor?

And those farther tree-tops, that show against the sky like a tapestry, the slenderer branches and twigs, unstirred by wind, having the similitude of threads in a pattern--can the sun gild their refined gold?

How delicate is the tinting of that cherry, the green of which is fading into yellow, each leaf between the two colors: this should be described in paint.

No, I said; in a hardwood thicket, in October, though it were the misty mid region of Weir, one would not know the sun was lost in clouds. At that moment the sun adventured forth, in blazing denial. It was as if the woodland had burst into flame.