The So-called Human Race

“At last they reach the grave in the church-yard, and death claims the lost Lenore (’cellos and bass viols pizzicato). For a conclusion there is a coda founded on the line in the ballad, ‘Gott sei der Seele gnädig.’ It is very sad.”

Dr. Dubbe seemed much affected by the sad tale, and many of us had to wipe tears away. But Miss Ellenborough came to our rescue with some lovely doughnuts made in the shape of a true lovers’ knot. These, with the tea, quite restored us.

VI

There really wasn’t any study class this week – that is, Dr. Dubbe did not appear. While the class waited for him and wondered if he were ill a messenger brought me the following note:

“My Dear Poeta: Kindly inform the class that there will be no lecture this week. I cannot stand for such a trivial program as Herr Thomas has prepared. C. F. – D.”

“He might have told us sooner,” said Miss Georgiana Gush.

“Why, yes; he knew last week what the next program would be,” said Mrs. Faran-Dole.

“The eccentricity of genius, my dear,” remarked Mrs. Gottem-Allbeat. “Genius is not tied down by rules of conduct of any sort.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Givu A. Payne, “I don’t blame him for not wanting to analyze this week’s program. There isn’t a bit of Bach or Brahms on it.”

“Ladies,” said Miss Ellenborough, coming forward with a gentleman who had just arrived, “let me introduce Mr. Booth Tarkington, of Indiana. Mr. Tarkington came up to attend the lecture, but as Dr. Dubbe will not be here Mr. Tarkington has kindly consented to give a doughnut recital, so to speak.”

“Oh, how lovely!” we all exclaimed.

“Mr. Tarkington,” added Miss Ellenborough, “is well known as the author of the Beaucaire doughnut, the pride of Indiana doughnutdom.”

Saying which Miss Ellenborough removed the screen that conceals her work table and Mr. Tarkington, in an incredibly short time, produced a batch of Beaucaires. They were really excellent, and we didn’t leave a single one. Mr. Everham Chumpleigh Keats poured.

After tea we all adjourned to the concert, which we enjoyed immensely, in spite of the absence of Bach and Brahms. Not knocking Dr. Dubbe.

A LINE-O’-TYPE OR TWO

Inveniat, quod quisque velit; non omnibus unum est, Quod placet; hic spinas colligit, ille rosas.

    – Petronius.

THE PASSING OF SUMMER

Summer is gone with its roses,
Summer is gone with its wine;
Likewise a lot of dam choses
Not so ideal and benign.

King Sol is visiting Virgo,
On his Zodiacal way.
’Morrow’s the twenty-third! Ergo,
Summer will vanish to-day.

Summer in town is a synonym for dullness. The theaters offer nothing of importance; only trivialities are to be found on “the trestles.” Musical directors appeal only to the ears – chiefly the long ears mentioned by Mozart. Bookstores offer “best sellers,” “the latest fiction,” and “books worth reading” on the same counter; and the magazines become even less consequential. Art in all its manifestations matches our garments for thinness and lightness.

During the canicular period intellectual activity is at a stand, and we should be grateful for the accident which tilted earth’s axis at its present angle; for when the leaves begin to fly before the “breath of Autumn’s being” we plunge into the new season with a cleared mentality and a great appetite for things both new and old.

A man asks the Legal Friend of the People, “Will you kindly publish whether or not it is illegal for second cousins to marry in the state of Illinois?” and the Friend replies, “No.” Aw, go on and publish it. There’s no harm in telling him.

WHYNOTT?

[From the Boston Globe.]

From this date, Sept. 25, 1920, I will not be responsible for any bill contracted by my wife, Mrs. Bernardine Whynott. G. Whynott.

In all the world the two most fragile things are a lover’s vows and the gut in a tennis racket. Neither is guaranteed to last an hour.

It would help along the economic readjustment, suggests Dean Johnson, of New York University’s school of commerce, if we all set fire to our Liberty Bonds. We can’t go along with the Dean so far, but we have a hundred shares of copper stock that we will contribute to a community bonfire.

The height of patriotism, confides P. H. T., is represented by Mr. Aleshire, president of the Chicago Board of Underwriters, who, billed to deliver a patriotic address in an Evanston theater, paid his way into the theater to hear himself talk.

IT MUST BE ABOUT TIME

Sir: The Federal Reserve bank at New Orleans has received a letter from a patriot who wants to know where and when he shall pay the interest on his Liberty bond. Rocky.

“In fact, I’ve finished – would you say a sonnet?” – concludes H. G. H., to whom we recommend the remark of James Stephens: “Nobody is interested in the making of sonnets, not even poets.”

Referring to the persons who are given to the making of sonnets, Norman Douglas wrote: “I have a sneaking fondness for some of the worst of these bards… And it is by no means a despicable class of folks who perpetrate such stuff; the third rate sonneteer, a priori, is a gentleman, and this is more than can be said of some of our crude fiction writers who have never yielded themselves to the chastening discipline of verse composition, nor warmed their hearts, for a single instant, at the altar of some generous ideal.”

The trouble with minor poets is well set forth by Conrad Aiken in The Dial, who refers to the conclusions of M. Nicolas Kostyleff after a tentative study of the mechanism of poetic inspiration: “An important part in poetic creation, he maintains, is an automatic verbal discharge, along chains of association, set in motion by a chance occurrence.”

POETRY

(Lord Dunsany.)

What is it to hate poetry? It is to have no little dreams and fancies, no holy memories of golden days, to be unmoved by serene midsummer evenings or dawn over wild lands, singing or sunshine, little tales told by the fire a long while since, glow-worms and briar rose; for of all these things and more is poetry made. It is to be cut off forever from the fellowship of great men that are gone; to see men and women without their halos and the world without its glory; to miss the meaning lurking behind the common things, like elves hiding in flowers; it is to beat one’s hands all day against the gates of Fairyland and to find that they are shut and the country empty and its kings gone hence.

Why is it that in nearly all decisions of the Supreme court the most interesting opinions are delivered by the dissenting justices?

“New Jack-a-Bean dining room furniture, used two months; will sell cheap.” – El Paso Herald.

That is the kind that Louis Canns has his apartment furnished with.

A CHANGE FROM LATIN ROOTS

[From the Reedsburg, Wis., Free Press.]

Miss Edna White resumed her school duties after a week’s vacation for potato digging.

OUR FAVORITE AUTUMN POEM

(By a New Jersey poetess.)

Autumn is more beautiful, I think,
Than Spring or Winter are.
For then trees change at the river’s brink —
How beautiful they are.