This is an imitation of the blue-and-gold edition published in Boston
some years ago. Busts of Shakespeare and of Wordsworth appear at the
front upper corners of the book-case, and these serve as pedestals to
the machine when it is unfolded into a bedstead. This style, we are
told by Professor Thorpe, has been officially indorsed by the poetry
committee of the Chicago Literary Club. A second design, in royal
octavo white pine, and omitting the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Ben
Jonson, and Herrick, is quoted at a hundred and fifty dollars.
The Historical folding-bed contains complete sets of Hume, Gibbon,
Guizot, Prescott, Macaulay, Bancroft, Lingard, Buckle, etc., together
with Haines's "History of Lake-County Indians" and Peck's "Gazetteer of
Illinois," bound in half calf, and having a storage space of three feet
by fourteen inches to each row, there being six rows of these books.
You can get this folding-bed for two hundred dollars, or there is a
second set in cloth that can be had for a hundred dollars.
The Dramatists' folding-bed (No. 1) costs three hundred dollars, bound
in tree-calf hard maple, the case being in polished cherry, elaborately
carved. The works included in this library are Shakespeare's,
Schiller's, Moliere's, Goethe's, Jonson's, Bartley Campbell's, and many
others. Style No. 2 of this folding-bed has not yet been issued, owing
to some difficulty which Professor Thorpe has had with eastern
publishers; but when the matter of copyright has been adjusted, the
works of Plautus, Euripides, Thucydides, and other classic dramatists
will be brought out for the delectation of appreciative Chicagoans.
The Novelists' bed can be had in numerous styles. One contains the
novels of Mackenzie, Fielding, Smollett, Walpole, Dickens, Thackeray,
and Scott, and is bound in tree-calf: another, better adapted to the
serious-minded (especially to young women), is made up of the novels of
Maria Edgeworth, Miss Jane Porter, Miss Burney, and the Rev. E. P. Roe.
This style can be had for fifty dollars. But the Novelists'
folding-bed is manufactured in a dozen different styles, and one should
consult the catalogue before ordering.
THE STORY OF XANTHIPPE
CHICAGO, ILL.
TO THE EDITOR: I am in a great dilemma, and I come to you for counsel.
I love and wish to marry a young carpenter who has been waiting on me
for two years. My father wants me to marry a literary man fifteen
years older than myself,--a very smart man I will admit, but I fancy he
is _too_ smart for me. I much prefer the young carpenter, yet father
says a marriage with the literary man would give me the social position
he fancies I would enjoy. Now, what am I to do? What would _you_ do,
if you were I?
Yours in trouble,
PRISCILLA.
Listen, gentle maiden, and ye others of her sex, to the story of
Xanthippe, the Athenian woman.
Very, very many years ago there dwelt in Athens a fruit-dealer of the
name of Kimon, who was possessed of two daughters,--the one named Helen
and the other Xanthippe. At the age of twenty, Helen was wed to
Aristagoras the tinker, and went with him to abide in his humble
dwelling in the suburbs of Athens, about one parasang's distance from
the Acropolis.
Xanthippe, the younger sister, gave promise of singular beauty; and at
an early age she developed a wit that was the marvel and the joy of her
father's household, and of the society that was to be met with there.
Prosperous in a worldly way, Kimon was enabled to give this favorite
daughter the best educational advantages; and he was justly proud when
at the age of nineteen Xanthippe was graduated from the Minerva Female
College with all the highest honors of her class. There was but one
thing that cast a shadow upon the old gentleman's happiness, and that
was his pain at observing that among all Xanthippe's associates there
was one upon whom she bestowed her sweetest smiles; namely, Gatippus,
the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer.
"My daughter," said Kimon, "you are now of an age when it becomes a
maiden to contemplate marriage as a serious and solemn probability:
therefore I beseech you to practise the severest discrimination in the
choice of your male associates, and I enjoin upon you to have naught to
say or to do with any youth that might not be considered an eligible
husband; for, by the dog! it is my wish to see you wed to one of good
station."
Kimon thereupon proceeded to tell his daughter that his dearest
ambition had been a desire to unite her in marriage with a literary
man. He saw that the tendency of the times was in the direction of
literature; schools of philosophy were springing up on every side,
logic and poetry were prated in every household. Why should not the
beautiful and accomplished daughter of Kimon the fruiterer become one
of that group of geniuses who were contributing at that particular time
to the glory of Athens as the literary centre of the world? The truth
was that, having prospered in his trade, Kimon pined for social
recognition; it grieved him that one of his daughters had wed a tinker,
and he had registered a vow with Pallas that his other daughter should
be given into the arms of a worthier man.
Xanthippe was a dutiful daughter; she had been taught to obey her
parents; and although her heart inclined to Gatippus, the son of
Heliopharnes the plasterer, she smothered all rebellious emotions, and
said she would try to do her father's will. Accordingly, therefore,
Kimon introduced into his home one evening a certain young Athenian
philosopher,--a typical literary Bohemian of that time,--one Socrates,
a creature of wondrous wisdom and ready wit.
The appearance of this suitor, presumptive if not apparent, did not
particularly please Xanthippe. Socrates was an ill-favored young man.
He was tall, raw-boned, and gangling. When he walked, he slouched; and
when he sat down, he sprawled like a crab upon its back. His coarse
hair rebelled upon his head and chin; and he had a broad, flat nose,
that had been broken in two places by the kick of an Assyrian mule.
Withal, Socrates talked delightfully; and it is not hard to imagine
that Xanthippe's pretty face, plump figure, and vivacious manners
served as an inspiration to the young philosopher's wit. So it was not
long ere Xanthippe found herself entertaining a profound respect for
Socrates.
At all events, Xanthippe, the Athenian beauty, was wed to Socrates the
philosopher. Putting all thought of Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes
the plasterer, out of her mind, Xanthippe went to the temple of
Aphrodite, and was wed to Socrates. Historians differ as to the
details of the affair; but it seems generally agreed that Socrates was
late at the ceremony, having been delayed on his way to the temple by
one Diogenes, who asked to converse with him on the immortality of the
soul. Socrates stopped to talk, and would perhaps have been stopping
there still had not Kimon hunted him up, and fetched him to the wedding.
A great wedding it was. A complete report of it was written by one of
Socrates' friends, another literary man, named Xenophon. The literary
guild, including philosophers by the score, were there in full feather,
and Xenophon put himself to the trouble of giving a complete list of
these distinguished persons; and to the report, as it was penned for
the "Athens Weekly Papyrus," he appended a fine puff of Socrates, which
has led posterity to surmise that Socrates conferred a great compliment
on Xanthippe in marrying her. Yet, what else could we expect of this
man Xenophon? The only other thing he ever did was to conduct a
retreat from a Persian battle-field.
And now began the trials of Xanthippe, the wife of the literary man.
Ay, it was not long ere the young wife discovered that, of all husbands
in the world, the literary husband was the hardest to get along with.
Always late at his meals, always absorbed in his work, always
indifferent to the comforts of home--what a trial this man Socrates
must have been! Why, half the time, poor Xanthippe did n't know where
the next month's rent was coming from; and as for the grocer's and
butcher's bills--well, between this creditor and that creditor the
tormented little wife's life fast became a burden to her. Had it not
been for her father's convenient fruit-stall, Xanthippe must have
starved; and, at best, fruit as a regular diet is hardly preferable to
starvation. And while she scrimped and saved, and made her own gowns,
and patched up the children's kilts as best she might, Socrates stood
around the streets talking about the immortality of the soul and the
vanity of human life!
Many times Xanthippe pined for the amusements and seductive gayeties of
social life, but she got none. The only society she knew was the prosy
men-folk whom Socrates used to fetch home with him occasionally.
Xanthippe grew to hate them, and we don't blame her. Just imagine that
dirty old Diogenes lolling around on the furniture, and expressing his
preference for a tub; picking his teeth with his jack-knife, and
smoking his wretched cob-pipe in the parlor!
"Socrates, dear," Xanthippe would say at times, "please take me to the
theatre to-night; I do so want to see that new tragedy by Euclydides."
But Socrates would swear by Hercules, or by the dog, or by some other
classic object, that he had an engagement with the rhetoricians, or
with the sophists, or with Alcibiades, or with Crito, or with some of
the rest of the boys--he called them philosophers, but we know what he
meant by that.
So it was toil and disappointment, disappointment and toil, from one
month's end to another's; and so the years went by.
Sometimes Xanthippe rebelled; but, with all her wit, how could she
reason with Socrates, the most gifted and the wisest of all
philosophers? He had a provoking way of practising upon her the
exasperating methods of Socratic debate,--a system he had invented, and
for which he still is revered. Never excited or angry himself, he
would ply her with questions until she found herself entangled in a
network of contradictions; and then she would be driven, willy-nilly,
to that last argument of woman--"because." Then Socrates--the
brute!--would laugh at her, and would go out and sit on the front
door-steps, and look henpecked. This is positively the meanest thing a
man _can_ do!
"Look at that poor man," said the wife of Edippus the cobbler. "I _do_
believe his wife is cruel to him: see how sad and lonesome he is."
"Don't play with those Socrates children," said another matron. "Their
mother must be a dreadful shiftless creature to let her young ones run
the streets in such patched-up clothes."
So up and down the street the neighbors gossiped--oh! it was very
humiliating to Xanthippe.
Meanwhile Helen lived in peace with Aristagoras the tinker. Their
little home was cosey and comfortable. Xanthippe used to go to see
them sometimes, but the sight of their unpretentious happiness made her
even more miserable. Meanwhile, too, Xanthippe's old beau, Gatippus,
had married; and from Thessaly came reports of the beautiful vineyard
and the many wine-presses he had acquired. So Xanthippe's life became
somewhat more than a struggle; it became a martyrdom. And the wrinkles
came into Xanthippe's face, and Xanthippe's hair grew gray, and
Xanthippe's heart was filled with the bitterness of disappointment.
And the years, full of grind and of poverty and of neglect, crept
wearily on.
Time is the grim old collector who goes dunning for the abused wife,
and Time finally forced a settlement with Socrates.
Having loafed around Athens for many years to the neglect of his
family, and having obtruded his views touching the immortality of the
soul upon certain folk who believed that the first duty of a man was to
keep his family from starving to death, Socrates was apprehended on a
bench-warrant, thrown into jail, tried by a jury, and sentenced to die.
It was in this emergency that the great, the divine nobility of the
wife asserted itself. She had been neglected by this man, she had gone
in rags for him, she had sacrificed her beauty and her hopes and her
pride, she had endured the pity of her neighbors, she had heard her
children cry with hunger--ay, all for him; yet, when a righteous fate
o'ertook him, she forgot all the misery of his doing, and she went to
him to be his comforter.
Well, she could not have done otherwise, for she was a woman.
Where was his philosophy now? where his wisdom, his logic, his wit?
What had become of his disputatious and learned associates that not one
of them stood up to plead for the life of Socrates now? Why, the first
breath of adversity had blown them away as though they were but mist;
and, with these false friends scattered like the coward chaff they
were, grim old Socrates turned to Xanthippe for consolation.
She burdened his ears with no reproaches, she spoke not of herself.
Her thoughts were of him only, and it was to his chilled spirit that
she alone ministered. Not even the horrors of the hemlock draught
could drive her from his side, or unloose her arms from about his neck;
and when at last the philosopher lay stiff in death, it was Xanthippe
that bore away his corpse, and, with spices moistened by her tears,
made it ready for the grave.
BAKED BEANS AND CULTURE
The members of the Boston Commercial Club are charming gentlemen. They
are now the guests of the Chicago Commercial Club, and are being shown
every attention that our market affords. They are a fine-looking lot,
well-dressed and well-mannered, with just enough whiskers to be
impressive without being imposing.
"This is a darned likely village," said Seth Adams last evening.
"Everybody is rushin' 'round an' doin' business as if his life depended
on it. Should think they 'd git all tuckered out 'fore night, but I
'll be darned if there ain't just as many folks on the street after
nightfall as afore. We 're stoppin' at the Palmer tavern; an' my
chamber is up so all-fired high that I can count all your meetin'-house
steeples from the winder."
Last night five or six of these Boston merchants sat around the office
of the hotel, and discussed matters and things. Pretty soon they got
to talking about beans; this was the subject which they dwelt on with
evident pleasure.
"Waal, sir," said Ephraim Taft, a wholesale dealer in maple-sugar and
flavored lozenges, "you kin talk 'bout your new-fashioned dishes an'
high-falutin vittles; but, when you come right down to it, there ain't
no better eatin' than a dish o' baked pork 'n' beans."
"That's so, b'gosh!" chorused the others.
"The truth o' the matter is," continued Mr. Taft, "that beans is good
for everybody,--'t don't make no difference whether he 's well or sick.
Why, I 've known a thousand folks--waal, mebbe not quite a thousand;
but,--waal, now, jest to show, take the case of Bill Holbrook; you
remember Bill, don't ye?"
"Bill Holbrook?" said Mr. Ezra Eastman; "why, of course I do! Used to
live down to Brimfield, next to the Moses Howard farm."
"That 's the man," resumed Mr. Taft. "Waal, Bill fell sick,--kinder
moped round, tired like, for a week or two, an' then tuck to his bed.
His folks sent for Dock Smith,--ol' Dock Smith that used to carry round
a pair o' leather saddlebags,--gosh, they don't have no sech doctors
nowadays! Waal, the dock, he come; an' he looked at Bill's tongue, an'
felt uv his pulse, an' said that Bill had typhus fever. Ol' Dock Smith
was a very careful, conserv'tive man, an' he never said nothin' unless
he knowed he was right.
"Bill began to git wuss, an' he kep' a-gittin' wuss every day. One
mornin' ol' Dock Smith sez, 'Look a-here, Bill, I guess you 're a
goner; as I figger it, you can't hol' out till nightfall.'
"Bill's mother insisted on a con-sul-tation bein' held; so ol' Dock
Smith sent over for young Dock Brainerd. I calc'late that, next to ol'
Dock Smith, young Dock Brainerd was the smartest doctor that ever lived.
"Waal, pretty soon along come Dock Brainerd; an' he an' Dock Smith went
all over Bill, an' looked at his tongue, an felt uv his pulse, an' told
him it was a gone case, an' that he had got to die. Then they went off
into the spare chamber to hold their con-sul-tation.
"Waal, Bill he lay there in the front room a-pantin' an' a-gaspin' an'
a-wond'rin' whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin', up comes the girl
to get a clean tablecloth out of the clothes-press, an' she left the
door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more
natural-like; he gathered together all the strength he had, an' he
raised himself up on one elbow, an' sniffed again."
"'Sary,' says he, 'wot's that a-cookin'?'
"'Beans,' says she, 'beans for dinner.'
"'Sary,' says the dyin' man, 'I must hev a plate uv them beans!'
"'Sakes alive, Mr. Holbrook!' says she; 'if you wuz to eat any o' them
beans, it 'd kill ye!'
"'If I've got to die,'says he, 'I'm goin' to die happy; fetch me a
plate uv them beans.'
"Waal, Sary, she pikes off to the doctors.
"'Look a-here,' says she. 'Mr. Holbrook smelt the beans cookin', an'
he says he 's got to have a plate uv 'em. Now, what shall I do about
it?'
"'Waal, doctor,' says Dock Smith, 'what do you think 'bout it?
"'He 's got to die anyhow,' says Dock Brainerd; 'an' I don't suppose
the beans 'll make any diff'rence.'
"'That's the way I figger it,' says Dock Smith; 'in all my practice I
never knew of beans hurtin' anybody.'
"So Sary went down to the kitchen, an' brought up a plateful of hot
baked beans. Dock Smith raised Bill up in bed, an' Dock Brainerd put a
piller under the small of Bill's back. Then Sary sat down by the bed,
an' fed them beans into Bill until Bill could n't hold any more.
"'How air you feelin' now?' asked Dock Smith.
"Bill did n't say nuthin'; he jest smiled sort uv peaceful-like, an'
closed his eyes.
"'The end hes come,' said Dock Brainerd sof'ly. 'Bill is dyin'.'
"Then Bill murmured kind o' far-away-like (as if he was dreamin'), 'I
ain't dyin'; I 'm dead an' in heaven.'
"Next mornin' Bill got out uv bed, an' done a big day's work on the
farm, an' he hain't hed a sick spell since. Them beans cured him! I
tell you, sir, that beans is," etc.
MLLE. PRUD'HOMME'S BOOK
WASHINGTON, D. C., Mai 3.
M. LE REDACTEUR: D'apres votre article dans la "New-York Tribune,"
copie du "Chicago News," je me figure que les habitants de Chicago
ayant grand besoin d'un systeme de prononciation francaise, je prends
la liberte de vous envoyer par la malle-poste le No. 2 d'un ouvrage que
je viens de publier; si vous desirez les autres numeros, je me ferai un
plaisir de vous les envoyer aussi. Les emballeurs de porc ayant peu de
temps a consacrer a l'etude, vu l' omnipotent dollar, seront je crois
enchantes et reconnaissants d'un systeme par lequel ils pourront
apprendre et comprendre la langue de la fine Sara, au bout de trente
lecons, si surtout Monsieur le redacteur veut bien au bout de sa plume
spirituelle leur en indiquer le chemin. Sur ce l'auteur du systeme a
bien l'honneur de le saluer.
V. PRUD'HOMME.
This is a copy of a pleasant letter we have received from a
distinguished Washington lady; we do not print the accentuations,
because the Chicago patwor admits of none. A literal rendering of the
letter into English is as follows: "From after your article in 'The New
York Tribune,' copied from 'The Chicago News,' I to myself have figured
that the inhabitants of Chicago having great want of a system of
pronunciation French, I take the liberty to you to send by the
mail-post the number two of a work which I come from to publish; if you
desire the other numbers, I to myself will make the pleasure of to you
them to send also. The packers of porkers, having little of time to
consecrate to the study (owing to the omnipotent dollar), will be, I
believe, enchanted and grateful of a system by the which they may learn
and understand the language of the clever Sara, at the end of thirty
lessons, especially if Mister the editor will at the end of his pen
witty to them thereof indicate the road. Whereupon the author of the
system has much the honor of him to salute," etc.
We have not given Mdlle. Prud'homme's oovray that conscientious study
and that careful research which we shall devote to it just as soon as
the tremendous spring rush in local literature eases up a little. The
recent opening up of the Straits of Mackinaw, and the prospect of a new
railroad-line into the very heart of the dialectic region of Indiana,
have given Chicago literature so vast an impetus, that we find our
review-table groaning under the weight of oovrays that demand our
scholarly consideration. Mdlle. Prud'homme must understand (for she
appears to be exceedingly amiable) that the oovrays of local
litterateurs have to be reviewed before the oovrays of outside
litterateurs can be taken up. This may seem hard, but it cannot be
helped.
Still, we will say that we appreciate, and are grateful for, the
uncommon interest which Mdlle. Prud'homme seems to take in the
advancement of the French language and French literature in the midst
of us. We have heard many of our leading savants and scholiasts
frequently express poignant regret that they were unable to read "La
Fem de Fu," "Mamzel Zheero Mar Fem," and other noble old French
classics whose fame has reached this modern Athens. With the romances
of Alexandre Dumas, our public is thoroughly acquainted, having seen
the talented James O'Neill in Monty Cristo, and the beautiful and
accomplished Grace Hawthorne ("Only an American Girl") in Cameel; yet
our more enterprising citizens are keenly aware that there are other
French works worthy of perusal--intensely interesting works, too, if
the steel engravings therein are to be accepted as a criterion.
We doubt not that Mdlle. Prud'homme is desirous of doing Chicago a
distinct good; and why, we ask in all seriousness, should this gifted
and amiable French scholar not entertain for Chicago somewhat more than
a friendly spirit, merely? The first settlers of Chicago were
Frenchmen; and, likely as not, some of Mdlle. Prud'homme's ancestors
were of the number of those Spartan voyageurs who first sailed down
Chicago River, pitched their tents on the spot where Kirk's
soap-factory now stands, and captured and brought into the refining
influences of civilization Long John Wentworth, who at that remote
period was frisking about on our prairies, a crude, callow boy, only
ten years old, and only seven feet tall.
Chicago was founded by Jeanne Pierre Renaud, one of the original two
orphans immortalized by Claxton and Halevy's play in thirteen acts of
the same name. At that distant date it was anything but promising; and
its prominent industries were Indians, musk-rats, and scenery. The
only crops harvested were those of malaria, twice per annum,--in
October and in April,--but the yield was sufficient to keep the
community well provided all the year round.
THE DEMAND FOR CONDENSED MUSIC
There is a general belief that the mistake made by the managers of the
symphony concert in Central Music Hall night before last was in not
opening the concert with Beethoven's "Eroica," instead of making it the
last number on the programme. We incline to the opinion, however,
that, in putting the symphony last, the managers complied with the very
first requirement of dramatic composition. This requirement is to the
effect that you must not kill all your people off in the first act.
There doubtless are a small number of worthy people who enjoy these old
symphonies that are being dragged out of oblivion by glass-eyed Teutons
from Boston. It may argue a very low grade of intellectuality,
spirituality, or whatsoever you may be pleased to call it; but we must
confess in all candor, that, much as we revere Mr. Beethoven's memory,
we do not fancy having fifty-five-minute chunks of his musty opi hurled
at us.
It is a marvel to us, that, in these progressive times, such leaders as
Thomas and Gericke do not respond to the popular demand by providing
the public with symphonies in the nutshell. We have condensations in
every line except music. Even literature is being boiled down; because
in these busy times, people demand a literature which they can read
while they run. We have condensed milk, condensed meats, condensed
wines,--condensed everything but music. What a joyous shout would go
up if Thomas or Gericke would only prepare and announce
"_SYMPHONIES FOR BUSY PEOPLE!
THE OLD MASTERS EPITOMIZED!_"
What Chicago demands, and what every enterprising and intelligent
community needs, is the highest class of music on the
"all-the-news-for-two-cents" principle. Blanket-sheet concertizing
must go!