"_Fay ce que vouldras._"
"FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS."
_Do what thou wilt._ Long known to fame
That ancient motto of Theleme.
To this our abbey hither bring,
Wisdom or wit, thine offering,
Or low or lofty be thine aim.
Here is no virtue in a name,
But all are free to play the game.
Here, welcome as the flow'rs of Spring,
_Do what thou wilt._
Each in these halls a place may claim,
And is, if sad, alone to blame.
Kick up thy heels and dance and sing--
To any wild conceit give wing--
Be fool or sage, 'tis all the same--
_Do what thou wilt._
* * *
That was an amusing tale of the man who complained of injuries resulting
from a loaded seegar. He knew when he smoked it that it was a trick
weed, and knew that it would explode, but he "didn't know when." He
reminds us very strongly of a parlor bolshevist.
* * *
"Man," as they sing in "Princess Ida," "is nature's sole mistake." And
he never appears more of a rummy than when some woman kills herself for
him, in his embarrassed presence. His first thought is always of
himself.
* * *
A history exam in a public school contains this delightful information:
"Patrick Henry said, 'I rejoice that I have but one country to live
for.'"
* * *
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. There are some who,
like a certain capable rounder, lately departed, have time to manage a
large business, maintain two or more domestic establishments, razz,
jazz, get drunk, and fight; while others of us cannot find time in the
four and twenty hours to do half the things we wish to achieve. Although
your orator has nothing to do but "write a few headlines and go home,"
as Old Bill Byrne says, night overtakes him with half his chores undone.
Time gallops withal.
* * *
"They know what they like."
There are exceptions. The author of "Set Down in Malice" mentions a
number, the most conspicuous being Ernest Newman. And we recall an
exception, Mr. Jimmie Whittaker, merriest of critics, who was so far
from knowing what he liked that he adopted the plan, in considering the
Symphony concerts, of praising the even numbers one week and damning
the even numbers the following week.
* * *
Like Ernest Newman, we shall never again hear the Chopin Funeral March
without being reminded of Mr. Sidgwick's summary: "Most funeral marches
seem to cheer up in the middle and become gloomy again. I suppose the
idea is, (1) the poor old boy's dead; (2) well, after all, he's probably
gone to heaven; (3) still, anyhow, the poor old boy's dead."
* * *
Our readers, we swear, know everything. One of them writes from La
Crosse that Debussy's "Canope" has nothing to do with the planet
Canopus, but refers to the ancient Egyptian city of that name. Mebbe so
(we should like proof of it), but what of it?--as Nero remarked when
they told him Rome was afire. The Debussy music does as well for the
star as for the city. It is ethereal, far away, and it leaves off in
mid-air. There is a passage in "Orpheus and Eurydice" which is wedded to
words expressing sorrow; but, as has been pointed out, the music would
go as well or better with words expressing joy.
* * *
"Lincoln," observed Old Bill Byrne, inserting a meditative pencil in the
grinder, "said you can fool all the people some of the time. But that
was in the sixties, before the Colyum had developed a bunch of
lynx-eyed, trigger-brained, hawk-swooping, owl-pouncing fans that nobody
can fool for a holy minute."
* * *
Fishing for errors in a proof-room is like fishing for trout: the big
ones always get away. Or, as Old Bill Byrne puts it, while you're
fishing for a minnow a whale comes up and bites you in the leg.
* * *
Whene'er we take our walks abroad we meet acquaintances who view with
alarm the immediate future of the self-styled human race; but we find
ourself unable to share their apprehension. We do not worry about lead,
or iron, or any other element. And human nature is elemental. You can
flatten it, as in Russia; you can bend, and twist, and pound it into
various forms, but you cannot decompose it. And so the "new order,"
while perhaps an improvement on the old, will not be so very different.
Britannia will go on ruling the waves, and Columbia, not Utopia, will be
the gem of the ocean.
* * *
"Woman's Club Will Hear Dr. Ng Poon Chew."--Minneapolis News.
We believe this is a libel on Dr. Poon.
* * *
The Greek drachma is reported to be in a bad way. Perhaps a Drachma
League could uplift it and tide it over the crisis.
* * *