[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.
* * *
As a variation of the story about the merchant who couldn't keep a
certain article because so many people asked for it, we submit the
following: A lady entered the rural drugstore which we patronize and
said, "Mr. Blank, I want a bath spray." "I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones," sezze,
"but the bath spray is sold."
* * *
_IN A DEPARTMENT STORE._
_Customer--"I want to look at some tunics."_
_Irish Floorwalker--"We don't carry musical instruments."_
* * *
That Tennessee congressman who was arrested charged with operating an
automobile while pifflicated, would reply that when he voted for
prohibition he was representing his constituents, not his private
thirst. Have we not, many times, in the good old days in Vermont, seen
representatives rise with difficulty from their seats to cast their vote
for prohibition? One can be pretty drunk and still be able to articulate
"Ay."
* * *
A new drug, Dihydroxyphenylethylmethylamine, sounds as if all it needed
was a raisin.
* * *
The Gluck aria, which Mme. Homer has made famous, was effectively cited
by the critic Hanslick to show that in vocal music the subject is
determined only by the words. He wrote:
"At a time when thousands (among whom there were men like Jean Jacques
Rousseau) were moved to tears by the air from 'Orpheus'--
'J'ai perdu mon Eurydice,
Rien n'egale mon malheur,'
Boye, a contemporary of Gluck, observed that precisely the same melody
would accord equally well, if not better, with words conveying exactly
the reverse, thus--
'J'ai trouve mon Eurydice,
Rien n'egale mon bonheur.'
"We, for our part, are not of the opinion that in this case the
composer is quite free from blame, inasmuch as music most assuredly
possesses accents which more truly express a feeling of profound sorrow.
If however, from among innumerable instances, we selected the one
quoted, we have done so because, in the first place, it affects the
composer who is credited with the greatest dramatic accuracy; and,
secondly, because several generations hailed this very melody as most
correctly rendering the supreme grief which the words express."
* * *
Arthur Shattuck sued for appreciation in Fond du Lac the other evening,
playing, according to the Reporter, "a plaintiff melody with great
tenderness." The jury returned a verdict in his favor without leaving
their seats.
* * *
Reports of famine in China have recalled a remark about its excessive
population. If the Chinese people were to file one by one past a given
point the procession would never come to an end. Before the last man of
those living to-day had gone by another generation would have grown up.
* * *
"Say it with handkerchiefs," advertises a merchant in Goshen, Ind. That
is, if the idea you wish to convey is that you have a cold in your
head.
* * *