III.

Ach! weh das Niebelrungen spott—

Ach! weh das Maedchen Turnverein—

Und unser Meister lieben Gott—

Ach! weh das Wienerwurst und Wein.

Ach! weh das Bricht zum kleiner Geld—

Ach! weh das Schlabbergasterfeldt!

_The Works of Sappho._

It would be hard to say whether Chicago society is more deeply

interested in the circus which is exhibiting on the lake-front this

week, than in the compilation of Sappho’s complete works just published

in London, and but this week given to the trade in Chicago. As we

understand it, Sappho and the circus had their beginning about the same

time: if any thing, the origin of the circus antedated Sappho’s birth

some years, and has achieved the more wide-spread popularity. In the

volume now before us, we learn that Sappho lived in the seventh century

before Christ, and that she was at the zenith of her fame at the time

when Tarquinius Priscus was king of Rome, and Nebuchadnezzar was

subsisting on a hay-diet. It appears that, despite her wisdom, this

talented lady did not know who her father was; seventeen hundred years

after her demise, one Suidas claimed to have discovered that there were

seven of her father; but Herodotus gives the name of the gentleman most

justly suspected as Scamandronymus. Be this as it may, Sappho married a

rich man, and subsequently fell in love with a dude who cared nothing

for her; whereupon the unfortunate woman, without waiting to compile her

writings, and without even indicating whom she preferred for her

literary executor, committed suicide by hurling herself from a high

precipice into the sea. Sappho was an exceedingly handsome person, as we

see by the engraving which serves as the frontispiece of the work before

us. This engraving, as we understand, was made from a portrait painted

from life by a contemporaneous old Grecian artist, one Alma Tadema.

Still, we could not help wondering, as we saw the magnificent pageant of

Forepaugh’s circus sweep down our majestic boulevards and superb

thoroughfares yesterday; as we witnessed this imposing spectacle, we

say, we could not help wondering how many people in all the vast crowds

of spectators knew that there ever was such a poetess as Sappho, or how

many, knowing that there was such a party, have ever read her works. It

has been nearly a year since a circus came to town; and in that time

public taste has been elevated to a degree by theatrical and operatic

performers, such as Sara Bernhardt, Emma Abbott, Murray and Murphy,

Adèle Patti, George C. Miln, Helena Modjeska, Fanny Davenport, and

Denman Thompson. Of course, therefore, our public has come to be able to

appreciate with a nicer discrimination and a finer zest the intellectual

_morceaux_ and the refined tidbits which Mr. Forepaugh’s unparalleled

aggregation offers: this was apparent in the vast numbers and in the

unbridled enthusiasm of our best citizens gathered upon the housetops

and at the street-corners along the line of the circus procession. So

magnificent a display of silks, satins, and diamonds has seldom been

seen: it truly seemed as if the fashion and wealth of our city were

trying to vie with the splendors of the glittering circus pageant. In

honor of the event, many of the stores, public buildings, and private

dwellings displayed banners, mottoes, and congratulatory garlands. From

the balcony of the palatial edifice occupied by one of our leading

literary clubs, was suspended a large banner of pink silk, upon which

appeared the word “Welcome” in white; while beneath, upon a scroll, was

an appropriate couplet from one of Robert Browning’s poems. When we

asked one of the members of this club why the club made such a fuss over

the circus, he looked very much astonished; and he answered, “Well, why

not? Old Forepaugh is worth over a million dollars, and he always sends

us complimentaries whenever he comes to town!”

We asked this same gentleman if he had read the new edition of Sappho’s

poems. We had a good deal of confidence in his literary judgment and

taste, because he is our leading linseed-oil dealer; and no man in the

West is possessed of more enterprise and sand than he.

“My daughter brought home a copy of the book Saturday,” said he, “and I

looked through it yesterday. Sappho may suit some cranks; but as for me,

give me Ella Wheeler or Will Carleton. I love good poetry: I’ve got the

finest-bound copy of Shakespeare in Illinois, and my edition of

Coleridge will knock the socks off any book in the country. My wife has

painted all the Doray illustrations of the Ancient Marine, and I

wouldn’t swap that book for the costliest Mysonyay in all Paris!

“I can’t see where the poetry comes in,” he went on to say. “So far as I

can make out, this man Sapolio—I mean Sappho—never did any sustained or

consecutive work. His poems read to me a good deal like a diary. Some of

them consist of one line only, and quite a number have only three words.

Now, I will repeat five entire poems taken from this fool-book: I

learned them on purpose to repeat at the club. Here is the first:—

“‘Me just now the golden-sandalled Dawn.’

“That’s all there is to it. Here’s the second:—

“‘I yearn and seek.’

“A third is complete in—

“‘Much whiter than an egg;’

and the fourth is,—

“‘Stir not the shingle,’

which, I take it, was one of Sapphire’s juvenile poems addressed to his

mother. The fifth poem is simply,—

“‘And thou thyself, Calliope,’

which, by the way, reminds me that Forepaugh’s calliope got smashed up

in a railroad accident night before last,—a circumstance deeply to be

regretted, since there is no instrument calculated to appeal more

directly to one versed in mythological lore, or more likely to awaken a

train of pleasing associations than the steam-calliope.”

A South-Side packer, who has the largest library in the city, told us

that he had not seen Sappho’s works yet, but that he intended to read

them at an early date. “I’ve got so sick of Howells and James,” said he,

“that I’m darned glad to hear that some new fellow has come to the

front.”

Another prominent social light (a brewer) said that he had bought a

“Sappho,” and was having it bound in morocco, with turkey-red trimmings.

“I do enjoy a handsome book,” said he. “One of the most valuable volumes

in my library, I bought of a leading candy-manufacturer in this city. It

is the original libretto and score of the ‘Songs of Solomon,’ bound in

the tanned pelt of the fatted calf that was killed when the prodigal son

came home.”

“I have simply glanced through the Sappho book,” said another

distinguished representative of local culture; “and what surprised me,

was the pains that has been taken in getting up the affair. Why, do you

know, the editor has gone to the trouble of going through the book, and

translating every darned poem into Greek! Of course, this strikes us

business-men of Chicago as a queer bit of pedantry.”

The Hon. Elijah M. Haines says that Sappho was an Indian chief of one of

the original Chicago tribes, and founder of the Ancient Order of Red

Men. “I have never looked into this book you mention,” says he; “but I

presume to say that there’s nothing new in it. We are digging up marble

slabs at Kaskaskia every week or two, and they all have Sapphic poems on

them; but what is there in the poetry business? There is more

philanthropy and business in one reliable recipe for curing hams than in

the longest epic poem ever written.”

The scholarly and courtly editor of “The Weekly Lard Journal and

Literary Companion,” Professor A. J. Lyvely, criticised Sappho very

freely as he stood at the corner of Clark and Madison Streets, waiting

for the superb gold chariot drawn by twenty milk-white steeds, and

containing fifty musicians to come along. “Just because she lived in the

dark ages,” said he, “she is cracked up for a great poet; but she will

never be as popular with the masses of Western readers as Ella Wheeler

and Marion Harland are. All of her works that remains to us are a few

fragments, and they are chestnuts; for they have been printed within the

last ten years in the books of a great many poets I could name, and I

have read them. We know very little of Sappho’s life. If she had

amounted to much, we would not be in such ignorance of her doings. The

probability is, that she was a society or fashion editor on one of the

daily papers of her time,—a sort of Clara-Belle woman, whose naughtiness

was mistaken for a species of intellectual brilliancy. Sappho was a

gamey old girl, you know. Her life must have been a poem of passion if

there is any truth in the testimony of the authorities who wrote about

her several centuries after her death. In fact, these verses of hers

that are left, indicate that she was addicted to late suppers, to loose

morning-gowns, to perfumed stationery, and to hysterics. It is ten to

one that she wore flaming bonnets and striking dresses; that she talked

loud at the theatres and in public generally; and that she chewed gum,

and smoked cigarettes, when she went to the races. If that woman had

lived in Chicago, she would have been tabooed.”

The amiable gentleman who reads manuscripts for Rand, McNally, & Co.,

says that Sappho’s manuscripts were submitted to him a year ago. “I

looked them over, and satisfied myself that there was nothing in them;

and I told the author so. He seemed inclined to dispute me, but I told

him I reckoned I understood pretty well what would sell in our literary

circles and on our railroad-trains.”

But while there was a pretty general disposition to criticise Sappho,

there was only one opinion as to the circus-parade; and that was

complimentary. For the nonce, we may say, the cares and vexations of

business, of literature, of art, and of science, were put aside; and our

populace abandoned itself to a hearty enjoyment of the brilliant pageant

which appealed to the higher instincts. And, as the cage containing the

lions rolled by, the shouts of the enthusiastic spectators swelled above

the guttural roars of the infuriate monarchs of the desert. Men waved

their hats, and ladies fluttered their handkerchiefs. Altogether, the

scene was so exciting as to be equalled only by the rapturous ovation

which was tendered Mdlle. Hortense de Vere, queen of the air, when that

sylph-like lady came out into the arena of Forepaugh’s great circus-tent

last evening, and poised herself upon one tiny toe on the back of an

untamed and foaming Arabian barb that dashed round and round the sawdust

ring. Talk about your Sapphos and your poetry! Would Chicago hesitate a

moment in choosing between Sappho and Mdlle. Hortense de Vere, queen of

the air? And what rhythm—be it Sapphic, or choriambic, or Ionic a

minore—is to be compared with the symphonic poetry of a shapely female

balanced upon one delicate toe on the bristling back of a fiery, untamed

palfrey that whoops round and round to the music of the band, the

plaudits of the public, and the still, small voice of the dyspeptic gent

announcing a minstrel show “under this canvas after the performance,

which is not yet half completed”? If it makes us proud to go into our

book-stores, and see thousands upon thousands of tomes waiting for

customers; if our bosoms swell with delight to see the quiet and

palatial homes of our cultured society overflowing with the most

expensive wallpapers and the costliest articles of virtue; if we take an

ineffable enjoyment in the thousand indications of a growing refinement

in the midst of us,—vaster still must be the pride, the rapture, we feel

when we behold our intellect and our culture paying the tribute of

adoration to the circus. Viewing these enlivening scenes, why may we not

cry in the words of Sappho, “Wealth without thee, Worth, is a shameless

creature; but the mixture of both is the height of happiness”?

_November._

The night is dark and the night is cold,

And the wind blows fierce and strong:

And the rich man sits in his castle old;

He drinks his wine, and he counts his gold,

As the night goes frowning along, along,

And the night wind sings its song.

The wind speeds out to the withered lea,

Afar from the urban throng,

Where the poet abideth in poverty:

Nor castle, nor wine, nor gold, hath he,

But he heareth the night wind’s song—its song

As the night goes frowning along.

Oh! give me no castles, proud and old,

Nor honors that station brings;

Give me no plenty of wine and gold;

But give me the soul, when the nights are cold,

To hear what the night wind sings and sings

As it rustles its voiceful wings.

_A Novelette._

“Sing me the old song!”

The words rang out clear and bell-like upon the mellow September air,

and coquetted with the autumnal zephyrs that ruffled the cerulean bosom

of the mighty lake. It was night. The moon rolled proudly through the

azure heavens, bathing the landscape in a shimmer of silvery sheen, and

tipping the dark waters of Chicago River with a wavy, tremulous light.

The nightingale throbbed his melodious plaints upon the hushed air; the

crickets chirped tunefully in the hedge; and every thing afar and near

bespoke the poetry of that sweet time dedicate to slumber and repose.

“Sing me the old song!”

There was a pleading querulousness in the tones that betokened William

Bross’s anguish and heartache. The words were wrung from a soul in which

pride and anger and sorrow battled for the ascendency. William Bross was

the prototype of manly beauty. But now his supple limbs quivered with

agony; his brave bosom heaved with tumultuous emotions; his ambrosial

locks, brushed back by the hand of despair from his high white forehead,

revealed features strikingly handsome, but, oh! so cruelly marked by the

ravages of mental woe. What great grief was it that gnawed like a

canker-worm at the vitals of this good and valorous young man? what

secret anguish preyed upon his pure, clean white soul, that ever and

anon he stretched forth his pale, quivering hands, and cried, in tones

that would have melted an adamantine heart, “Sing me the old song”?

The imperious beauty, Joseph Medill, was not indifferent to the charms

of the handsome and chivalric knight kneeling there. Between the two the

tenderest sentiments had existed for many years, and ’twere vain to

imagine that any passing zephyr of doubt or discontent could rend apart

two hearts that for so long a time had throbbed in unison. Joseph

Medill’s thoughts went back to the happy hours, the tender conferences,

the mutual vows, the sweet obligations, the endearing scenes, the

blissful episodes, of the past; and his beautiful bosom heaved, and his

large, liquid, fathomless eyes filled with tears, and his ripe red lips

quivered, as he momentarily pondered upon that pathetic panorama, and

then gazed upon the limp and pleading object at his feet.

“Sing me the old song!”

Yes, Joseph Medill had not forgot that song,—the dear old song William

Bross had taught him to sing when years ago they had wandered hand in

hand through the primeval forests and tangled jungles where now a

teeming, busy city stands. It was the song that Joseph Medill had sung

through all the years of his existence since first he met the knightly

William Bross, and learned of him that wondrous melody: it was the same

sweet song, which, speeding from Joseph Medill’s tuneful lips, had

spread like a subtile perfume afar and wide, had wooed every human ear,

and awakened a response in every human breast.

But now for weary weeks that song had been hushed. A chilling, icy cloud

had come between Joseph Medill and William Bross. Half regretfully, yet

firmly, Joseph had plucked from his soul the cadences of that harmonious

strain, and refused to sweep his waxen, taper fingers across the golden

strings of his dulcet lyre. For weary weeks William had brooded o’er his

sorrow: for dismal days had he nursed in bitter silence his grewsome

grief and unavailing anguish. But, tortured to desperation, he had come

at last to implore a reconciliation, and the mercy of that sweet song

again.

“What song mean you?” inquired the imperious Joseph Medill, bestowing

upon the kneeling William a look of melting tenderness that bespoke a

relenting mood.

“What song? What other song but that which you, and you alone, have sung

so pathetically and so divinely all these years?”

The imperious Joseph turned his beautiful face away, as if to conceal

the emotion that perturbed his delicately chiselled features.

In another moment, William Bross had sprung to his feet, had clasped

Joseph Medill in his arms, and was straining him to his breast.

“Sing me the old song,” he whispered hotly in Joseph’s shell-like ear,

“the old, sweet song about free trade.”

_Inter-State Commerce Bill Items._

The lightning-express train on the Illinois and Iowa route came in last

night, three weeks overdue. The report that it had ivy and moss growing

on the driving-wheels of its locomotive is not true.

* * * * *

J. Arthur Simpson, city agent of the Topeka and Tophet short line, who

has been visiting Joe Bedee and Jake Aull in Omaha for a week, returned

home yesterday with a beautiful seal-brown taste in his mouth.

* * * * *

Projectors of railway enterprises are cordially invited to come to

Chicago, and to investigate our inducements. We have in the midst of us

lands, riparian privileges, terminal facilities, a city council, and

other advantages which are for sale at preposterously low figures.

Before going elsewhere, give us a trial.

* * * * *

The community will be deeply shocked to hear that by the explosion of

his lantern on train No. 11, last evening, genial Conductor Jerseybingle

lost the left lobe of his whiskers; also the distinguished wart he had

always worn on his right nostril. For some inexplicable reason, the

Posey Grand Trunk line seems to have had a long run of bad luck lately.

_The Wizard of Vermilion._

While the great billiard tournament was in progress in Chicago, Col. Joe

Mann came up from Danville, and saw Maurice Vignaux play his remarkable

game. Maurice saw Col. Mann among the spectators, and was so much

pleased with his appearance that he asked for an introduction. The

result was, that Maurice and Joe got pretty thick, and Maurice gave Joe

a good many valuable pointers on “the gentleman’s game.” When Col. Mann

got back to Danville, he had a good deal to say about billiards; and he

talked so loud, that at last Col. Phocion Howard challenged him to a

series of match-games of 15-ball pool. The tournament took place last

Saturday night; and it was witnessed by the wealth, fashion, and beauty

of Vermilion County. The Hon. William H. Calhoun was referee; and he

sends us a full report of the tournament, with diagrams of several of

the more remarkable shots. We regret that we have not space for this

full report and all these diagrams. We print a few of the latter, in

order that our readers may know to what an extraordinary height the

billiard-art has risen in the provinces.

[Illustration: A top-down line diagram of a rectangular pool table

showing six pockets, a cue ball with an arrow indicating its trajectory,

and a triangular rack of fifteen object balls. Solid black lines map out

complex geometric angles and bounce paths across the table cushions.]

[Illustration: A top-down line diagram of a vertical pool table layout.

An arrow points to a cue ball moving toward the upper left corner

pocket, while a curved line tracks a ball flying completely off the

top-right edge of the table, striking one of the spectators full in the

nose.]

This represents the remarkable around-the-table shot made by Col. Howard

at the beginning of the first game. The balls were bunched on the spot

at the lower end of the table, and Howard led off to break the

combination. His cue, not being properly chalked, did not strike the

ball full. The ball, therefore, barely touched the maroon-colored ball

at the apex of the group, glanced to the left, cushioned to the right,

carromed thence to the right cushion, thence to the left across the

table, and then shot across into the pocket at the confluence of the

right hand and upper rails at the head of the table amid loud applause.

[Illustration: A top-down line diagram of a rectangular pool table with

six pockets. On the left side of the table, a pool cue strikes a cue

ball, creating a small, messy impact scribble. From the hit, a wavy,

curved line traces the erratic path of the ball across the green, ending

at a small, solid black circle.]

Here we have an extraordinary play made by Col. Mann near the close of

the second game. He desired to put the yellow ball in the lower

left-corner pocket: to do this, required a long reach across the table;

bridges being barred, under the rules of the Danville Billiard

Association. Col. Mann overreached himself, and gave his cue-ball such

an unusual impetus that it rapidly described two acute angles, bounced

across the table and over the right rail, and struck one of the

spectators full in the nose. This very properly was accounted one of the

marvellous shots of the tourney; and the referee shook hands with Col.

Mann, and complimented him in high terms. At the close of the third

game, Col. Mann made a remarkable massay shot, the like of which had

never before been witnessed in Vermilion County. There were but two

balls (the speckled one and the dark-blue) on the table, and Col. Mann

determined to try one of the massays Mr. Vignaux had taught him. The

dark-blue lay within the 14-inch line, and the speckled ball just

outside: the thing was, to tick the speckled one, chassez around it, and

strike the dark-blue hard enough to send it into the middle pocket of

the left rail. This required a good deal of what is called “English” by

the Vermilion-county experts. Col. Mann reached over the table, held his

cue perpendicularly over the cue-ball, had jabbed it fiercely down—just

as Mr. Vignaux had told him to do. The massay was perfect; but, after

striking the cue-ball, the cue glanced to the bed of the table, and

ploughed up about three cubic inches, or fifteen dollars’ worth, of the

cloth.

This ended the tournament; and the championship was awarded to Col.

Howard, who is now familiarly known as the “Wizard of the

Vermilion-county cue.”

_Why He was Tardy._

Mr. Ruggles of the Michigan Central road tells of a funny dream he had

the other night. He had been eating stewed terrapin at Caveroc’s; and

when he finally got to sleep, he dreamed that he had died, and was

knocking at the jasper gate of heaven.

“Who’s there?” demanded St. Peter.

“O. W. Ruggles of Chicago,” was the reply.

“Let me see,” said St. Peter, looking over his books, “let me see; when

did you die?”

“Last week Tuesday,” said Ruggles.

“A week ago!” cried the saint, “seems to me you’ve been a long time on

the way.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for it,” protested Mr. Ruggles; “for under the

old system, there’d have been no trouble; but this interstate commerce

law is seriously interrupting travel.”

_Base-Ball as a Classic._

“The St. Paul Globe” must not be too severe on the class of people whom

it stigmatizes as base-ball cranks; for base-ball is our national game,

and it includes among its admirers many of the wisest and the best of

our citizens. Love of the game of ball is no new thing: it is as old as

history itself. It is a pity that old Izaak Walton knew nothing of the

sport; for how he would have enjoyed it, and how charmingly he would

have written of it! It is a particularly desirable game, because it

calls into, and keeps in, the open air a large number of people who

otherwise would remain cramped up indoors. It is the enemy—call it

rival, if you please—of billiards and other house-sports, and we are

heartily glad that it is so successful. It has charms not only for those

who participate in it, but also for those who are spectators simply; and

it is rapidly acquiring those scientific excellences which will

ultimately place it far above other athletic sports. A certain class of

writers (who cannot know what they are talking about) inveigh against

what they are pleased to term the “ball-craze;” and the circumstance

that Mike Kelly recently got a large sum of money for leaving the

Chicago to join the Boston club, is dished up in every style to prove

that these are degenerate times, and that humanity is on the highway to

idiocy. But the truth of the matter is, ball-playing isn’t made nearly

so much of as it was many centuries ago, when even Homer delighted to

weave its praises into his immortal verse. Athens had its Mike Kelly. Of

course, he was not as good a man as our own Mike Kelly is; but the world

was comparatively young then, and we think we can safely say that

Aristonicus the Carystian was a worthy representative of our national

game at that time. At any rate, Aristonicus won the admiration of King

Alexander; and his majesty was not satisfied until he had bought

Aristonicus’s release from the Carystian Club, and had signed him with

the Athens White Buskins. The sum which Alexander paid for this release

is said to have been four didrachms and three tetrobolons, a prodigious

price for those days, but a comparatively small amount for modern times.

Money was scarce then: if the cashier of an Athenian bank had tried to

abscond with four dollars’ worth of money, he would have required thirty

elephants and sixteen four-horse chariots to transport the coin. The

money which King Alexander paid for Aristonicus’s release was equivalent

to a dollar and twenty-five cents in our money; but it was esteemed such

an extravagant sum at that time, that the contemporary press of Thrace

pounced upon it, and paraded it as an instance of preposterous

profligacy. But his majesty felt more than repaid for the investment:

his ball-club won the championship, and held it until the death of

Aristonicus. This famous player became very popular with the Athenians:

they made him a free man, and they erected a statue to him! Now, just

imagine the Boston people erecting a Monson granite statue to Mike Kelly

on the banks of the frog-pond in Boston Common,—ay, and under the very

shade of the classic gingko-tree!

Demoxenus, who seems to have been the Browning of Athenian poesy, has

left us this word-picture of the Grecian ball-player,—to be more

explicit, a picture of the third-base man of the Athens White Buskins:—

“The youth I saw was playing ball,—

Seventeen years of age, and tall;

From Cos he came; and well I wot

The gods looked kindly on that spot,

For when he took the ball, or threw it,

So pleased were all of us to view it,

We all cried out. So great his grace,

Such frank good-humor in his face,

That, every time he spoke or moved,

All felt as if that youth they loved.

Had I staid long, most sad my plight

Had been to lose my wits outright;

And even now, the recollection

Disturbs my senses’ calm reflection.”

It appears, however, that, even among the ancients, there were those who

thought that too much attention was being paid to ball-playing. One of

the grumblers was a person of the name of Chærephanes, who,

notwithstanding his blatant and persistent decrying of the sport, was in

the habit of attending every game to which he could get a free pass.

This inconsistency irritated the alleged base-ball cranks of Athens; and

one day, while a match-game was in progress in the park at the base of

the Acropolis, Demoteles, who appears to have been the Baby Anson of the

White Buskins aforementioned, addressed Chærephanes rather testily.

“Tell me, O Chærephanes! how comes it, that, not liking this game, you

are always on hand whensoever you can get a free pass?” To him

Chærephanes responded, “Because I enjoy seeing you boys play it, think

not that I approve the game.”

_Culled in Helicon._

Here is an important literary item which we find in the current number

of “The Chicago Indicator:” “W. S. Crouse of Mitchell, Dak., has given a

chattel mortgage for eighty-five dollars.”

* * * * *

It pains us to note that our local literary boom has suffered somewhat

of a set-back in the violent interest which, all of a sudden, is being

taken in the subject of drainage. It were much better, we think, if

these twin arts could go together hand in hand.

_Oon Criteek de Bernhardt._

The re-appearance of Sara Bernhardt in the midst of us has, of course,

set our best society circles into a flutter of excitement; and we have

been highly edified by the various criticisms which we have heard passed

upon that gifted woman’s performance of “Fedora” night before last. All

these criticisms have flavored of that directness, that frankness, and

that rugged discrimination, which are so characteristic of true Western

culture. Col. J. M. Hill, the esteemed lessee of the Columbia Theatre,

told us some weeks ago that his object in securing a season of Bernhardt

was to give a series of entertainments which would appeal for

appreciation and for patronage to the intellectuality of our _crême de

la crême_, and which would be several degrees above the comprehension of

the hoi polloi. We noticed last Monday evening that the hoi polloi were

not on hand to welcome the eminent French artiste; and we were ineffably

pained to notice, too, that the _crême de la crême_ was very meagrely

represented. This amazed as well as pained us: if Sara Bernhardt cannot

pack the Columbia at Col. Hill’s popular prices, who, by the memory of

Racine and Molière! who—we ask in all solemnity—who can? And what amazed

us, furthermore,—perhaps we should say what _shocked_ us,—was the

exceeding frigidity with which the select few of our _crême de la crême_

received the superb bits of art which Sara Bernhardt threw out, much as

an emery-wheel emits beauteous vari-colored sparks.

“Zis eez awful!” exclaimed Sara to her stage-manager, as she came off

the stage after the first act of “Fedora.” “Ze play eez in Russia, but

ze audiongce eez in ze circle polaire!”

It strikes us that Sara was pretty nearly correct; but for the date on

the play-bill, we might have surmised that our French friends were

performing amid surroundings of the glacial period.

“Ze play eez ‘Fedora,’” said Sara to M. le General Carson, _entre acte_,

“ze artiste eez Bernhardt, and ze audiongce eez ‘Les Miserables!’”

M. le General came right out, and told this to distinguished friends in

the lobby. He said it was a bong mo; but young Horace McVicker, who once

conducted a Paris-green manufactory in California, and therefore is an

accomplished French scholar, corrected M. le General by alleging that

Sara’s witticism was not a bong mo, but a judy spree.

The Markeesy di Pullman applauded the famous actress a great deal after

he had once located her. In order to make sure of doing the proper

thing, he applauded every woman that appeared on the stage; and by the

time the second act was fairly under way, he was able to identify the

“cantatreese” (as he called her) by the color of her hair. “But,” he

remarked to his friend, M. le Colonnel Potter Palmer, later in the

evening, “I don’t mind telling you that I don’t like her as well as I do

Patti; and as for this man Sardoo”—

“Sardoo? Who’s he?” interrupted M. le Colonnel Palmer.

“Why, he’s the man who wrote this piece,” said the markeesy; “and he

doesn’t hold a candle to our Italian poets, Danty and Bockashyo.”

“I don’t know any thing about such things,” said M. le Colonnel Palmer

meekly. “As for myself, I like to be amused when I go to a show; and I

presume I’d like this woman very much if I could see her in one of the

fine old English comedies, such as the ‘Bunch of Keys,’ or the ‘Rag

Baby.’”

Now, while these two distinguished personages were aware that the play

was “Fedora,” there were many in the auditorium who had not very clear

convictions on this point. M. Thomas J. Hooper, the prominent

linseed-oil manufacturer (whose palatial residence on Prairie Avenue is

the Mecca of our most cultured society),—M. Hooper, we say, sat through

three acts without dreaming that the play was “Fedora.”

“I like Clara Morris better in this _rôle_,” said he to M. T. Desplaines

Wiggins, one of the vice-presidents of the Chicago Literary Club.

“But, my dear fellow,” said M. Wiggins, in a tone of expostulation,

“Clara Morris never played the part.”

“Never played Cameel?” cried M. Hooper. “Why, bless you, man, I seen her

do it right here in this theatre!”

“But this isn’t Cameel,” said M. Wiggins: “it’s Feedorer.”

“Well, now, I’ll bet you fifty it’s Cameel,” said M. Hooper, calmly but

firmly.

M. Wiggins covered the wager, and M. Billy Lyon decided in favor of

Wiggins and Fedora.

“I knew I was right,” exclaimed M. Wiggins triumphantly, “for I saw it

on the programme.”

M. Hooper was very much put out. “You don’t pronounce that word right,

anyway,” he muttered sulkily.

“What word?” demanded M. Wiggins hotly.

“That word programmay,” said M. Hooper. “It’s French; and it isn’t

program, but programmay.”

They wagered fifty dollars on it between them, and referred it to M.

Jean McConnell.

“At popular prices, it’s program,” said M. McConnell; “but during this

engagement, it’s programmay, sure.”

So M. Hooper squared himself financially; and M. Wiggins went down to

his seat in the parquettay, muttering something that sounded very like a

profane and inexcusable rhyme for program.

But, as we have hinted above, M. Hooper was not the only one in the

audience who was unsettled as to what the play was, and what it was all

about. Throughout the auditorium, messieurs, mesdames, and mademoiselles

were sadly bothered to know whether it was Cameel, or Faydorah, or

Tayodorah, or Fru-Fru, or some other morso from the Bernhardt

repertevoi. M. James M. Billings, the prominent restaurateur, told his

family that the bill had been changed, and that the piece was “Jennie

Saper.”

“Why, no, ’taint, pa,” protested Mdlle. Billings: “it’s ‘Faydorah.’”

“Now, look here, Birdie,” said M. Billings sternly. “I know what I’m

talking about. As we were comin’ in, I asked one of the men in the entry

what the piece was, and he said ‘Jennie Saper;’ and he knew, for he was

a Frenchman.”

“Our seats,” said M. T. Frelinghuysen Boothby, “were so far back, that

we had difficulty in making out what Burnhart said; but from what I

_did_ hear, I would judge that she spoke better English than Rhea: at

any rate, I could understand her better than I ever could Rhea.”

M. le Colonnel Fitzgerald confessed to being disappointed. “It may be my

fault, however,” said he: “for I am very rusty in my French, having paid

no attention to it since I visited Montreal in the summer of 1880. I

brought my ‘French Conversations’ along with me to-night, but it was of

no assistance to me. I hadn’t got half through the first scene in the

first act, when Fedora was dying in the last act. This was slow

business. Of course, there were a good many words and phrases that were

familiar, such as, ‘voyla,’ ‘toot sweet,’ ‘tray be-yen,’ ‘mercee,’

‘pardong,’ ‘bong zhour,’ and ‘wee wee.’ You can depend upon it, that,

whenever I heard these old friends, I applauded with the nicest and the

heartiest discrimination.”

Now, all these criticisms and features (and there were many, many more

such) interested us—or, at least, they entertained us. But we were

grieved to discover a disposition (shall we say a pongshong?) on the

part of the audience to compare Bernhardt’s Fedora with Fanny

Davenport’s. To institute any such comparison would be a sore injustice

to both ladies. Bernhardt and Davenport represent two very different

dramatic schools: one is the school of avoirdupois, and the other is

essentially so different that it must be estimated only under the

accepted rules of troy weight. To be more explicit, we will say, that,

while you would properly weigh Miss Davenport’s art on a hayscales, you

must use a more delicate machine if you would seek to learn the true

magnitude and concinnity of Bernhardt’s art. It is quite true that to

both Fedoras the same amount of practical appreciation is paid here in

Chicago. When Miss Davenport played Fedora at the Columbia Theatre last

January, she was applauded rapturously by 2,000 delighted tradesfolk at

50 cents apiece: now Bernhardt comes along with her subtile

impersonation, and does business to 333⅓ of the _crême de la crême_ of

our pork-packers at $3 per head. You see that the box-office receipts

are the same in both instances: it would be impossible, therefore, to

compare the merits of each actress by the amount of money derived from

the performance of each.

It is far from our purpose to institute any invidious comparisons

between these two gifted women: each excels in her way; and the way of

the one is as far from the way of the other as the beauties of a

fat-stock show are removed from the beauties of a floral display. If

there is in Fanny’s art a breadth and a weight that remind us of the

ponderous thud of a meat-axe, there is (it must also be confessed) in

Sara’s art a daintiness and an insinuation that remind us of the covert

swish of a Japanese paper-knife. Horace has explained this very

difference in that charming ode wherein he tells of Næera, who, “with

ruddy, glowing arm, holds out an earthen cup of goat’s milk,” while, on

the other hand, Lydia extends to the parched poet a silver flagon,

“filled to the brim with old Falernian chilled with snow.” Now, there is

no doubt in our mind that Horace chose the Falernian; but we are not all

Horaces; and we presume to say, that, as between goat’s milk at popular

prices, and Falernian at war-rates, a vast majority of Chicagoans would

choose the former.

“The last act was a great disappointment,” said one of our most cultured

beef-canners. “It is there that Davenport gets away with this French

woman. Why, Davenport’s tussle with that young Rooshan is the grandest

piece of art I ever saw! she just tears around and horns the furniture

like a Texas steer in a box-car.”

George Bowron, leader of the orchestra at the Columbia, says that he

knew, just as soon as he saw the score of the incidental music, that

Bernhardt’s Fedora was very unlike Davenport’s.

“Bernhardt’s score,” says he, “is interspersed throughout with

‘pianissimo,’ ‘con moto,’ and ‘andante.’ On the other hand, the music of

Davenport’s Fedora is in big black type, and every other bar is labelled

‘forte’ or ‘fortissimo;’ and our trombone-player blew himself into a

hemorrhage last January, trying to keep up with the rest of the

orchestra in the death-struggle in the last act.”

We can see that Bernhardt labors under one serious disadvantage, and

that is the fact that her plays are couched in a foreign language. We

asked Col. J. M. Hill why Sardoo did not write his plays in English, and

he said he supposed it was because Sardoo was a Frenchman. This may be

all very well for Paris, but we opine that it will not do in Chicago.

What protection has a Chicago audience in a case of this kind? What

assurance have we, that, while we are admiring this woman’s art, the

woman herself is not brazenly guying and blackguarding us in her absurd

foreign language?

Now, we would not seek to create the impression that Sardoo’s work is

not meritorious: on the contrary, we are free to say, and we say it

boldly, that we recognize considerable merit in it. We fancy, however,

that Sardoo is not always original: we find him making use of a good

many lines that certainly were not born of his creative genius. As we

remember now, Sardoo introduces into his dialogue the very

“pardonnez-moy,” the very “mong-du,” and the very “too zhoors,” which we

hear every day in our best society; and will he have the effrontery to

deny that he has stolen from us—ay, brazenly stolen from us—the very

“wee-wee” which is the grand commercial basis upon which Chicago culture

stands and defies all competition?

Oh, how glad—how proud—Chicago is that Bronson Howard and William

Shakespeare and Charley Hoyt, and her other favorite dramatists, have

been content to put their plays in honest but ennobling Anglo-Saxon!

_Oon Conversarzyony Frongsay._

The Bernhardt engagement has brought out all the French scholars in

Chicago. Never before had we suspected that there were so many able

linguists in the midst of us. Gen. Stiles, we have just discovered,

speaks French like a native of Paris (Edgar County). He attended the

“Frou-Frou” performance last evening with his friend Judge Prendergast.

The judge is a proficient Greek and Latin scholar; but he knows little

of French, his vocabulary being limited to such phrases as “fo par,”

“liaison,” “kelky shoze,” and “olly bonnur:” so Gen. Stiles had to

explain the play to him as it progressed last evening.

“Now what is she saying?” the judge would ask.

“She said, ‘Good-evening,’” the general would answer.

“Does ‘bung swor’ mean ‘good-evening’?” the judge would inquire.

“Yes.”

“Oh, what rot!” the judge would exclaim; and then a dude usher in one of

Willoughby & Hill’s nineteen-dollar dress-suits would teeter down the

aisle, and warn the gentlemen not to whisper so loud.

Presently Col. William Penn Nixon, the gifted editor of “The

Inter-Ocean,” came along, and slipped into the seat next to Gen. Stiles.

He had an opera-glass, and he levelled it at once at Bernhardt’s red,

red hair.

“Do you speak French?” asked Gen. Stiles in the confidential tone of a

member of the Citizens’ Committee.

“Oony poo,” said Col. Nixon guardedly.

“Vooley voo donny moy voter ver de lopera?” asked the general, motioning

toward the opera-glass.

“See nay par zoon ver de lopera!” protested the colonel. “Say lay

zhoomels.”

“Mong doo! What do I want of zhoomels?” cried Gen. Stiles. “Zhoomels is

twins!”

“Par bloo!” said Col. Nixon: “it is not twins, it is opera-glasses.”

“You’re all wrong, William,” urged the general. “The French idiom is

‘the glass of the opera.’ ‘Ver’ is glass, and ‘de lopera’ is of the

opera.”

“I have heard them called lornyets,” suggested Judge Prendergast, in the

deferential tone of a young barrister seeking a change of venue.

“Well, I don’t know what the general’s opera-glass is,” said Col. Nixon;

“but this one of mine is a ‘lay zhoomels.’”

“Call it what you please,” replied the judge: “it is de tro as far as I

am concerned, until the corpse de bally makes its ontray.”

“I thought you didn’t speak French,” said Gen. Stiles, turning fiercely

upon the judge.

“Oh, well!” the judge explained apologetically, “I’m not what you and

the colonel would call oh fay—I’m a june primmer at the business; but

when the wind is southerly, I reckon I can tell a grizet from a

garsong.”

Chicago society is still in considerable doubt as to where Bernhardt

should be located in the artistic scale. A good many of the _élite_

think that her Fedora is second to Fanny Davenport’s, and there are very

many others who prefer Clara Morris’s Camille. We notice that the

popular inquiry in cultured circles is, “Have you been to see

Bernhardt?” not, “Have you been to hear Bernhardt?”

“Oh, you don’t know how I enjoyed Bayernhayerdt the other evening!”

exclaimed one of our most beautiful and accomplished belles. “Her

dresses are beautiful, and they do say she is dreadfully naughty!”

_A Fearless Protector_.

At the rehearsal of “Frou-Frou” in the Columbia Theatre last Thursday

noon, Col. J. M. Hill, the urbane lessee, stood in the lobby chatting

with Miss Bernhardt; and, while they were thus chatting, a card bearing

the name of a strange gentleman was handed to the eminent actress. Miss

Bernhardt took the card, scrutinized it, and exclaimed in her pretty

French way, “Sacre bleue! Who eez zis gentilhomme? I haf not ze honaire

to know him.”

Noticing the lady’s dilemma, Col. Hill, with characteristic gallantry,

was not slow in coming to her rescue.

“Have no fear, madam,” said he to Miss Bernhardt, “have no fear while I

am by your side. Go back, young man, to him who sent you, and ask him if

his intentions are honorable.”

_Mr. Knapp’s Scheme._

Mr. Thomas J. Knapp, manager of the Elgin Opera-House, returned home

last evening very much disgusted. He had been in Chicago a week, trying

to arrange for one night of Bernhardt in Elgin.

“Our town,” says he, “is the best one-night stand in Illinois. Our

watch-factory employs ten thousand hands, and we have the best society

in the West. It would pay this French woman to stop over a night with

us.”

“Why doesn’t she?”

“The manager wants a guaranty of five thousand dollars,” says Mr. Knapp,

“and I wouldn’t give it. I was willing to raise the price of seats to

seventy-five cents, and we would have packed the house! But Bernhardt

wants the earth,—or at least her manager does. You see, her expenses

would be light,—virtually nothing. In the first place, she wouldn’t have

had any hotel-bill to pay.”

“No hotel-bill? Why, how’s that?”

“No, none at all: I had made all the arrangements to have her stop with

the minister.”

_A Fine Old Book._

There has come into our hands a small volume which we value very much as

illustrating the degree of proficiency to which Boston had attained in

1842. At that time, Boston was about two hundred years older than

Chicago now is. This volume, consisting of sixty-three pages, is

entitled “Boston Common;” and it bears the imprint of William D. Ticknor

and H. B. Williams. The latter gentleman appears to have been the

compiler of the work; and he treats of the formation of the Common, the

sky over the Common, the liberty-tree, the old elm, the frog-pond,

booths around the Common, the National Lancers, Hollis-street steeple,

the iron fence, fountains on the Common, the gingko-tree, cows on the

Common, etc. The compilation is done very cleverly, and betrays a fine

literary taste, and sound literary judgment. Here and there are

introduced apt poetical quotations,—one from Homer, one from Robert

Treat Paine, and two from Dr. Isaac Watts. We will make a few excerpts

at random, from this pleasing work, for the edification of our readers:—

“The iron fence and brick sidewalk which surround the Common are noble

monuments of public enterprise, and of the energy of American

mechanics.”

“Since the day when Elder Oliver’s horse had the exclusive right of

pasturage in the Common, there has been various legislation on the

subject of admitting the cows to feed there. The gradual and now entire

disappearance of the cow from our streets, is a sure sign of the triumph

of artificial life over primitive manners.”

“The gingko-tree is enclosed by a slight paling. This species of tree is

common in Japan.... It lives and thrives, while the family in whose

ancient enclosure it once grew has shared the common destiny of families

in this land.... The gingko-tree has left the family enclosure, and

grows on the Common. We perceive in this fact a correspondence with that

law of republicanism which scatters the names and the wealth of rich men

into the great community; or, if they are preserved for a while, allows

their continuance, and concedes to them a voluntary regard, even as the

gingko-tree, in its careful preservation, is permitted to hold an

honorable place amongst the public trees. This particular tree is the

object of an interest in which a degree of sadness mingles with respect,

at the thought of changes which,” etc.

Here is an interesting paragraph: “The Common with its varied surface is

admirably fitted for military exhibitions.... The National Lancers, a

company of able-bodied men, mounted on fine-looking horses, each lance

bearing a red flag, and the mounted musicians adding not a little to the

life and novelty of the moving show, are a most interesting sight. A

knowledge of the effectiveness of their weapon mingles a little dread

with our feelings of admiration. The lance rests in a socket on the

stirrup: when a charge is made, the lance, remaining in the socket, is

dropped into a horizontal position, and, being so held, the horse is

urged against the enemy, and thus the whole power of the animal is

thrown into the lance, which is thereby capable of transfixing an

assailant with irresistible force.”

At the time this elegant passage was written, the present editor of “The

Boston Herald,” the venerable Col. Haskell (father of the editor of “The

Minneapolis Tribune,” now in Europe on a bridal tour), was captain of

the Lancers; and the lance he used to carry may still be seen in the

Boston Museum, hanging on the wall beside the sword of Bunker Hill.

The perusal of this book, “Boston Common,” has awakened in us the hope

that some enterprising Chicagoan will do a similar work for this city by

writing a history and description of Dearborn Park. This park is the

oldest in the city, having been laid out when Long John Wentworth was a

rosy-cheeked lad, only nine years old, and only eight feet tall. We

cannot say that it has improved with age: it has no frog-pond, nor any

old elm, nor any gingko-tree. But it reeks with associations, and we

think that some local _littérateur_ ought to compile these associations

into a tome.

_Stealing Our Thunder._

Boston has been making a great palaver over her “Longfellow memorial

readings.” These readings were given in the Boston Dime Museum last

Thursday, and the persons who participated were as follows: Col. J. R.

Lowell, the Shakespearian lecturer; Mr. Mark Twain, the Missouri

humorist; Mr. W. D. Howells, the New-York novelist; Mr. G. William

Curtis, the New-Jersey Mugwump; the Rev. E. Everett Hale, editor of “The

Lending Hand;” Col. Thomas B. Aldrich, editor of “The Atlantic Monthly;”

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the eminent surgeon; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,

mother of Miss Maud Howe; the venerable John G. Whittier, author of the

New-Hampshire idyl, “Joaquin Miller;” and Col. T. Wentworth Higginson,

the friend of the late James T. Fields. “The Boston Globe” publishes the

pictures of these _littérateurs_, and we observe that five of them

(including Mrs. Howe) part their hair in the middle. But this is neither

here nor there. What we wish to say, and what we wish the public at

large to believe, is, that Boston stole this idea of giving

memorial-fund readings: she stole it from Chicago. Two months ago, a

movement was set on foot in this city to secure a fund for the purpose

of erecting on the lake-front a splendid monument to the memory of “The

Literary Life,” that never-to-be-forgotten literary journal, which,

under the inspired genius of Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, waxed and waned

in the midst of us one all-too-brief year ago. Professor Henry T.

Bosbyshell, analytical chemist for Byers & Co., the eminent

soap-manufacturers, conceived the laudable plan of securing this

monument-fund by giving in Central Music Hall a grand symposium at which

Chicago _littérateurs_ would read from their original works. The date

fixed for this unique performance was May 28; and the following local

authors were bespoken, and promised to participate:—

Professor H. T. Bosbyshell, author of “American Soaps Analyzed,” “The

Secret of Perfuming Revealed,” “The Boss Baking Powder,” and “How to

Remove Paint Stains.”

Col. T. Shelby Sothers, author of the “Chicago Directory for 1859,” “The

Travellers’ Guide to Chicago,” “Compendium of Railroad Information,” and

“Chicago Trade Statistics for 1883.”

Professor William Mathews, author of “How to get on in the World.”

Miss Tryphena Cora Swartwout, author of “West-Side Poems,” “Ode to the

Chicago River and Other Sonnets,” “An Analysis of Browning,” and “A

Complete Cook Book.”

Col. Peter G. Hobby, author of “The New Baconian Theory; or, A Modern

Method of Smoking Sidemeats.”

Mr. Wellington Boothkins, author of “Handbook of Etiquette; or, Ten

Years a Chicago Clubman,” and “A Review of the Linseed-Oil Trade in the

West.”

Mrs. Martha W. Lester-Tubbs, author of “The Dawn of Chicago Literature,”

“The Mother’s Companion,” and compiler of “Epics of the Hennepin

Valley.”

Professor Thomas O’B. Swigert, author of “The Art of Composition; or,

The Manufacture of Press-Rollers Made Easy.”

Mr. DeLancey Morris Sowerby, author of “Noctes Ambrosianæ; or, Ten

Nights in the Chicago Literary Club,” and compiler of “The Record of the

Chicago Races for 1886.”

Mrs. Minerva J. Peabody, the Calumet poetess, whose nautical poems,

“Will Henry Come when Navigation Opens?” and “Aboard the Three-Mast

Schooner when the Shingle Crop Comes In,” are sung in every Chicago

household.

Col. James Russell Lowell was let into this secret when he was here last

February; and it is probable that he went right back to Boston, and

betrayed the whole scheme. It is very aggravating to have our original

ideas snapped up in this piratical manner by the conscienceless Yankees;

but we hope that our _littérateurs_ will stick to their programme, and

show the false Bostonians that here, in the home of the muses, and in

this wallow (if we may so term it) of culture, we can prepare and

execute a literary programme which will put the presumptuous Bostonians

to the blush. We can do this, too, without calling on Missouri, New

York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire for help.

_Lost, Strayed, or Stolen._

Oh! what has become of the mugwump bird

In this weather of wind and snow?

And does he roost as high as we heard

He roosted a year ago?

A year ago, and his plumes were red

As the deepest of cardinal hues;

But in the year they’ve changed, ’tis said,

To the bluest of bilious blues!

A year ago, and this beautiful thing

Warbled in careless glee;

But now the tune he is forced to sing,

Is pitched in a minor key.

It’s oh, we sigh, for the times gone by,

When the mugwump lived to laugh—

When, coy and shy, he roosted high,

And couldn’t be caught with chaff.

And it’s oh, we say, for the good old day

Which never again may come—

When the mugwump threaded his devious way,

And whistled his lumpty-tum!

_Condensed Literature._

The enterprising firm of Plankinton, Armour, & Co. announces that it is

prepared to meet the demands of the large and constantly increasing

demands of our literary public, by putting into the spring market an

entirely new line of canned goods, scheduled and classified, in the

prominent trade-catalogues as “Condensed Literature.” These ingenious

preparations, which promise to become a boon to Western civilization,

are so compounded as to serve (each in its proper place) in lieu of that

particular kind or branch of literature which may be demanded. There are

eleven varieties of these canned goods; to wit, 1, epic poetry; 2, lyric

poetry; 3, ancient history; 4, modern history; 5, Grecian romance; 6,

Latin romance; 7, German philosophy; 8, English philosophy; 9, English

romance; 10, Norse mythology; 11, Chicago belles lettres. If one feels

the need of information on any one of these topics, he has but to

purchase and consume one of these compounds, and his desire speedily

becomes allayed. For instance, when Mr. Jones experiences an appetite

for, say, epic poetry, he will pay twenty-five cents for can No. 1, and,

having devoured the contents, he will find that appetite temporarily

satisfied. Thus, at one and the same time (as the showman says), the

cravings of the stomach and the hungerings of the mind are satisfied.

The value of this invention cannot be overestimated. In this pushing

community of ours, time is money: recognizing this fact, Messrs.

Plankinton & Armour have invented and patented this grand device for

answering in fifteen minutes, and for twenty-five cents, each and every

literary craving which years of reading and study would not satisfy. No

home, we think, will be complete without a full line of these goods on

its library-shelves.

In addition to the above, and in order to meet the demands of those who

have more time at their disposal (such as old people, sentimental

spinsters, invalids, and professional writers), this firm is now issuing

superb editions of sugar-cured hams, upon the canvas covers of which are

published the following works: 1, Arnold’s Light of Asia; 2, Tennyson’s

In Memoriam; 3, Helen’s Babies; 4, Lives of Famous Highwaymen and

Pirates; 5, Longfellow and Rice’s Evangeline; 6, The Complete Cook Book;

7, Baxter’s Saints’ Rest (religious); 8, Spalding’s Base-Ball Guide; 9,

Alice in Wonderland; 10, The Complete Letter Writer; 11, Rand &

McNally’s Railroad Guide; 12, Browning’s Poems (selected). In ordering,

care should be taken to state the title of the ham required. Illustrated

editions, containing handsome wood-cut of the author, can be had at a

slight advance; tinted covers, and file for preserving same, twenty-five

cents extra.

_Dr. Warner in Chicago._

Local literary circles were thrown into a condition of feverish

excitement yesterday by the rumor that Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, a

well-known Eastern _littérateur_, had arrived in the city, and was the

honored guest of Col. Wirt Dexter, the popular South-Side Boniface. When

the rumor first gained circulation, it was discredited by very many,

including that cautious and exacting body known as the Chicago Literary

Club. Mr. T. Arthur Whiffen, the talented son of the wealthy wholesale

fig-dealer, and a member of the club in high standing, refused to

believe that Mr. Warner was really in the city.

“As soon as I heard it,” said he, “I stepped around to Dale’s

drug-store, and asked the proprietor if he had received any confirmation

of the rumor, and he replied in the negative. Mr. Dale is the general

Western agent for Mr. Warner’s works; and, as he very pertinently

observed, he would have been likely to know if Warner were in this

vicinity.”

Later in the day, however, it was learned that Mr. Warner was indeed in

the midst of us: in fact, along about three o’clock in the afternoon he

was seen bowling down Drexel Boulevard in Mr. Dexter’s elegant St.

Bernard dog-cart behind Mr. Dexter’s famous bay gelding, Grover

Cleveland. It was stated that Mr. Warner had come to Chicago for the

purpose of delivering an address before the Clan-na-Gael on St.

Patrick’s Day, the 17th inst., and had chosen as the theme for that

address, “The Theory that Ben Jonson Did Not Write Rasselas.”

Subsequently, however, it was ascertained that this statement was

unfounded. In a conversation with Professor Benjamin F. Lawkins,

president of the Emerson Literary Society, and author of the scholarly

_brochure_ entitled “The Relations Between Fifteen-Ball Poole and the

Librarian of Our Public Library,” it was developed that Mr. Warner had

produced the following works: “A Liver Safe Cure,” “Some Golden

Remedies,” “Comets and Their Relations to Purgative Pellets,” and “What

I Know About Farming.” We are told that Mr. Warner will leave for the

Pacific slope in a day or two, but will be in Chicago again during the

month of June; and we doubt not, that, upon his return, he will be

cordially welcomed and handsomely entertained by our appreciative

public.

_An Anxious Inquiry._

CHICAGO, ILL., April 17.

_To the Editor._—You said some time ago that Dr. Charles Dudley Warner,

the eminent _littérateur_, and compounder of Warner’s famous safe liver

and kidney pills, would visit Chicago on his return from California: can

you give me the exact date of his coming? As one deeply interested in

Chicago culture, I am anxious to become acquainted with Dr. Warner, and

to ascertain from him whether a use of his pills would be likely to

facilitate the literary movement in this city.

Yours truly,

ARBA N. JACKSON, V.S.

_A Chip of the Old Block._

Ex-Postmaster-General Frank Hatton has a fourteen-year-old son who

resembles his distinguished father in many particulars.

“Pa,” said he the other day, “I’ve made up my mind where I would like to

go to college.”

“Aha,” replied his father; “and where is it, my boy?”

“To Vassar,” said the precocious child.

“Humph!” ejaculated the proud father: “darned if I wouldn’t like to go

there myself!”

* * * * *

We understand that Professor Thomas DeQuincey Smythe, the gifted

_littérateur_ who edited the famous Chicago edition of Browning’s poems,

with copious notes, has recently invented a wonderful powder for

removing fleas from pet cats and dogs.

_The Crown Jewels._

Considerable interest (not to say excitement) has been manifested here

in Chicago during the sale of the crown jewels in Paris. There is vast

wealth in our most cultured circles; and this wealth, we are gratified

to note, is being invested quite largely in articles de virtue, such,

for instance, as oil-paintings, St. Bernard dogs, statuary,

trotting-horses, tally-ho coaches, upright piano-fortes, Egyptian

mummies, crown jewels, Shakespearian autographs, bicycles, and

coats-of-arms. Some years ago one of our most prominent citizens (a

gentleman of wealth and sand) went to Europe for the express purpose of

buying the Venus de Milo; but when he came to see the statue, he refused

to pay the price demanded, for the very good reason that the goods were

damaged. But he did not return empty-handed: on the contrary, he brought

back with him from New York the finest line of Rogers statuette groups

you ever clapped eyes on. He told us at the time, that he could have

bought a genuine Raphael prima donna for thirty thousand dollars, but

had concluded to get along with one of Prang’s Beatrices: on the whole,

he rather preferred the Beatrice for two reasons,—first, because he did

not go much on opera, anyway; and, second, because his wife belonged to

a Dante club, and would like to have a picture of her favorite poet’s

lady-love in her drawing-room. The famous peachblow vase, for which an

Eastern liquor-dealer paid eighteen thousand dollars, would surely have

come to Chicago if it had not been so expensive. There was a deep-seated

desire among our better classes to have it in the midst of us; but there

happened to be an unfortunate flurry in the pork-market just at the time

the Morgan sale took place, and the consequent depression in local

cultured circles was such that the coveted article de virtue was allowed

to go to Baltimore. The truth of the matter is,—and there is no use

denying it,—that Chicago is taking a powerful interest in art. It was

only last month that Col. N. K. Fairbank had his portrait painted by

Michael Angelo. The distinguished artist called at the colonel’s office,

and told him he was hard pressed for money, and would paint his portrait

at a very reasonable cash-price. Col. Fairbank had some doubts about his

being the original Angelo, but these doubts were removed when the artist

showed him the original written contract he made for decorating St.

Peter’s.

About three weeks ago, the agents of several wealthy Chicagoans sailed

for Paris to be present at the sale of the crown jewels. It was

understood that this was to be a sheriff’s sale of the diamonds, rubies,

emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, pearls, and other gems seized on a writ

of attachment under a first mortgage from the unhappy Eugenie, relict of

Louis Napoleon, late emperor of the French. The sale, as advertised, was

to occur at the Hotel de Veal, and was to be conducted on a strictly

cash basis. Among the articles listed were brooches, garlands, pendants,

flowerets, bracelets, garters, necklaces, tiaras, briolettes, rings,

crosses, talismans, lockets, medallions, etc., indefinitely. At the

present time, there are, undoubtedly, more diamonds and other precious

stones in Chicago than in all the rest of this country combined. On

State Street on almost any pleasant afternoon, you can see thousands of

beautiful women doing their shopping in superb costumes positively

resplendent with diamonds of the first water and the thirty-second

magnitude. In short, culture has reached that point in the midst of us,

that no lady is received into our most refined circles unless she wears

fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds when she goes marketing.

Naturally, therefore, our bong tong were upon the kee veev when they

heard of the mammoth sheriff’s sale of crown jewels in Paris. Moses

Jacobson, the Dearborn-street connoisseur, was despatched to France at

once by a Prairie-avenue syndicate; and he carried with him a cart

blonch to buy as many diamonds and valuables as he thought would add to

the intellectual and personal charms of his employers’ wives and

daughters. No sooner did they hear of this, than a number of prominent

millionnaires on Michigan Avenue made up a pool, and hired Abraham Levy,

the Monroe-street connoisseur, to follow Mr. Jacobson, and to outbid him

at the Hotel de Veal sale. Presently the West Side and the North Side

waked up, and betimes Wabash Avenue and other fashionable localities

became enthused; to make short of a long and thrilling story, there

cannot be fewer than a dozen representatives of Chicago culture in Paris

at this time, each struggling for possession of those crown jewels. We

feel pretty confident that the Frenchmen will not be able to impose upon

these representatives; for, if there is one thing which a Chicagoan

understands better than he does pork and belles lettres, it is diamonds.

When he gets his hands on a stone of unusual lustre, the first thing he

does is to draw his tongue across it, to assure himself that it isn’t

alum: then he turns it around, to see if there is any tinfoil back of

it. If the stone endures these tests, the Chicagoan will pay the

handsomest market-price for it; for, as we have frequently remarked with

pride, the truly cultured Chicagoan is a man of enterprise and sand. It

will not surprise us at all if the Chicago agents now in Paris come back

with a box-car load of crown jewels.

_Mr. Goodwin’s Yacht._

Mr. Nat C. Goodwin, the comedian, has gained twenty pounds in weight

since his last visit to Chicago five months ago. He says that life on

the Massachusetts beach has wrought this marked improvement in his

health and appearance: he has done nothing all summer, but cruise around

in his yacht, mingle his handsome form with the billows of the Atlantic,

eat clams, and drink bilge-water. Mr. Goodwin is a honored member of the

famous Hull Yacht Club of Boston, and the experiences of his yacht have

been so numerous that they would fill tomes to overflowing. His yacht

is, not inappropriately, named “The Sinker;” and it is justly considered

the most remarkable craft on the Atlantic coast. Whenever Mr. Goodwin

sets sail in it, his Boston friends buy pools on the chances of his ever

showing up again. It is worthy of note, that the chances of his never

returning are invariably the favorite in the pools. Mr. Goodwin tells

us, and we are inclined to believe him, that his yacht is the only

sailing-vessel in American waters that can jump a fence. He says, that

whenever he leaves the Boston wharf, and heads “The Sinker” for the

mighty expanse of brine due east, every tug in the harbor gets up steam,

and gives chase; it seeming to be a friendly rivalry among the tugs to

see who will earn the ten dollars, and the honor of convoying “The

Sinker” back into port, when it staves a hole in its hold, or splits its

mizzen-mast, or loses its boom, or disables its rudder, or meets with

any one of the misfortunes which appear to be inevitable when Mr.

Goodwin is in practical command. “When I have my new yacht built,” says

Mr. Goodwin, “I shall have it constructed upon ingenious plans which are

the result of a long and eventful experience. It will be so devised and

built as to be capable of shutting up like an accordion whenever it

strikes a rock or a sand-bar. In this way all disaster will be averted,

and I will be spared the humiliation and expense of liquidating the

damages which now attend every cruise of ‘The Sinker.’ The log of this

unfortunate vessel reveals the startling fact, that although ‘The

Sinker’ actually sailed only sixty-two miles last summer, the cost for

repairs exceeded three thousand dollars.” Mr. Goodwin said he was amazed

to discover that William H. Crane, the actor, had such a large

reputation in the West for nautical prowess. He was free to confess that

Crane was a very indifferent yachtsman, and he seriously doubted whether

Crane had ever been out of sight of Bunker-hill Monument in all of his

much-vaunted ocean experience. “This man Crane,” says Goodwin, “is an

interloper: he talks very glibly about mainstays and jibs and ‘to

leeward’ and ‘aft’ and ‘hard-a-port,’ but he knows absolutely nothing

about practical marine-service. I had him out with me ten minutes in

‘The Sinker’ one afternoon last August; and, when they fished him out of

the water with boat-hooks, he cried like a baby, and vowed he would

never again test the faith of the bounding billows. Stuart Robson is the

sailor of the two,—a regular old salt; but of course he is getting too

advanced in years to enter into aquatic sports with enthusiasm.” Mr.

Goodwin said Mr. Crane was enjoying more robust health now than ever

before. In a year or two we might expect to see him waddling around with

a ponderous abdomen, carrying a big cane, and talking sententiously

about “the young men in the profession.”

_A Laudable Scheme._

Mrs. Antoinette J. Bascomb, Professor Tremaine Lomax, and Mr. T. Boileau

Ransome, have been delegated by the Browning Club of Blue Island to

formulate a plan for a Western School of Summer Philosophy, to be held

in Kumpf’s Grove, near Sixteen-mile Creek, next August. It is the sense

of the club that such a school, conducted largely on the plan of the

Concord summer retreat for the feeble-minded, would redound largely to

the intellectual reputation of the West; but, in order to throw about

the enterprise a practical atmosphere, it is intended to devote the

financial proceeds of this series of picnics to the building of a new

roller-skating rink on Madison Street.

_The Era of Reform._

Having eaten a hearty breakfast of corn-beef hash and johnny-cake,

President Cleveland put on his hat and overcoat, and strode toward the

front-door of the White House.

“Your excellency,” cried Secretary Lamont, “where are you going at this

early hour of the morning? It is hardly five o’clock.”

“I am going for a short walk,” replied the President. “I will be back by

half-past seven,—in plenty of time to read the paper, look over my mail,

write a proclamation or two, and make out a list of nominations before

the Senate convenes. I am going around to the various departments to see

if my cabinet officers have caught the spirit of the administration, and

have returned to the Arcadian simplicity of the Jacksonian epoch.”

And with these words, President Cleveland opened the front-door, and

issued forth into the raw, chilly air of the March morning. The brisk

breeze blowing from the south-east bore to his ears the faint echo of

the din of hammers busily employed in the distant navy-yard at the good

work of restoring American sovereignty on the waters of the globe. The

lights in the Treasury Department were dim; yet every room was lighted

up, and it was evident that all hands were at work, in accordance with

Secretary Manning’s order that all employees of the civil service should

report for duty at half-past four A.M. every week-day. President

Cleveland entered the Treasury building, and asked the janitor where

Col. Manning was to be found.

“He is down in the vaults, counting the money,” said the janitor; “and

he cannot be disturbed.”

Mr. Cleveland expostulated, and was compelled to disclose his identity

before the janitor would listen to him. But, being satisfied at last

that the visitor really was the President, the janitor conducted him

through devious passages, down winding stairways, and under curious

moats, until finally the labyrinthine vaults were reached. Here,

surrounded by piles of shining gold and silver pieces, sat the Secretary

of the Treasury, counting the national hoard by the dim light of a

candle.

“I am sorry you came,” said the secretary to the President; “for I

really have so much work to do, that I have no time to talk.”

Then Mr. Cleveland observed that Col. Manning was attired in naught but

an undershirt, his trousers, and a pair of high-heeled boots.

“Good!” thought the President. Then he said aloud, “But where is the

gas, Dan? and why are you using this wretched tallow-dip?”

“I have had the gas-meter taken out of the building,” said the

secretary, “and have returned to the good old democratic simplicity of

candles. By this means, the sum of ninety thousand dollars will be saved

to the country annually.”

“And what are you doing now?” asked the President.

“Counting the money in the Treasury,” replied Col. Manning. “I intend to

know for myself whether any peculations have been indulged in by my

Republican predecessors. Already I have discovered a number of

questionable things. For instance, I have found the tail-feathers pulled

out of a large number of the eagles on the 1877 coinage of twenty-dollar

gold-pieces, and I intend to trace the burglarious outrage to its

uttermost until the guilty party is brought to justice.”

“That is right,” said the President; and as he walked away, he

felicitated himself and his country upon having secured the co-operation

of such an honest, fearless patriot as the Albany journalist.

In the State Department, too, the tawdry gas-fixtures had been removed,

to make way for the unostentatious candle. Owing to a dimness of vision,

however, Secretary Bayard was compelled to use a kerosene-lamp; and this

stood upon his white-pine table, emitting a fragrance which the rose of

Sharon might have envied. Bayard wore no collar nor tie. He was in his

shirt-sleeves, and the President observed that the shirt was a woollen

one; only to preserve the necessary dignity on state occasions, the

secretary wore a white celluloid bosom; but otherwise his attire was

rigidly plain.

“Yes, I am very busy,” said Mr. Bayard, “and I have been hard at work

since three o’clock this morning. Having abolished the three hundred

typewriters and forty-eight stenographers formerly employed in this

department, I have my hands full answering the letters. Here,” he

continued, as he wearily laid his pale hand on a mass of crumpled sheets

of paper, “here are letters from Queen Victoria, King William, Dom

Pedro, Kalakaua, Alfonzo, the Czar, Taing-ho, Gen. Barrios, the Ahkoond

of Swet, the Emir of Bagdool, the Begum of Mysore, and a hundred other

potentates, which must be answered before the noon-mail goes out.”

In the Navy Department, Secretary Whitney was not to be found. Over a

work-bench in one corner of the room leaned a boy, contemplating with

awe and admiration the model of a patent canal-boat, which calmly

floated on the bosom of a tub of cistern-water.

“Can you tell me where to find the Secretary of the Navy?” sternly

demanded the President, who was evidently pained to see one of the lad’s

years idling in this manner.

“Dunno,” replied the boy, “but guess he’s in the gymnasium over ’cross

the hall.”

President Cleveland stepped across the hall, and opened a door on which

was pasted a sheet of paper bearing the written legend “Private.” Yes,

there was the Secretary of the Navy, attired in a sleeveless jersey and

a pair of white cotton drawers, and engaged at pulling vigorously at a

rowing-machine.

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed President Cleveland. “What on earth are you

doing?”

“Learning the business,” replied Secretary Whitney, between pulls. “I am

determined to acquaint myself with every detail of the marine and navy

service. My arms have grown an inch and a half in ten days. Bill

Chandler knew nothing about the minutiæ of the department, and I am

resolved to put his administration to the blush. I am learning to swim,

and I go to the natatorium twice a day to take lessons.”

As the President strolled toward the War-Department offices, his bosom

heaved with emotions of exultation.

“How admirably have I chosen my associates!” he murmured. “On every hand

I find irrefutable evidence that the spirit of my administration has

infused every subordinate and co-ordinate branch.”

On the walls of the war-office were divers chromos and lithographic

prints of Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, Israel Putnam, Zachary

Taylor, Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock, and other great

generals; also a framed daguerrotype of old Admiral Crowninshield, in

the costume of an honorary member of the Hull Yacht Club of Boston.

Armed soldiers paced to and fro over the sanded floor, or studied the

maps of the Sioux, Ute, and Modoc reservations, which were spread out on

the varnished deal tables. When President Cleveland inquired where

Secretary Endicott was, one of the gloomy sentinels pointed in the

direction of an inner room; and thither the President drifted. A

surprising spectacle greeted him as he entered. Secretary Endicott, clad

only in a blouse and trousers of army blue, and wearing a fatigue-cap,

stood at one end of the room, holding a cavalry pistol in both hands,

and firing at a target at the other end of the room. The target

consisted of the head of a barrel, upon which uncertain rings had been

described with white chalk. “Bang!” went the big pistol, and the recoil

threw the Secretary of War into the President’s arms.

“It is all-fired strange,” explained the secretary, “but I have fired

over two hundred cartridges at that gol-darned target, and I hain’t hit

it once. I’m a mighty poor shot,—don’t believe I could hit the side of a

meetin’-house,—but I’m goin’ to keep on tryin’ till the country owns up

I’m the gol-darnedest best cabinet officer they had since Uncle

Crowninshield was on deck.”

Then the secretary sat down on the corner of the table, and ate his

modest luncheon of nutcakes and cheese, while the President talked with

him about the troubles on the Oklahoma border.

“By the way,” said the President, picking up a cartridge from the pile

that lay on the floor, “have you been using these all the time?”

“Yes,” replied the secretary, mopping the powder-dust and perspiration

from his undaunted brow. “I’ve fired more’n three hundred of ’em this

mornin’.”

“Then, it’s no wonder you haven’t hit the target,” said the President,

with an amused chuckle; “for, my dear fellow, these are blank

cartridges!”

“Well, I swow!” exclaimed the secretary. “You don’t say so!”

President Cleveland chuckled to himself all the way over to the

Post-Office Department. But he was proud of his war-secretary, just the

same. Endicott was honest and earnest: that was the kind of man the era

of reform demanded.

A beautiful young woman, wearing a calico dress, was carrying a

three-hundred-pound mail-sack filled with letters through the hall.

“Is Secretary Vilas in?” inquired the President.

“No, sir,” answered the beautiful being in the calico, as she hurried

along with the mail-sack.

President Cleveland was shocked: he had never suspected that Vilas would

be the first to grow remiss in his duties. With anguish in his soul, the

President entered the Attorney-General’s office. It was in full blast.

The subordinates were ranged in two semicircles about Gen. Garland, who,

in his shirt-sleeves, was propounding questions upon matters which

concerned the intelligent conduct of the department. “What is replevin?”

“What is the jurisdiction of a Missouri justice of the peace?” “Explain

the difference between _de jure_ and _de facto_.” “What is a _posse

comitatus_, and wherein does it differ from the Arkansas possum?” “What

is a change of venue?” These and similar interrogatories did the learned

Attorney-General put to his class; and the President was pleased to hear

that the responses came quickly, and for the greater part were correct.

“I will not interrupt them,” thought the President; so he retired

noiselessly, and slipped over to the Interior Department. All was

commotion here, and Secretary Lamar was busiest of the busy.

“We have been hard at work since daylight,” said the secretary. “You

see, I have not had time to brush my hair, or comb my beard: in fact, I

was in such a hurry that I came down-town with my night-cap on. As

Horace said, ‘_De juvente pluribus noctantur_;’ and in the words of the

old Greek philosopher, ‘_Kai telos epithalmos gar gignosko_.’”

The President applauded the enthusiasm which prevailed. Outside the

pension office several hundred one-armed and wooden-legged veterans were

seeking admittance: inside the office the crowd of old soldiers was

still greater. Standing on tiptoe, and peering over the crowd, the

President could see the pension commissioner, Gen. Black, hard at work

handing out bags of money to the crippled pensioners.

“’Tis well,” said President Cleveland, smiling. Then he went back to the

Post-Office Department, but Vilas was not there. This was a severe

blow,—an awful shock. President Cleveland brooded over it, and the tears

came into his eyes. As he passed the Department of Agriculture, he saw

the commissioner in the garden, watering the tulips, and pruning the

young rhubarb-plants. This sight cheered him somewhat; but still the

President brooded over Vilas’s absence from his post of duty, and he

indulged in the most melancholy reflections until he nearly reached

home,—yes, till he had come to the White-House gate. Then a cheery

whistle startled him from his sad revery. Looking up, he beheld

Secretary Vilas tripping gayly down the walk, carrying a leathern bag,

and whistling a merry air from “Falka.”

“I have just left a bundle of letters with Lamont for you,” said Vilas.

“How do you happen to be here, instead of at your post of duty?”

inquired the President gloomily.

“Why, when I got down to the office at four o’clock this morning,”

explained Vilas, “I found one of our men sick; so I concluded to carry

his route for him myself to-day.”

A few moments later, President Cleveland, having removed his coat,

collar, and necktie, seated himself at his desk in the White House, and

was ready for work.

“Daniel,” said he to his private secretary, “I feel encouraged, for I

have irrefutable evidence that my cabinet is _en rapport_ with the

administration. The republic has indeed entered upon an era of Arcadian

simplicity.”

_The Drama Discussed._

Our esteemed fellow-townsman, Egbert Jamieson, Esq., had a remarkably

pleasant interview with President Cleveland the other day. The President

was in his best mood, and he produced a favorable impression upon his

gifted visitor.

“Col. Lamont tells me,” said Mr. Cleveland, “that you are a dramatic

author.”

“Ah!” replied Mr. Jamieson, blushing, “I do not know that I would call

myself one, although it is true that in leisure moments I have tossed

off a comedy or two.”

“I would like to read your works,” said Mr. Cleveland cordially. “When I

was living in Buffalo, and had more time than I have now, I used to go

to the theatre quite often. I saw Matilda Heron play ‘Camille’ in 1859;

and, although the lady appeared to be suffering with a severe cold at

the time, I don’t know when I have witnessed a more satisfactory

performance. I have also seen Joseph Winkle in ‘Rip Van Jefferson,’ and

Mark Twain in Mulberry Raymond’s play of ‘Millions In It.’ I am

naturally fond of the drama, and I read Shakespeare, Sheridan, Jonson,

and other dramatists every now and then; but I never had the pleasure of

meeting with your works.”

“My dramatic work,” explained Mr. Jamieson modestly, “belongs to the

modern school: do you like the modern school? have you heard that piece

of Dixey’s yet?”

“Yes, often, often,” answered Mr. Cleveland. “The Marine Band plays it

every Saturday afternoon, and I fancy it mightily; although I am averse

to what might be called sectional or partisan music.”

Thus in pleasant discourse did the President and Mr. Jamieson pass as

profitable an hour as ever fell to the lot of two agreeable gentlemen.

When Mr. Jamieson returned to Willard’s Hotel, an anxious friend asked

him whether Cleveland had promised him the attorneyship he was after.

“Well, no, I can’t say that he has,” said Mr. Jamieson; “but there is a

good deal of satisfaction in knowing that the administration and I are

_en rapport_ on the subject of the drama.”

_The Vale of Cashmere._

When the Hon. F. H. Winston, our minister to Persia, heard that

President Cleveland had married without letting him know any thing about

it, he was deeply mortified. He brooded in grim silence while his

dragoman, Prince von Schierbrand, read aloud the official report of the

wedding.

“Hold on a minute,” he cried, interrupting the prince at one point in

his perusal: “read that last sentence again.”

“‘The bride wore a tulle veil bedecked with orange-blossoms,’” repeated

the dragoman slowly and with emphasis.

“Good enough for her!” ejaculated the great diplomate, smiling with

diabolical satisfaction. “If they’d only let me into the secret, with my

influence here at court, I could have sent the bride the veil of

cashmere; and I’ll bet _that_ would have beaten the rest of her

_trousseau_ all hollow!”

_The Friend of the Indian._

As President Cleveland was proceeding from the east front of the

Capitol, after the inauguration ceremonies yesterday, among the vast

throng that surrounded him with congratulatory words was a very

neat-looking gentleman wearing a dark-brown overcoat, black kid gloves,

and a shiny plug hat, and carrying an umbrella in a nice new silk cover.

“How do you do, Mr. President?” exclaimed the neat-looking gentleman

cordially.

“Pretty well, thank you,” replied Mr. Cleveland.

“Can I see you a moment privately?” inquired the neat-looking gentleman,

attempting to draw the new President to one side.

“Really, sir, it is impossible to grant your request just at this

moment,” said Mr. Cleveland, stanchly maintaining his ground.

“You seem to have forgotten me,” persisted the neat-looking gentleman:

“I am Erskine M. Phelps, president of the Iroquois Club.”

“I can do nothing for you just at this moment,” replied Mr. Cleveland;

“but you can depend upon it, I was sincere when I declared in my speech

to-day that you Indians should be fairly and honestly treated.”

_The Way of the Sex._

One morning in May, as the doodle-bug lay

In her cavern a fathom down under the ground,

The poodle-dog came, and he murmured her name,

And the doodle-bug’s heart gave a rapturous bound.

“O doodle, dear doodle!”

Soft murmured the poodle:

“What now, Mr. Poodle?”

Responded the doodle.

Then he told her his love, did the amorous poodle.

But the doodle-bug said, with a toss of her head,

“What stocks, bonds, or moneys, I pri’thee have you?”

But the poodle replied, “I have nothing beside

My beautiful fleece and a heart that is true.”

“Well, then, Mr. Poodle,”

Retorted the doodle,

“I’m not such a noodle,

To wed a kiudle

Who hasn’t a boodle”—

And she gave him the mitten, the frugal Miss Doodle.

_After Many Years._

At the panorama of the Battle of Shiloh in this city a few days ago, a

small, shrivelled-up man made himself conspicuous by going around the

place snivelling dolorously. He did not appear to be more than five feet

high. He was dressed all in black, and his attenuated form and gray

whiskers gave him a peculiarly grotesque appearance. He seemed to be

greatly interested in the panorama; and, as he moved from one point of

view to another, he groaned and wept copiously. A tall, raw-boned man

approached him: he wore gray clothes and a military slouch hat, and he

had the general appearance of a Missourian away from home on a holiday.

“Reckon you were at Shiloh, eh, stranger?” asked the tall, raw-boned

man.

“Yes,” replied the small, shrivelled-up man, “and I shall never forget

it: it was the toughest battle of the war.”

“I was thar,” said the tall, raw-boned man; “and my regiment was drawn

up right over yonder where you see that clump of trees.”

“You were a rebel, then?”

“I was a Confederate,” replied the tall, raw-boned man; “and I did some

right smart fighting among that clump of trees that day.”

“I remember it well,” said the small, shrivelled-up man, “for I was a

Federal soldier; and the toughest scrimmage in all that battle was just

among that clump of trees.”

“Prentiss was the Yankee general,” remarked the tall, raw-boned man;

“and I’d have given a pretty to have seen him that day. But, dog-on me!

the little cuss kept out of sight, and we uns came to the conclusion he

was hidin’ back in the rear somewhar.”

“Our boys were after Marmaduke,” said the small, shrivelled-up man; “for

he was the rebel general, and had bothered us a great deal. But we could

get no glimpse of him: he was too sharp to come to the front, and it was

lucky for him too.”

“Oh, but what a scrimmage it was!” said the tall, raw-boned man.

“How the sabres clashed, and how the minies whistled!” cried the small,

shrivelled-up man.

The panorama brought back the old time with all the vividness of a

yesterday’s occurrence. The two men were filled with a strange yet

beautiful enthusiasm.

“Stranger,” cried the tall, raw-boned man, “we fought each other like

devils that day, and we fought to kill. But the war’s over now, and we

ain’t soldiers any longer—gimme your hand!”

“With pleasure,” said the small, shrivelled-up man; and the two clasped

hands.

“What might be your name?” inquired the tall, raw-boned man.

“I am Gen. B. M. Prentiss,” said the small, shrivelled-up man.

“The —— you say!” exclaimed the tall, raw-boned man.

“Yes,” re-affirmed the small, shrivelled-up man; “and who are you?”

“I,” replied the tall, raw-boned man, “I am Gen. John S. Marmaduke.”

_A Society Item._

The observed of all observers at the opera last evening was Mrs. Col.

Henry J. Bowers, the beautiful and accomplished wife of Col. Henry J.

Bowers, general manager of the Fond du Lac Narrow Gauge. Mrs. Bowers,

accompanied by Miss Cecilia Muggins of Grand Rapids, her queenly niece,

occupied proscenium-box B, and won universal admiration, not more by the

nice discrimination with which she approved the performance, than by the

superb toilet in which she was attired. Mrs. B. is the daughter of Peter

Muggins, the millionnaire pork-packer of Omaha, who came to this country

forty years ago a poor lad, and engaged in commerce as a driver on the

Illinois and Michigan Canal. Before her marriage, she was the belle of

her native town; and since that auspicious event, she has been the

acknowledged queen of the _recherche_ social circle in which she moves.

_“Die Walküre” und der Boomerangelungen._

There is a strange fascination about Herr Wagner’s musical drama of “Die

Walküre.” A great many people have supposed that Herr Sullivan’s opera

of “Das Pinafore” was the most remarkable musical work extant, but we

believe the mistake will become apparent as Herr Wagner’s masterpiece

grows in years. We will not pretend to say that “Die Walküre” will ever

be whistled about the streets, as the airs from “Das Pinafore” are

whistled: the fact is, that no rendition of “Die Walküre” can be

satisfactory without the accompaniment of weird flashes of fire; and it

is hardly to be expected that our youth will carry packages of

lycopodium, and boxes of matches, around with them, for the sole purpose

of giving the desired effect to any snatches from Herr Wagner’s work

they may take the notion to whistle. But in the sanctity of our homes,

around our firesides, in the front-parlor, where the melodeon or the

newly hired piano has been set up, it is there that Herr Wagner’s name

will be revered, and his masterpiece repeated o’er and o’er. The

libretto is not above criticism: it strikes us that there is not enough

of it. The probability is, that Herr Wagner ran out of libretto before

he had got through with his music, and therefore had to spread out

comparatively few words over a vast expanse of music. The result is,

that a great part of the time the performers are on the stage is devoted

to thought, the orchestra doing a tremendous amount of fiddling, etc.,

while the actors wander drearily around, with their arms folded across

their pulmonary departments, and their minds evidently absorbed in

profound cogitation. As for the music, the only criticism we have to

pass upon it is, that it changes its subject too often: in this

particular it resembles the dictionary,—in fact, we believe “Die

Walküre” can be termed the Webster’s Unabridged of musical language.

Herr Wagner has his own way of doing business. He goes at it on the

principle of the twelfth man, who holds out against the eleven other

jurors, and finally brings them around to his way of thinking. For

instance, in the midst of a pleasing strain in B natural, Herr Wagner

has a habit of suddenly bringing out a small reed-instrument with a big

voice (we do not know its name), piped in the key of F sharp. This small

reed-instrument will not let go: it holds on to that F sharp like a

mortgage. For a brief period the rest of the instruments—fiddles,

bassoons, viols, flutes, flageolets, cymbals, drums, etc.—struggle along

with an attempt to either drown the intruder, or bring it around to

their way of doing business; but it is vain. Every last one of them has

to slide around from B natural to F sharp, and they do it as best they

can. Having accomplished its incendiary and revolutionary purpose, the

small reed-instrument subsides until it finds another chance to break

out. It is a mugwump.

Die Walkuren, as given us by the Damrosch Company, are nine stout,

comely, young women, attired in costumes somewhat similar to the armor

worn by Herr Lawrence Barrett’s Roman army in Herr Shakespeare’s play of

“Der Julius Cæsar.” Readers of Norse mythology may suppose that these

weird sisters were dim, vague, shadowy creatures; but they are mistaken.

Brunnhilde has the _embonpoint_ of a dowager, and her arms are as robust

and red as a dairymaid’s. As for Gerhilde, Waltraute, Helmwige, and the

rest, they are well-fed, buxom ladies, evidently of middle age, whose

very appearance exhales an aroma of kraut and garlic, which, by the way,

we see, by the libretto, was termed “mead” in the days of Wotan and his

court. These Die Walkuren are said to ride fiery, untamed steeds; but

only one steed is exhibited in the drama, as it is given at the

Columbia. This steed, we regret to say, is a restless, noisy brute, and

invariably has to be led off the stage by one of das supes, before his

act concludes. However, no one should doubt his heroic nature, inasmuch

as the cabalistic letters “U. S.” are distinctly branded upon his left

flank.

The Sieglinde of the piece is Fraulein Slach, a young lady no bigger

than a minute, but with wonderful powers of endurance. To say nothing of

Hunding’s persecutions, she has to shield Siegmund, elope with him,

climb beetling precipices, ride Brunnhilde’s fiery, untamed steed,

confront die Walkuren, and look on her slain lover, and, in addition to

these prodigies, participate in a Græco-Roman wrestling-match with an

orchestra of sixty-five pieces for three hours and a half. Yet she is

equal to the emergency. Up to the very last she is as fresh as a daisy;

and, after recovering from her swooning-spell in the second act, she

braces her shoulders back, and dances all around the top notes of the

chromatic scale with the greatest of ease. She is a wonderful little

woman, is Fraulein Slach! What a wee bit of humanity, yet what a volume

of voice she has, and what endurance!

Down among the orchestra people sat a pale, sad man. His apparent

lonesomeness interested us deeply. We could not imagine what he was

there for. Every once in a while he would get up and leave the

orchestra, and dive down under the stage, and appear behind the scenes,

where we could catch glimpses of him practising with a pair of

thirty-pound dumb-bells, and testing a spirometer. Then he would come

back and re-occupy his old seat among the orchestra, and look paler and

sadder than ever. What strange, mysterious being was he? Why did he

inflict his pale, sad presence upon that galaxy of tuneful revellers?

What a cunning master the great Herr Wagner is! For what emergency does

he not provide? It was half-past eleven when the third act began. Die

Walkuren had assembled in the dismal dell,—all but the den Walkure,

Brunnhilde. Wotan is approaching on appalling storm-clouds, composed of

painted mosquito-bars and blue lights. The sheet-iron thunder crashes;

and the orchestra is engaged in another mortal combat with that

revolutionary mugwump, the small reed-instrument, that persists in

reforming the tune of the opera. Then the pale, sad man produces a large

brass horn, big enough at the business end for a cow to walk into. It is

a fearful, ponderous instrument, manufactured especially for “Die

Walküre” at the Krupp Gun Factory in Essen. It has an appropriate name:

the master himself christened it the boomerangelungen. It is the

monarch, the Jumbo of all musical dinguses. The cuspidor end of it

protrudes into one of the proscenium-boxes. The fair occupants of the

box are frightened, and timidly shrink back. Wotan is at hand. He comes

upon seven hundred yards of white tarletan, and fourteen pounds of

hissing, blazing lycopodium! The pale, sad man at the other end of the

boomerangelungen explains his wherefore. He applies his lips to the

brazen monster. His eyeballs hang out upon his cheeks, the veins rise on

his neck, and the lumpy cords and muscles stand out on his arms and

hands. Boohoop, boohoop!—yes, six times boohoop does that brazen

megatherium blare out, vivid and distinct, above all the other sixty

instruments in the orchestra. Then the white tarletan clouds vanish, the

blazing lycopodium goes out, and Wotan stands before the excited

spectators. Then the pale, sad man lays down the boomerangelungen, and

goes home. That is all he has to do: the six sonorous boohoops,

announcing the presence of Wotan, is all that is demanded of the

boomerangelungen. But it is enough: it is marvellous, appalling,

prodigious. Whose genius but Herr Wagner’s could have found employment

for the boomerangelungen? We hear talk of the sword motive, the love

motive, the Walhalla motive, and this motive, and that; but they all

shrink into nothingness when compared with the motive of the

boomerangelungen.

_An Angered Teuton._

A gentleman living out on Franklin Street sends the following

communication to this paper, under date of March 12:—

“_To the Editor._—Your to-day’s edition brings an article on ‘The

Walküre.’ Are you aware of the fact that your daily issue is,

according to your own statement, nearly a hundred and fifty thousand?

You ought to expect that out of these hundred and fifty thousand, at

least fifteen hundred will read your paper. Now, how can you, in the

face of this number, print the monstrous pollutions of a Lausbub, who

sat down and described his voluptuous ignorance in a manner which

ought to drive the blush of shame to his face, if he has any? There is

no use going into the details of his work: they, as well as it, are

simply disgusting. I would excuse any _gentleman_ who does not like

Wagner’s music, for saying so in a gentleman-like manner; but a man of

the standing of your correspondent, whose expressions are printed in a

paper of the standing of ‘The Daily News,’—I expect without

control,—such a man, if he really be the brute he attempts to make out

of himself, ought to be tortured to death by Wagner’s music, and the

smell of garlic of ‘The Walküre.’ I write this to you as an expression

of my disgust,” etc.

_“Die Walküre” Analyzed._

Professor Eliphalet J. Snodgrass, emeritus professor of æsthetic

chemistry at Chicago University, has analyzed the specimen of Wagner’s

“Die Walküre” we sent him last Wednesday morning, and he finds that this

inspired work of the great German master is composed of the following

proportionate parts:—

Libretto 06

String-music 12

Wind-music 15

Motives 25

Bass-drums and cymbals 14

Lycopodium and sheet-iron thunder 13

Flapdoodle, flubdub, and imagination 15

———

Total 100

This chemical analysis is confirmed, we understand, by the numerous

musical critics of the Chicago press, who have surveyed the performance

of “Die Walküre” at the Columbia this week, with quadrants, theodolites,

and tuning-forks, in the parquette circle. We are not sure but what a

study of these critics, as they appear under full headway at an opera,

is more profitable than a study of the performance on the stage. At

least, an observation of their methods teaches us the means by which the

human mind can arrive at perfection in the art of musical criticism.

_A Felicitous Toast._

“May your shadow never grow less!” was the singularly felicitous toast

which Major M. P. Handy, president of the Clover Club, proposed to Miss

Sara Bernhardt at a Philadelphia banquet the other evening.

_The Farmer Candidate._

Farmer Carter H. Harrison, the Democratic candidate for governor, went

out to the State Fair yesterday in his honest old lumber-wagon, drawn by

a couple of steers. He was received with intense enthusiasm by the

simple country-folk, who seem to regard him as the modern Cincinnatus.

Much to his chagrin, however, the sturdy old farmer discovered, through

the shrewd tactics of the Hon. John W. Bunn, chairman of the State

Republican Executive Committee, the fair had assumed the air and

appearance of a Blaine and Logan ratification meeting. There were Jim

Blaine squashes, John Logan pumpkins, Plumed Knight butter, Black Jack

preserves, Magnetic pears, Mulligan potatoes, to say nothing of the

cattle, sheep, swine, horses, mules, goats, roosters, drakes, and

ganders that bore the inspiring names of Blaine, Logan, Black Eagle,

Pride of Maine, Our James, Eloquent John, Little Rock Jim, Sunstroke,

etc. In a word, it was evident that the determination on the part of

Bunn, and other Republican managers, to give none of the premiums to any

exhibiter who was not a reliable Republican, had converted the State

Fair into a mammoth Republican ratification meeting. Farmer Harrison’s

bosom was perturbed by the contending emotion of wounded pride,

righteous indignation, horror, and scorn. His eagle eyes flashed, and an

ominous scowl clouded his sunburned brow. He determined to do something

at once that would counteract the effect of this infamous trickery, and

confound the conscienceless Republican managers upon their own

vantage-ground. So he approached one of the stock-stalls, where a

guileless-looking old rustic was lazily chewing tobacco, and watching

over a fine, fat specimen of the bovine kind.

“Ah, my good friend,” said Farmer Harrison, in his oiliest tones, “what

a superb animal that is!”

“Yes,” replied the rustic, “a very clever critter.”

“What do you call him?” inquired Farmer Harrison. “Do you call him Jim

Blaine?”

“Naw,” replied the rustic.

“Logan or Oglesby?” asked Farmer Harrison.

“Naw.”

“Perhaps you have named him the Plumed Knight, or Black Eagle, or Uncle

Dick?” suggested the farmer candidate.

“Naw,” said the rustic: “’tain’t got no name ’t all.”

“I thought not,” cried Farmer Harrison. “There was an indescribable

something about your appearance, my good friend,—a certain candor,

dignity, and valor,—that told me, ‘This man is no tool of the corrupt

ringsters who are now attempting to foist themselves upon the honest

yeomanry of Illinois.’ Your erect figure, your manly face, your hearty

voice, and your ingenious manner, bespeak your independence of all the

subtle influences of corruption. You are a Democrat, sir,—a grand old

Jacksonian Democrat,—unless your honest looks belie you!”

“Waal, I am, by gosh!” said the rustic earnestly.

“Now, I’ve a proposition to make to you,” said Farmer Harrison softly,

“and it is this: you name this noble animal after me, and placard him

‘Carter H. Harrison,’ and I’ll do something for you after I’m elected

governor.”

“Waal, now, gov’ner,” said the rustic, confused like, “I’m drefful

sorry, but I can’t conscientiously do it.”

“What!” cried Farmer Harrison. “Do you mean to say that you, an old

Jacksonian Democrat, decline to perform this simple duty at a moment

when the hand of corruption is outstretched to throttle our fair

republic? Do you mean to say that in this emergency and at this supreme

moment you refuse to name this sleek brute ‘Carter H. Harrison,’ and

thereby redeem this State Fair from eternal ignominy?”

“Now, really, gov’ner, I can’t,” persisted the rustic.

“And why not?” demanded Farmer Harrison.

“I don’t care to say: I don’t want to hurt your feelin’s.”

“Speak out, old man,” cried Farmer Harrison. “‘Hew to the line, let the

chips fall where they may.’ At this moment, let there be no

equivocation, no hesitation, no concealment: speak out, old man, that

your answer may be recorded, and go thundering down the ages!”

“Waal, then,” said the venerable rustic, “if you insist upon knowin’ my

reason, I can’t do it, ’cause the critter’s a heifer!”

_The Mummy’s Conundrum._

A floating item tells us that Omaha is the cheapest place in the country

to die in. But why die in Omaha, when one can live as cheap in St.

Louis, and at the same time serve all the purposes of being dead in

other localities? It is related by one of our most reliable citizens,

who has travelled much abroad, that he once visited the catacombs of

Rome. Deep in the bowels of the earth, surrounded by the mouldy

skeletons of other centuries, and oppressed by the weird gloom of the

labyrinth of the dead, the traveller abandoned himself to solemn

reflections.

“This, then,” said he, half aloud, “this is the city of the dim,

mysterious past—the vast charnel-house in which the glory, the flower,

the cream, the ambition, of other generations crumble to dust! Grim

mocker of mortality—genius of oblivion! this granary of human clay is

thy cherished and supreme abode!”

To this apostrophe, a musty mummy of the time of Nero the violinist,

raising himself rheumatically from his couch in a mouldy niche, replied,

“Stranger, I reckon you’ve never been in St. Louis, Mo.”

[Illustration: THE END.]

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