(Good morning.)
Was Stronger Than the Play.
In the same year, 1890, Miss Adams appeared at the same theater, in what
was styled its regular season, opening on October 21 as _Dora Prescott_,
another ingenue role, in De Mille and Belasco's "Men and Women." This was
followed in the fall of 1891, also at Proctor's, by De Mille's play from
the German, "The Lost Paradise," in which Miss Adams was cast for the lame
mill-girl, _Nell_.
This Henry C. De Mille, it may be remarked in passing, was the father of
the W.C. De Mille who wrote "Strongheart" for Robert Edeson, and who is an
instructor in the Empire School of Acting, sometimes known as the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts.
In the spring of 1892 John Drew left Daly's, whereupon Charles Frohman
decided to make him his first star, and he chose Maude Adams to be his
leading woman. It is now an old story--the hit she instantly made as the
wife who assumes intoxication in a crisis of the Clyde Fitch comedy from
the French, "The Masked Ball."
That it was the actress and not the part that triumphed was proved by the
falling down of the piece when it was tried some few years since, under
supposedly favorable auspices in London.
Miss Adams was at once established as a metropolitan favorite of the first
water. The play ran as long as time could be secured for it at Wallack's
(then known as Palmer's), and was removed to the Manhattan (then the
Standard), where it finished out the season.
She continued with Drew for five years, and became a star in "The Little
Minister" in the fall of 1897, with Robert Edeson for her first leading
man.
HACKETT'S EARLY DREAM.
It Came True When He Saw His
Name in Letters of Fire in Front
of a Broadway Theater.
The line now appearing on the programs at Fields's Theater, "Mr. Hackett,
Sole Lessee and Manager," practically inaugurates in New York the policy
that has so long been current in London--that of actor-managership. To be
sure, it is not James K. Hackett's present intention to appear himself on
the stage at Fields's, but it is not unlikely that before snow flies again
he may have another house nearer the Broadway line and which will bear his
name, as it is his plan to reserve Fields's for farces like "Mr.
Hopkinson" and light musical offerings.
Speaking of his name over a theater recalls a remark he made to me
something like half a score of years ago. We had been dining together at
the Players and were riding up-town on a Broadway car in the direction of
the Broadway Theater, where Hackett was then doing _De Neipperg_ with
Kathryn Kidder in "Madame Sans Gene." The electric sign had recently come
into existence, and as we were passing what is now the Princess's, but was
then known as "Herrman's," the car was flooded with a glow from the
brilliant lettering proclaiming that So-and-So (some star whose name now
slips my memory) was appearing there.
Hackett clutched my arm.
"See that!" he exclaimed. "One day you will read my name in similar
letters of fire!"
Then he aspired only to stardom, little recking that he was to become a
manager as well. But he has a foundation, broad and deep, behind him. His
father was the J.H. Hackett whose _Falstaff_ was so inimitable that it
came to be associated with him almost in the guise of a Christian name.
His mother--and a more devoted parent never lived--was also once on the
boards.
James K. was born amid the swirling waters of the St. Lawrence, on Wolfe
Island, Ontario, his father being almost seventy at the time.
The late Recorder Hackett, of New York, was a half-brother of the present
actor-manager. James has no recollection of his father, as he was scarcely
two years old when he died. His mother has been his guardian angel since
birth. She brought him up in New York City, with the idea that law should
be his life vocation; but from the age of seven, when he recited
Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" in public, amateur theatricals played a
big part in his aspirations. He was in the class of '91 of the College of
the City of New York, and when he was about nineteen I remember seeing him
at the Berkeley Lyceum, in a representation by the college dramatic club,
as "_Joseph Pickle_, inclined to mischief," in "The Pink Mask."
It was his experience in performances like this that helped him to make
his start when he finally decided--as such a throng have done before
him--to abandon law in favor of the footlights. He began on March 28,
1892, in Philadelphia, with A.M. Palmer's company, then presenting "The
Broken Seal." He had only six lines to speak, but the very next week J.H.
Stoddart gave him an opening for something better, as he once gave
Mansfield, though under altogether different circumstances.
Mrs. Stoddart died suddenly, and during his absence from the company his
part of _Jean Torquerie_ was entrusted to young Hackett, who acquitted
himself so well therein that he was enabled to obtain a post with Lotta as
her leading man. Lotta's retirement threw him on the market, from which he
was removed by no less distinguished a manager than Augustin Daly.
At Daly's then he appeared as _Master Wilford_ in "The Hunchback," with
Ada Rehan as _Julia_, Isabel Irving (whom Hackett has since starred in
"The Crisis") as _Helen_, and Arthur Bourchier (now a leading
actor-manager of London, and who created the part Hackett played here in
"The Walls of Jericho") as _Sir Thomas Clifford_.
From Daly's he passed to the road under the management of Arthur Rehan as
leading man in successes from Daly's, which led to his becoming a star in
the same modest orbit in a repertoire of old-timers such as "Mixed
Pickles" (on which his amateur venture, "The Pink Mask," had been based),
"The Arabian Nights," and "The Private Secretary."
He was lifted into the prominence imparted by a Broadway run through the
agency of "Madame Sans Gene," in which Dan Frohman saw him, with the
result that in November, 1895, he appeared with the old Lyceum stock
company as a character next in importance to Herbert Kelcey, then leading
man of the troupe. The play was a serious one, "The Home Secretary," by
R.C. Carton, who had not then taken such wild farcical flights as "Mr.
Hopkinson."
It was just at this time that Mr. Frohman decided to try rather an odd
experiment. As had been his custom, E.H. Sothern had opened the autumn
season at the Lyceum, and this year with even more than his wonted
success, for he had appeared in the first transfer to the stage of "The
Prisoner of Zenda." Previous bookings compelled his relegation to the road
in the very height of the New York hit, and in mid-winter, after sizing up
his new acquisition to the stock forces, Mr. Frohman decided to duplicate
the outfittings of "The Prisoner of Zenda" and put it on at the Lyceum
with Hackett in the dual part of _Rassendyll_ and the king.
What Kelcey thought of this arrangement has never been made public. But he
was temperamentally unsuited to romantic roles, and did admirable work in
the heavier part of _Black Michael_, with the explanatory line "by special
arrangement" beneath his name on the program.
This was Hackett's opportunity, and he availed himself of it to the full,
winning the Lyceum clientage for his firm adherents, so that when Kelcey
went starring the next autumn with Effie Shannon he stepped into the shoes
of the leading man of the house. In the opening bill, "The Courtship of
Leonie," he met for the first time the new leading woman, Mary Mannering,
who in due course became his wife.
It was two years later that Mr. Frohman launched Hackett as a star in the
"Prisoner of Zenda's" sequel, "Rupert of Hentzau," which had no Broadway
showing. Its successor, "The Pride of Jennico," made up for this by
setting Hackett on a pedestal so firmly rooted in public favor that in a
year or so he became his own manager, and his youthful dream was
fulfilled.
THE ROAD TO "HAPPYLAND."
After Becoming Stage-Struck, Marguerite
Clark Began Her Professional Career
as a Singer in a Baltimore Park.
"Stage-struck" is the cause that sent to the boards Marguerite Clark, the
little leading woman of the big comedian, De Wolf Hopper. A native of
Boston, she studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, but had no
stage acquaintances and no means of securing an opening.
One evening, however, she was singing at a friend's house, when there
chanced to be among the guests the manager of an open-air resort in the
neighborhood of Baltimore. It was, in brief, one of those parks at the end
of a trolley line, which the street railway company promotes in order to
boom traffic. Struck by Miss Clark's capabilities, and learning of her
histrionic ambitions, he offered her an engagement for the summer, which
she was only too glad to accept. In this rather humble way, then, she made
her start, singing before such heterogeneous crowds as the trolley emptied
into the park from all quarters of the Monumental City.
When frost set in there was, of course, an end to the engagement, but
little Miss Clark had no thought of quitting the game. She came on to New
York, and began a systematic tour of the agencies and the managers'
offices, and finally she landed an engagement with the chorus of Sousa's
opera, "The Bride-Elect." From this she passed to the Casino, when Irene
Bentley was appearing there in "The Belle of Bohemia." She was now
entrusted with her first part, which secured her an opening with Hopper in
"Mr. Pickwick." In this she was Sam Weller's sweetheart _Polly_. One of
the critics said of her:
"Marguerite Clark is a most cunning and comely little girl--pretty enough
to rave about--and many amusing miles away from the Dickens picture."
"Mr. Pickwick," by the way, will probably turn out to be the last musical
play that Charles Klein will write. Since the abounding success of "The
Music Master" and "The Lion and the Mouse," the so-called legitimate field
will doubtless claim all his time.
To return to Miss Clark, when Hopper revived "Wang," she was cast for
_Mataya_ on account of her size, but was so afraid to come into New York
with it that for that period she went to Boston and appeared in "The Babes
in the Wood."
ORATORY STARTED CHAPIN.
The Prosy Addresses of Fourth-of-July
Speakers Goaded Him On to the
Study of Declamation.
"It was _not_ because I happened to have long legs that I decided to put
myself as Abraham Lincoln into a play."
So said Benjamin Chapin when I approached him with a request to talk a bit
for the benefit of THE SCRAP BOOK readers.
And when I saw the man out of character I could not blame him for being a
little ruffled at the persistent press talk about his doing the Lincoln
play because he looked like the famous President. I had gone so far into
this belief myself that I was distinctly amazed when the door opened to
admit a young man, one not much more than thirty, I should say. The face
is long, to be sure, and the frame loose-jointed, but Mr. Chapin's
features blend into rather an attractive composite, and Mr. Lincoln, as
everybody knows, never laid any claims to good looks.
"Why did I elect to do Lincoln, then?" Mr. Chapin went on. "Because it was
the hardest thing of any to do. Any man with the proper amount of ambition
in him likes to tackle and overcome difficulties, and in placing our first
martyred President on the stage I realized to the full how carefully I
must work to keep from falling into pits that would open up on every side
of me. But you want to know how I came to go into this line of work at the
very beginning, don't you?
"Let me see! I should say the foundations were laid when I was a small boy
of ten--out in my native State of Ohio. I used to listen to the
Fourth-of-July orators talk on in their prosy way, in a dull monotone, and
on Sundays the preachers would speak in the same dismal manner.
"'Why don't they convince the people that they are in earnest?' I would
say to myself"--and Mr. Chapin let out his voice in a fashion that made
the rafters of the small room ring. "That's the way I felt about the power
of the voice even at that early era.
"One summer we were having a picnic--I think it was a Sunday-school
affair. Anyhow, there were to be speeches by the boys and girls out in the
woods. I wouldn't rehearse mine. You see, I had made up my mine[TN mind]
to surprise folks. Nobody had ever heard me speak before, and here was the
chance to live up to my own theories.
"What my selection was I cannot just recall. I think it was one of Will
Carleton's descriptive ballads. Anyway, I let myself out on it in a
fashion that made everybody gasp with wonder. And so the thing began. I
knew then that my life-work must be something in which I could appeal to
the public through the medium of the voice.
"I thought of law for a while, then had a hankering after politics.
Finally I drifted into the line of impersonations through monologues.
"I have been working on the drama of 'Lincoln' for years. The version I
am doing is by no means the only one I have written around the war-time
President, but it seemed to be the one, all things considered, best
adapted for the stage."
For the past half-dozen years Mr. Chapin has been all over the country on
the lecture platform, but he has by no means confined himself to Lincoln.
He has impersonated, among others, Rip Van Winkle and Cyrano de Bergerac.
He has great ambitions in the direction of playwriting.
"I have discovered," he told me in this connection, "that if a play does
not elicit from its audience over two hundred distinct expressions of
approval, in the shape either of laughs, applause, or that almost
imperceptible stir of expectancy, it is a failure."
WELFORD MIXED WRITS.
If the English Actor Had Been Less
Careless as a Law Clerk, He Would
Not Have Been "Mr. Hopkinson."
When the year 1906 began, American playgoers had never heard of an actor
by the name of Dallas Welford. Before Easter all New York was applauding
his work as the unconscionable little bounder in the title role of R.C.
Carton's English farce, "Mr. Hopkinson."
In order to obtain for THE SCRAP BOOK some facts, at first hand,
concerning his early life, I interviewed him in his dressing-room one
afternoon after a matinee. And dressing, with him, is a very simple
process, as he uses no make-up at all, and consequently does not have to
give his face a bath of cold cream after the play in order to take the
grease-paint off.
In fact, so simple are his preparations for the street that he once went
out to dinner with a friend forgetting to remove the tiny false mustache
which is all the concession to the mummer's mask he makes in fitting
himself to the character of the Cockney tradesman who has come into money.
"How did I start?" he said, in answer to my query. "Well, you see, in one
sense I did not need an introduction to the stage, or what you call
'pull,' because my mother was an actress, and as a kid I went on in the
inevitable way as the _Duke of York_ in 'Richard III,' besides being the
perennial _Little Willie_ in 'East Lynne.'
"I remember, too, that I was the child in your 'Danites' when it was done
over on our side. But my mother did not want me to stick to the boards.
She thought I wasn't adapted to make a success of it, and when I had had
my bit of schooling she put me in a solicitor's office, or 'lawyer's,' as
you call 'em over here.
"Well"--and he laughed at the recollection called up--"I lasted there just
a week. You see, when I was sent out with writs to deliver, I used to
serve the originals and keep the copies. You can believe there was some
lively goings-on in that office when the boss found this out.
"He didn't enter any objections at all to my taking up a stage career--oh,
no, not in the least! But my mother did, so I just went out and hunted up
a job--any old thing, as a starter, so long as I once got my foot inside
the stage door again.
"Where I landed finally was in a melodrama of 'The Glazier's Bride' type.
I believe I was a luggage carrier, or some such modest adjunct to the
proceedings. You see, it's easier to get your start in melodrama, because
there are more people in a play like that, and there are sure to be parts
for 'freshies' such as I was then. In comedy, the line I wanted, the least
you can be is a butler or footman, and you know in some farces the butler
comes pretty near being as important as the leading man.
"So while I was learning the ropes I stayed in the _'penny dreadful'_ kind
of play, gradually working my way up. This lasted for about five years
[Mr. Welford has been on the stage seventeen, being in the neighborhood of
thirty], when finally I got my chance in comedy in a play from your side,
'My Friend the Prince,' done over here--some of the time by Willie
Collier--as 'My Friend from India.' Yes, I was the chap disguised as the
East Indian who does the trick with the mirror. I have stayed in comedy
ever since."
In London, James Welch, the creator of _Mr. Hopkinson_, has been in quite
hard luck since the long run ceased, two new ventures having turned out
failures.
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related
that it is difficult to class them separately. One step
above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above
the ridiculous makes the sublime again.--=Thomas Paine=.
LORD BYRON'S RIDDLE.
A Curious Poetic Creation That Has Puzzled Many Readers, and a
Solution of the Mystery.
In the earlier history of man the riddle was an important intellectual
test. To be able to guess hard riddles was supposed to indicate wisdom,
and often a great deal was made to depend upon the issue of a guessing
contest. The most famous riddle of antiquity was the one which the Sphinx
is said to have proposed to Oedipus: "What is that which has four feet in
the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" And it has been asserted
that Homer died of vexation because he could not find an answer to the
riddle: "What we caught we threw away, what we could not catch we kept."
The riddle is the result of the perception of analogies. Note your analogy
and put it in the form of a question, and you have your riddle. The
conundrum, which has largely replaced the riddle, is a pun concerning
which a question is asked. The conundrum may be witty; the riddle may be
broadly humorous--and, indeed, it is probably the earliest form of humor.
Among modern riddles, this of Lord Byron's once puzzled many people. The
appended "solution" appeared years ago in the Essex (Massachusetts)
_Register_.
THE RIDDLE.
I'm not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,
But in infancy ever am known;
I'm a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,
And though I'm distinguished in history's page,
I always am greatest alone.
I'm not in the earth, nor the sun, nor the moon,
You may search all the sky--I'm not there;
In the morning and evening--tho' not in the noon,
You may plainly perceive me, for like a balloon,
I am midway suspended in air.
I am always in riches and yet I am told,
Wealth did ne'er my presence desire;
I dwell with the miser, but not with his gold,
And sometimes I stand in the chimney so cold,
Though I serve as a part of the fire.
I often am met in political life--
In my absence no kingdom can be;
And they say there can neither be friendship nor strife,
No one can live single, no one take a wife,
Without interfering with me.
My brethren are many, and of my whole race,
No one is more slender and tall;
And though not the eldest, I hold the first place,
And even in dishonor, despair, and disgrace,
I boldly appear 'mong them all.
Though disease may possess me, and sickness and pain,
I am never in sorrow or gloom;
Though in wit and wisdom I equally reign,
I'm the heart of sin, and have long lived in vain,
And I ne'er shall be found in the tomb!
SOLUTION.
From the Essex (Massachusetts) "Register."
Lord Byron, your riddle is dark, I confess,
But dark as it is, I will venture to guess.
Though 'tis found not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,
Though a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,
Though earth don't contain it, the sun nor the moon.
Though in darkness 'tis absent, and also in noon;
Though 'tis not found in searching the heavens sublime;
Yet by guessing, I think I shall guess it in time.
If disease must possess it, and sickness and pain,
If suspended in air and has long lived in vain,
If in sin you can find it, I will not deny,
As you are freed from it, it must then be =I=.
How "Yankee Doodle Came to Town."
The Famous Air Had a Checkered Career and Hobnobbed With Some
Queer Lyrics Before a British Surgeon Unwittingly Gave to
the American Patriots a Battle Song.
_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Our oldest national nickname is "Yankee." In the early Colonial days, the
Indians stumbling over the pronunciation of the language of the pale-face,
called the English "Yenghies." By corruption, "Yenghies" became "Yanghies"
and "Yankees." The settlers took the word "Yankees" back again from their
copper-skinned neighbors, and they seem to have used it in a slangy way.
As early as 1713 Jonathan Hastings, a farmer of Cambridge, in New England,
used the word as a synonym for excellence, saying of anything which he
especially admired:
"It is Yankee good"--that is, probably: "It is as good as if English
made."
However, it is worthy of note that Jamieson's "Scottish Dictionary" gives
a Scottish word, "Yankie," with the definition: "A sharp, clever woman, at
the same time including an idea of forwardness."
The modern notion of Yankee shrewdness might seem to justify the
derivation from the Scottish, but, as it happens, the Yankee was not
generally considered shrewd and clever until a much later period than the
pre-Revolutionary days.
Perhaps, as the occasional explanation has it, the people of the other
colonies got to calling New Englanders "Jonathan Yankees," after Jonathan
Hastings. Also it may be true that the word has more than one
derivation--a possibility which will become apparent when we consider the
origin of the song "Yankee Doodle."
Everybody knows the tune of "Yankee Doodle," but few people know the
words. The air has been ascribed to several different countries. Kossuth,
during his visit to the United States, recognized it as Hungarian, and it
has also been identified with an ancient Biscayan sword-dance. In the
Netherlands there is, or used to be, a harvesting song, sung by laborers,
who were paid with a tenth of the grain and all the buttermilk they could
drink:
Yankerdidel doodel down,
Didel, dudel lanter,
Yanke viver, voover, vown,
Botermilk und tanther.
In other words, "buttermilk and a tenth." Old Hollanders in the United
States may recall the stanza.
In the days of Cromwell, one of the nicknames which the Cavaliers bestowed
upon the Puritans was "Nankee Doodle." When Cromwell entered Oxford this
stanza was written:
Nankee Doodle came to town
Upon a little pony,
With a feather in his hat
Upon a macaroni.
Another and more common version was as follows:
Yankee Doodle came to town
Upon a Kentish pony;
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called him Macaroni.
In the reign of Charles II we first hear beyond any doubt the air to which
"Yankee Doodle" is now sung. To it were set the following lines, which
remain as a nursery rhyme:
Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it;
Nothing in it, nothing in it,
But the binding 'round it.
The air came to be known as "Kitty Fisher," or "Kitty Fisher's Jig."
In 1755, when the Colonial troops were joining the British regulars in the
invasion of Canada, by way of Albany, Dr. Schuckburgh, a surgeon attached
to Lord Amherst's forces, is said to have derisively adopted the tune for
the use of the Colonials, who apparently accepted it in good faith as an
established martial air.
To attribute to Dr. Schuckburgh the words which were afterward sung to the
air is to disregard the internal evidence of the words themselves--unless,
as is possible, though not probable, the stanzas referring to Washington
were added later.
The full set of stanzas, entitled "The Yankee's Return from Camp," appear
to date from the latter part of 1775, after the battle of Bunker Hill,
when the Continental army, under General Washington's command, was
encamped in the vicinity of Boston.
The Tories were then singing to the old tune of "Kitty Fisher" these
lines:
Yankee Doodle came to town
For to buy a firelock;
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will John Hancock.
The original Tory quatrain referred to the smuggling of muskets into the
country by the patriots. The stanzas substituted by some unknown Colonial
rimester run as follows:
Father and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,
And there we seed the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.
Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle Dandy;
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
And there we seed a thousand men,
As rich as 'Squire David;
And what they wasted ev'ry day,
I wish'd it could be saved.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
The 'lasses they eat ev'ry day
Would keep a house in winter;
They have so much that I be bound,
They eat it when they're amind ter.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
And there we see a swamping gun,
Large as a log of maple,
Upon a deuced little cart,
A load for father's cattle.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
And ev'ry time they shoot it off
It takes a horn of powder;
It makes a noise like father's gun,
Only a nation louder.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
I went as nigh to one myself
As 'Siah's underpinning;
And father went as nigh again--
I thought the deuce was in him.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
Cousin Simon was so 'tarnal bold,
I thought he would have cocked it;
It scar'd me so, I streak'd it off,
And hung by father's pocket.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
And Captain Davis had a gun,
He kind of clapp'd his hand on't.
And stuck a crooked stabbing iron
Upon the little end on't.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
And there I see a pumpkin shell
As big as mother's basin,
And ev'ry time they touched it off
They scamper'd like the nation.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
I see a little barrel, too,
The heads were made of leather;
They knock'd upon't with little clubs,
And call'd the folks together.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
And there was Captain Washington,
And gentlefolks about him;
They say he's grown so 'tarnal proud
He will not ride without 'em.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
He got him on his meeting-clothes,
Upon a slapping stallion;
He set the world along in rows,
In hundreds or a million.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
I see another snarl of men
A-digging graves, that told me,
So 'tarnal long, so 'tarnal deep,
They 'tended they should hold me.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
It scar'd me so I hooked it off,
Nor stopped, as I remember,
Nor turned about till I got home,
Clear up in mother's chamber.
Yankee Doodle, etc.
THE AMERICAN FLAG.
Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) wrote "The American Flag" as a mere
fugitive contribution to the _Evening Post_ when he was little more than
twenty-one. It belonged to a series of hastily written verses to which the
author attached no value. Long afterward a friend of his--a Dr.
DeKay--carefully gathered together these stray poems, and showed them to
Drake, who said:
"Oh, burn them up! They are worthless."
Fortunately, his friend refused to burn them; and thus one of the finest
gems of our national poetry was rescued. Tradition tells us that the last
eight lines of "The American Flag" were added to the original draft by
Drake's friend and fellow poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck.
BY JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night
And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle bearer down
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land!
Majestic monarch of the cloud,
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest trumpings loud
And see the lightning lances driven,
When strive the warrior of the storm
And rolls the thunder drum of heaven--
Child of the sun, to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle stroke
And bid its blending shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!
Flag of the brave, thy folds shall fly
The sign of hope and triumph high!
When speaks the signal trumpet tone
And the long line comes gleaming on,
Ere yet the lifeblood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
To where the sky-born glories burn
And as his springing steps advance
Catch war and vengeance from the glance,
And when the cannon mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud.
And gory sabers rise and fall
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall shrink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas, on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave!
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee
And smile to see the splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven!
Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With freedom's soil beneath our feet
And freedom's banner streaming o'er us?
A HOROSCOPE OF THE MONTHS.
BY MARION Y. BUNNER.
What the Old Astrological Traditions Say as to the Destiny of Those Born
Under the Sign "Cancer," Representing the Period Between June 19 and
July 23.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
CANCER: THE CRAB.
JUNE 19 to JULY 23.
CUSP: JUNE 21 to JULY 27.
The constellation Cancer--the fourth sign of the zodiac--is the positive
pole of the Water Triplicity, governing the breast. It is a cardinal,
feminine, movable, watery, phlegmatic, nocturnal sign. The higher
attributes are feeling and sympathy.
A person born in the period of the Cusp, when the sun is on the edge of
the sign, will be endowed with the characteristics of both Cancer and
Gemini.
Cancer subjects will have taciturn dispositions, searching minds, and good
morals. The principal characteristic of these people is their sympathetic
and emotional love-nature. They make excellent nurses. They are model
housewives and husbands, and are economical, industrious, and provident.
They are quick in mind and body, clever in business matters, independent,
open-minded, and versatile. They are also very determined; are not easily
forced out of a conclusion they have reached, and their opinions are
usually respected. They have mechanical ability, are very executive, and
they like responsibility. They can easily be ruled by kindness, but resent
the least semblance of compulsion.
The Cancer people--women especially--have great talent for music, and are
well adapted to study instrumental music as a profession.
They are usually of medium stature, large in the upper portion of the
body, with round face, pale complexion, small features, full forehead, and
light or grayish eyes. The physical temperament of the subject will be
lymphatic-bilious in a Southern climate, and a lymphatic-nervous
disposition in a Northern latitude.
Their most congenial companions will be found among those born in Scorpio
and Pisces.
The faults of the Cancer people are jealousy, vanity, and love of money
for money's sake. The women of this sign are fond of dress, and are also
fickle and inconstant. Cancer is the only sign of the zodiac governed by
the moon, and the changeable qualities of the people are attributed to its
influence.
The most harmonious marriages are found when a Cancer and a Pisces person
are united. The offspring will be strong and physically fine. Cancer
children are hard to manage on account of their extreme sensitiveness. The
greatest care should be taken with them. Their training cannot commence
too early.
The governing planet is the moon, and the gems are emerald and black onyx.
The astral colors are green and russet brown, and the emblematic flower is
the poppy.
February and September are the lucky months, and Monday is the fortunate
day for a Cancer subject.
The ancient Hebrew tribe to which this sign corresponds is that of
Zebulon. The ruling angel of the sign is Muriel.
July, the seventh month in our calendar, was originally the fifth month of
the year, and as such was called by the Romans Quinctilis. The Latin name
of Julius was given in honor of Julius Caesar (who was born in this month),
and was adopted in the year of his death.
The Anglo-Saxons called July the "mead month," for the meadows were then
in their bloom, and "the latter wild month," in contradistinction to June,
which they named "the former wild month."
The principal days are: July 3, when Dog Days begin; July 4, Independence
Day; July 15, St. Swithin; and July 25, St. James. The tradition runs that
if it should rain on St. Swithin's Day, it will rain steadily for the
following forty days.
General Garibaldi was born under this sign. Henry Ward Beecher was a
striking example of the power, earnestness, and pathos of the Cancer
people, and John D. Rockefeller and John Jacob Astor are excellent
illustrations of the business genius of the sign.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 5, by Various