Hope leads the builders of this magazine to believe that its explosion
can be prevented by filling it with sugar instead of dynamite.
We propose to gather our cane mostly from Southern fields and run it
through Southern cane mills and sweeten as much of the world as possible
from Southern sugar barrels; but of course our doors are open to
Northern bees, Eastern butterflies, and Western humming-birds, and
suckers from everywhere.
We believe that sugar is better for the world than dynamite, and we
propose to barrel it in bulk so that every boy and girl who loves to
read a sweet story may dive into our columns with both hands and shout
as the boy did when he got into the sure enough sugar hogshead, “O, for
a thousand tongues!” so that every old literary bug who sighs for the
sweeter side of life may gambol among our granulated tropes and
pulverized similes and dream that he is the beautifulest ant in the
sugar bowl.
The journalistic market is glutted with explosives, it is overstocked
with poisoned arrows. We believe in the philosophy that “More flies are
caught with sugar than with vinegar.”
But while this magazine shall be a colossal sugar lump, yet its
management has a whole squadron of torpedo boats, and a huge quiver of
arrows for all the enemies of the South and a stupendous tank of vinegar
as large as all the tanks of the Standard Oil Company for the spiteful
spiders and blue-bottle flies of sectional journalism. But these weapons
shall never be used so long as sugar will melt in the mouths of men and
persuade unrighteousness to bridle its tongue.
With these sweet sentiments upon our lips we stand on the tallest tower
of our castle in the air and with our politest bow toss a large sugar
lump of greeting to every one who is wise enough to subscribe for BOB
TAYLOR’S MAGAZINE.
Fly in Your Own Firmament.
When downy-lipped youth first begins to peep through the knothole in the
temple of knowledge, he is the happiest of all mortals because his
vanity is unbridled and free.
He knows it all. When he “orates” on commencement day he robs the
gardens of rhetoric and twines their choicest flowers about the
beautiful, but hollow and flimsy columns of his speech. He misquotes the
classic poets and taxes the old philosophers with things they never
said. He twists the tail of history, strangles science, and spouts
wisdom never dreamed of by Solomon. His impassioned sentences are chains
of gold with blazing diamonds strung, and his tropes and similes cavort
like flaming meteors athwart the intellectual heavens. But after he
leaves the classic halls of college, and after a few hard bumps against
the rock walls of reality, and a few hard falls on the ice pond of
experience, his self-conceit springs a leak, his immense learning oozes
out, and his dream of kinship with the gods vanishes into the limbo of
the forever forgotten like a sweet scent before a high wind.
[Illustration:
His vanity is un’ridled and free.
]
And so runs the endless story of callow youth—a comedy of errors
reenacted by each successive generation, in whose quips and cranks and
boyish antics we see ourselves repeated as in a mirror, and we only
laugh and wish that youth might last forever—we laugh and enjoy its
beautiful vanities.
But our laughter melts into sighs as we recall the Persian poet’s
plaintive lines:
“Ah! that spring should vanish with the rose,
That youth’s sweet scented manuscript should close!”
Time but dissipates each rapturous dream, and the revelation of our
ignorance comes with the experience of riper years. Only once are we the
proud possessors of all knowledge and all wisdom, and this is in the
dreamy days of life’s happy morning. And yet, we never lose our
self-conceit as we advance in years; we only adjust our vanity to the
knowledge we acquire. We learn how to dodge some of the jagged walls of
trouble and to avoid some of the mud holes of calamity; but vanity still
lures us on in myriad paths of folly. Its most dangerous form is that
which conjures in men the delusion that they know _everything_, and that
they can turn from one field of effort to another without disturbing
their equilibrium and gather fruits and flowers with equal success from
all alike. This is the snag upon which so many little kites get hung.
As no single honey-bee can rob all the flowers of the land, so no one
mind can master all branches of knowledge. Nature has endowed humanity
with different aptitudes for different lines of labor. Indeed, she seems
to delight in infinite diversity. Ever true to this wonderful impulse of
variation she confers on mankind intellectual gifts as multiform as her
flowers—flinging them into the hovel as freely as into the palace.
[Illustration:
A hard fall on the ice pond of experience.
]
One individual has the gift of speech, another the gift of thought. One
talks without thinking, another thinks without talking. One man sees,
hears and notes everything; another sees and hears, but notes nothing.
He cannot recall whether he has been alive for the past hour or not; and
if his wife asks him what manner of gown Mrs. So-and-so wore last night
at the reception, he could not tell for the life of him whether she wore
any gown at all. One touches business and it turns to gold; another
touches it, and it turns to rags. One touches the button of politics,
and the doors of office fly open with a national hymn in their hinges;
another presses it, and the doors fly open to his competitor. One youth
whispers a magical word into the listening ear of a laughing girl and
lo! her little head of auburn curls falls upon his shoulder; another
youth whispers the same word to the same girl and lo! his head falls
into the sawdust! One fair maiden sings as gloriously as a lark in June
skies; another thinks she sings, but doesn’t—she only screams, and her
trills are a cross between a fife and a cane-mill as she twists her neck
and walls her eyes like a dying swan.
But there is scarcely a human being under the sun who is not blessed
with some special gift of mind for the achievement of success in some
special field of endeavor.
A good old farmer and his wife had four sons, and they believed that
three of them possessed talent which would some day make them great. But
when they came to poor John, the youngest of the flock, they agreed that
he was a natural born fool. Finally a sudden light beamed in the old
man’s face and with melody in his voice he said: “Nancy, I can say one
thing for John; he’s the best whistler that ever twisted wind into
music—by gum.” Here was nature’s compensation for lack of brains—for
John was endowed with a talent which is esteemed, in these modern days,
as one of the rarest among men—a talent which might some day make John a
sort of Eolian Orpheus whose slightest breath would open to him the door
of fame; for have we not recently read in the public prints of a
whistling artist in the person of a charming young woman who has taken
the music loving world by storm and whistled herself into the choir of a
rich and fashionable church?
How the hearts of the young male worshipers must thrill and palpitate
when she puckers her pouting lips to join in the sacred anthem. It must
be like the nectared melody of the nightingale dripping and tinkling
from the heart of a puckered rose.
Many a dull and sluggish youth, blinded by vanity, is to-day frittering
away the golden hours in some law college or medical school, who is
totally incapable by birth of ever grasping or assimilating the
principles of law or medicine, while under the leaf-fat of his stupid
brain some talent may lie sleeping, which, if aroused and called into
full play, might elevate him to the pedestal of glory as the champion
whistler of the world.
The man of one talent, if he develops and uses it intelligently, is
always the highest example of success, even in the humblest sphere. The
bootblack in the street, who, by his masterful touch, makes your shoes
reflect the sun, is as much an artist in his sphere and entitled to as
much credit as the man who made the shoes. The difficulty is that we
often rebel against Nature’s purpose, which if followed always leads to
success.
It is an old saying that “Fortune is fickle,” but there is not much
truth in the proverb. The trouble lies in the fact that human nature is
fickle and full of vanity; and we dream ourselves into the belief that
we can win applause in roles of life for which we have neither talent
nor adaptation. This is vanity, and the logical result is—limbs of the
law all leafless and briefless and weeping alone; business ventures
dodging the sheriff and sighing for a lodge in some vast wilderness;
medical aspiration hopeless and patientless in the valley of dry bones;
literary spirit with broken wings and tail feathers gone; and political
ambition with black eye and broken nose, sighing and singing wherever he
goes:
“I am nobody’s darling,
Nobody cares for me.”
When a young man comes to choose a vocation in life let him buck-and-gag
vanity and enter the field for which he is best adapted. Let him analyze
and synthesize himself and approximate as nearly as possible the
capacity of his mental powers. Let him study his own talent as he would
study a book and when he has determined upon his calling let him pursue
it without the shadow of turning, and he will surely win.
The Governor.
A good woman is the embodiment of man’s dream of the beautiful; a mean
one is a perpetual nightmare. They are the two extremes of melody and
discord, of wine and vinegar, of violet and volcano in every station in
life. All men stand with uncovered heads in the presence of a good
woman. Her prudence and modesty, her gentleness and purity, are her
shields from the low and vulgar; they are the heralds of her virtue and
innocence; they charm in her voice, they beam in her eyes, they are
eloquent in her actions and mingle and shine in the graces of her life.
She is the governor of every happy home and her throne is built of human
hearts.
A mean woman revels in strife and in the anguish of those around her.
She delights in the abuse of others and in mysterious actions that breed
suspicion. Treason lurks in her very eyes, the tracks of treachery are
in her every smile and her bosom cloaks a dagger.
A good woman often weeps and her soul is sometimes tossed with righteous
indignation; but she knows how to pity and to forgive. Sometimes she is
compelled to combat a wicked and self-willed husband, and to suffer the
stings of his tyranny and injustice; but when her virtues and goodness
assert themselves and the governor stamps her foot and demands her
rights she can always subdue him and lead him like a lamb.
But let a mean woman be installed as governor of the household, and on
the slightest provocation her eyes will flame with fury, an ashy pallor
will mantle her funnel face and she will roar like an approaching
cyclone; forked lightnings will leap from her frenzied tongue and strike
everybody and everything for miles and miles around; her shivering
husband is usually the victim, whether guilty or innocent,
And there’s nothing left, when the heavens clear,
But skin and hair in the atmosphere.
The chasm of calamity into which many an unwary lover falls in the leap
of matrimony is his ignorance of the woman who takes this leap with him.
She conjures him into the belief that she is an angel of light and
worthy to govern the world, when in reality she is a ferocious feline
from away back, a pussy of despair from the night’s Plutonian shore.
[Illustration:
Forked lightnings leap from her frenzied tongue.
]
Many a good woman, on the other hand, is deceived and cajoled by her
suitor into the faith that he is a saint on earth, a sweet spirit of
prayer, and fit only for the companionship of the seraphim and cherubim,
when, in fact, he is a carrion crow from far away, a beautiful buzzard
from Paradise Bay.
Happiness follows in the footsteps of a good woman as the flowers follow
in the footsteps of June; and laughter hand in hand with tears greets
her every day. All the pure and beautiful ideals of the heart, all the
chaste and tender emotions of the soul are her priceless jewels. Her
life is a willing sacrifice, and she passes from the morning to the
evening with blessings upon her lips and the light of peace and joy in
her shining train. She is the star that eclipses every sun and dispels
the darkness of every cloud. But it is hard to foretell results in the
Monte Carlo of love. He who ventures there is playing a hazardous game
and should not bet too high, for it is surely a game of chance.
Sometimes hearts are trumps, alas, sometimes clubs! Infatuation often
stacks the cards, the intoxication of overweening confidence sometimes
dims the player’s eyes, and even what seems to be a winning hand may
quickly lose the game. But blessed is the gambler in the perilous game
of marriage who wins a good woman for she is the richest stake ever won
by man in this world. She is the handmaid of the Lord, establishing his
kingdom in the home and linking earth to heaven every day.
Without her, nations would fall and civilizations crumble; without her,
all the suns and moons of love would darken and all the stars of hope
forget to shine; without her, charity would lose its sweetness, mercy
its tenderness and sentiment its very life; without her, the genius of
Phidias and Praxiteles never would have glorified the marble; Raphael
and Angelo never would have dreamed in immortal colors; Burns never
would have written his sweetest lyrics of love, and the dreams of
Shakespeare never would have blossomed into song; without her, home,
happiness and family ties would be but mockeries and the Christian
religion itself would perish among its worshipers.
The Lieutenant Governor.
The brightest stars in the crown of civilization are its pure and
virtuous homes. They reflect the wealth, the power and the glory of the
state and the nation. They are the culmination of man’s highest ideals
of peace and love and perfect happiness beneath the stars that shine
above him.
Within the hallowed walls of every home where children dwell, there is a
commonwealth of prattling science and toddling art and mewling music in
its mother’s arms. Dimpled genius, with heaven in his eyes, is playing
around many a hearthstone to-day; and under many an humble roof love is
rocking the cradle of a poet or an orator; heroes of the future are
fighting cob battles in the barn yard and statesmen of the years to come
are ruling republics and empires on the play ground of the public school
or in the society hall of the university.
In every well regulated home the governor of each commonwealth wears
dresses and the lieutenant governor wears pantaloons. The wife reigns
supreme. Her scepter is her slipper, under whose swing and sway juvenile
civilization often worms and squirms, firmly held across her lap face
downward; and one shake of the scepter thoroughly subdues the lieutenant
governor. ’Tis well! for what right has he to butt into policies of home
rule and to stick his nose into the prerogatives of petticoat
government?
A good husband’s dominion lies beyond the boundary line of the home. He
is supreme in the office, the shop or at the plow handles. His province
is to provide revenue and to fill the flour barrel. He must receive his
reward in the golden coin of kisses and in the exercise of the high
privilege of paying all bills, obeying all commands, and acknowledging
his eternal loyalty and devotion to the flounced and powdered governor.
It is only in her absence from home that he becomes great and seizes the
opportunity to exercise his veto power. Instantly all dusting and
sweeping cease until he leaves the house for a stroll; all romping and
frolicking and sliding down the banisters come to a standstill; all
practicing on the piano is suspended; and the changing of sheets and
pillowslips and putting rooms in order except once a week, are abolished
as nuisances. The acting governor reforms everything but his appetite.
He taps the exchequer and every meal must be a banquet at the peril of
the cook’s tenure of office. His reign is brief but glorious, and
business is dispatched in a hurry with the view of the early return of
the slippered and skirted governor. His old cronies flock into his
touseled and disordered bedroom every night to share his limitless
liberty and his boundless bonhomie. And often the jubilant uproar is
punctuated with the popping of corks and the clinking of glasses, while
the ceaseless rattle of poker chips emphasizes the ancient proverb that
“When the cat’s away,
The mice will play.”
And so each little domestic commonwealth has its lights and shadows, its
ups and downs, and its seasons of mal-administration. But when the real
governor again assumes the reins of power, a good husband, if he has
been guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors in office during her
absence, repents in sackcloth and ashes, and a good wife, after a
curtain lecture and a cry, always exercises the pardoning power and
restores the lieutenant governor to his former prestige and favor with
the powers that be, and again “all goes merry as a marriage bell.”
[Illustration:
Wandering in strange and unknown pastures of romance.
]
A good husband has his faults and foibles, and sometimes falls from
grace; but he is the salt of the earth when properly managed.
A mean husband is either a Nero or a zero; he either dethrones his wife
in the home and stabs his helpless and innocent little ones with curses
and cruelty, or starves them with cold neglect. He rules with sneers
instead of smiles—with blows instead of blessings, or strangles laughter
and love in his home with drunkenness and debauchery. How many wives
walk the floor every night waiting for footsteps they dread to hear! How
many children shiver in their rags and watch for brutal and improvident
fathers. God pity the home of the man who staggers out of the path of
righteousness.
A good man goes out into the world and bears the burdens of life with a
willing heart. If virtue sanctifies his home and peace and contentment
laugh and sing around his hearthstone, there is no anguish he will not
endure for the happiness of his children, there is no agony he will not
suffer for the sake of his wife, no sin of hers he will not condone save
one, and that is disloyalty.
Many a fortune has been lost in the lottery of love by drawing the wrong
ticket. Many a sweet home has been broken up and many a guiltless man
has been butted to death by the billy goat of Ananias as a penalty for
unwittingly wandering in strange and unknown pastures of Romance.
The Commercial Traveler.
Commercial travelers are the Eden builders of the world; they are the
evangels of human happiness; they carry heavens of pure delight in their
sample cases.
There are heavens of music in the rustle of their silks, heavens of the
beautiful in their laces and lawns, heavens of rapture in their spring
bonnets and jewels.
They are the tidal waves of commerce, the rolling billows of progress,
the trade winds of civilization. They touch all shores and never cease
to blow.
Many a castle builder presses their fragrant havanas to his lips and his
dreams turn to curling castles in the air. Many a dreamer sips their
mellow wines and lo! a thousand fairies with jeweled wings flutter in
his veins and flit among the flowers in the garden of his dreams.
Wherever the commercial travelers swarm there is honey in the gum and
the flowers of prosperity are in bloom. They carry the pollen-dust of
business on their wings and the honey of wealth in their grips. And
whenever they cease to hum about a town it is a sure sign that
prosperity is a withered blossom there and that there are weevils in the
gum.
The garden spider weaves her web among the honeysuckles and spins as she
weaves without distaff or loom. She stretches her radial warp of silvery
filaments and then lays on her woof. From the center outward she glides
in one continuous spiral, and as she crosses each radius of the warp she
touches it deftly with her foot as if to weld the viscid fiber.
And thus her shining net grows until it hangs suspended in the air, half
visible, half vanishing, like some phantom wheel of moonbeams.
The commercial travelers are the spiders of enterprise, spinning and
weaving without distaff or loom, swinging from town to town, from city
to city, from continent to continent; and they are weaving the golden
web of commerce around the world, drawing the nations closer together in
the warp and woof of universal love and the universal brotherhood of
man.