Produced by Afra Ullah, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua
Hutchinson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of story]
[Illustration: They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being
given a day's outing.]
LOVE CONQUERS ALL
BY ROBERT C. BENCHLEY
ILLUSTRATED BY GLUYAS WILLIAMS
1922
Printed October, 1922
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author thanks the editors of the following publications for their
permission to print the articles in this book: _Life, The New York
World, The New York Tribune, The Detroit Athletic Club News, and The
Consolidated Press Association_.
CONTENTS
I THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE
II FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
III THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER--_DO YOU_?
IV RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOE WATCHING AUCTION BRIDGE
V A CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE
VI HOW TO WATCH A CHESS MATCH
VII WATCHING BASEBALL
VIII HOW TO BE A SPECTATOR AT SPRING PLANTING
IX THE MANHATTADOR
X WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY
XI "ROLL YOUR OWN"
XII DO INSECTS THINK?
XIII THE SCORE IN THE STANDS
XIV MID-WINTER SPORTS
XV READING THE FUNNIES ALOUD
XVI OPERA SYNOPSES
I Die Meister-Genossenschaft.
II Il Minnestrone
III Lucy de Lima
XVII THE YOUNG IDEA'S SHOOTING GALLERY
XVIII POLYP WITH A PAST
XIX HOLT! WHO GOES THERE?
XX THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE
XXI NOTING AN INCREASE IN BIGAMY
XXII THE REAL WIGLAF: MAN AND MONARCH
XXIII FACING THE BOYS' CAMP PROBLEM
XXIV ALL ABOUT THE SILESIAN PROBLEM
XXV HAPPY THE HOME WHERE BOOKS ARE FOUND
XXVI WHEN NOT IN ROME, WHY DO AS THE ROMANS DID?
XXVII THE TOOTH, THE WHOLE TOOTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TOOTH
XXVIII MALIGNANT MIRRORS
XXIX THE POWER OF THE PRESS
XXX HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
XXXI HOW TO UNDERSTAND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE
XXXII 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SUMMER
XXXIII WELCOME HOME--AND SHUT UP
XXXIV ANIMAL STORIES
I Georgie Dog
II Lillian Mosquito
XXXV THE TARIFF UNMASKED
LITERARY DEPARTMENT
XXXVI "TAKE ALONG A BOOK"
XXXVII CONFESSIONS OF A CHESS CHAMPION
XXXVIII "RIP VAN WINKLE"
XXXIX LITERARY LOST AND FOUND DEPT.
XL "DARKWATER"
XLI THE NEW TIME-TABLE
XLII MR. BOK'S AMERICANIZATION
XLIII ZANE GREY'S MOVIE
XLIV SUPPRESSING "JURGEN"
XLV ANTI-IBÁÑEZ
XLVI ON BRICKLAYING
XLVII "AMERICAN ANNIVERSARIES"
XLVIII A WEEK-END WITH WELLS
XLIX ABOUT PORTLAND CEMENT
L OPEN BOOKCASES
LI TROUT-FISHING
LII "SCOUTING FOR GIRLS"
LIII HOW TO SELL GOODS
LIV "You!"
LV THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL
LVI "EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS"
LVII ADVICE TO WRITERS
LVIII "THE EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE"
LIX THOSE DANGEROUSLY DYNAMIC BRITISH GIRLS
LX BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS
LXI "MEASURE YOUR MIND"
LXII THE BROW-ELEVATION IN HUMOR
LXIII BUSINESS LETTERS
ILLUSTRATIONS
They look him over as if he were a fresh air child being given a day's
outing.
The watcher walks around the table, giving each hand a careful scrutiny.
"'Round and 'round the tree I go"
"Atta boy, forty-nine: Only one more to go!"
For three hours there is a great deal of screaming.
He was further aided by the breaks of the game.
Mrs. Deemster didn't enter into the spirit of the thing at all.
"That's right," says the chairman.
"If you weren't asleep what were you doing with your eyes closed?"
You would gladly change places with the most lawless of God's creatures.
I am mortified to discover that the unpleasant looking man is none other
than myself.
"I can remember you when you were that high"
She would turn away and bite her lip.
"Listen Ed! This is how it goes!"
They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and run 'round the
corner to some little haberdashery.
I thank them and walk in to the nearest dining-room table.
"Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on birth control?"
LOVE CONQUERS ALL
I.
THE BENCHLEY-WHITTIER CORRESPONDENCE
Old scandals concerning the private life of Lord Byron have been revived
with the recent publication of a collection of his letters. One of the
big questions seems to be: _Did Byron send Mary Shelley's letter to Mrs.
R.B. Hoppner_? Everyone seems greatly excited about it.
Lest future generations be thrown into turmoil over my correspondence
after I am gone, I want right now to clear up the mystery which has
puzzled literary circles for over thirty years. I need hardly add that I
refer to what is known as the "Benchley-Whittier Correspondence."
The big question over which both my biographers and Whittier's might
possibly come to blows is this, as I understand it: _Did John Greenleaf
Whittier ever receive the letters I wrote to him in the late Fall of_
1890? _If he did not, who did? And under what circumstances were they
written_?
I was a very young man at the time, and Mr. Whittier was, naturally,
very old. There had been a meeting of the Save-Our-Song-Birds Club in
old Dane Hall (now demolished) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Members had
left their coats and hats in the check-room at the foot of the stairs
(now demolished).
In passing out after a rather spirited meeting, during the course of
which Mr. Whittier and Dr. Van Blarcom had opposed each other rather
violently over the question of Baltimore orioles, the aged poet
naturally was the first to be helped into his coat. In the general
mix-up (there was considerable good-natured fooling among the members as
they left, relieved as they were from the strain of the meeting)
Whittier was given my hat by mistake. When I came to go, there was
nothing left for me but a rather seedy gray derby with a black band,
containing the initials "J.G.W." As the poet was visiting in Cambridge
at the time I took opportunity next day to write the following letter to
him:
Cambridge, Mass.
November 7, 1890.
Dear Mr. Whittier:
I am afraid that in the confusion following the Save-Our-Song-Birds
meeting last night, you were given my hat by mistake. I have yours and
will gladly exchange it if you will let me know when I may call on you.
May I not add that I am a great admirer of your verse? Have you ever
tried any musical comedy lyrics? I think that I could get you in on the
ground floor in the show game, as I know a young man who has written
several songs which E.E. Rice has said he would like to use in his next
comic opera--provided he can get words to go with them.
But we can discuss all this at our meeting, which I hope will be soon,
as your hat looks like hell on me.
Yours respectfully,
ROBERT C. BENCHLEY.
I am quite sure that this letter was mailed, as I find an entry in my
diary of that date which reads:
"Mailed a letter to J.G. Whittier. Cloudy and cooler."
Furthermore, in a death-bed confession, some ten years later, one Mary
F. Rourke, a servant employed in the house of Dr. Agassiz, with whom
Whittier was bunking at the time, admitted that she herself had taken a
letter, bearing my name in the corner of the envelope, to the poet at
his breakfast on the following morning.
But whatever became of it after it fell into his hands, I received no
reply. I waited five days, during which time I stayed in the house
rather than go out wearing the Whittier gray derby. On the sixth day I
wrote him again, as follows:
Cambridge, Mass.
Nov. 14, 1890.
Dear Mr. Whittier:
How about that hat of mine?
Yours respectfully,
ROBERT C. BENCHLEY.
I received no answer to this letter either. Concluding that the good
gray poet was either too busy or too gosh-darned mean to bother with the
thing, I myself adopted an attitude of supercilious unconcern and closed
the correspondence with the following terse message:
Cambridge, Mass.
December 4, 1890.
Dear Mr. Whittier:
It is my earnest wish that the hat of mine which you are keeping will
slip down over your eyes some day, interfering with your vision to such
an extent that you will walk off the sidewalk into the gutter and
receive painful, albeit superficial, injuries.
Your young friend,
ROBERT C. BENCHLEY.
Here the matter ended so far as I was concerned, and I trust that
biographers in the future will not let any confusion of motives or
misunderstanding of dates enter into a clear and unbiased statement of
the whole affair. We must not have another Shelley-Byron scandal.
II
FAMILY LIFE IN AMERICA
PART I
The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state
that no family of characters is considered true to life which does not
include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who
spills food down the front of his vest. If this school progresses, the
following is what we may expect in our national literature in a year or
so.
The living-room in the Twillys' house was so damp that thick, soppy moss
grew all over the walls. It dripped on the picture of Grandfather Twilly
that hung over the melodeon, making streaks down the dirty glass like
sweat on the old man's face. It was a mean face. Grandfather Twilly had
been a mean man and had little spots of soup on the lapel of his coat.
All his children were mean and had soup spots on their clothes.
Grandma Twilly sat in the rocker over by the window, and as she rocked
the chair snapped. It sounded like Grandma Twilly's knees snapping as
they did whenever she stooped over to pull the wings off a fly. She was
a mean old thing. Her knuckles were grimy and she chewed crumbs that
she found in the bottom of her reticule. You would have hated her. She
hated herself. But most of all she hated Grandfather Twilly.
"I certainly hope you're frying good," she muttered as she looked up at
his picture.
"Hasn't the undertaker come yet, Ma?" asked young Mrs. Wilbur Twilly
petulantly. She was boiling water on the oil-heater and every now and
again would spill a little of the steaming liquid on the baby who was
playing on the floor. She hated the baby because it looked like her
father. The hot water raised little white blisters on the baby's red
neck and Mabel Twilly felt short, sharp twinges of pleasure at the
sight. It was the only pleasure she had had for four months.
"Why don't you kill yourself, Ma?" she continued. "You're only in the
way here and you know it. It's just because you're a mean old woman and
want to make trouble for us that you hang on."
Grandma Twilly shot a dirty look at her daughter-in-law. She had always
hated her. Stringy hair, Mabel had. Dank, stringy hair. Grandma Twilly
thought how it would look hanging at an Indian's belt. But all that she
did was to place her tongue against her two front teeth and make a noise
like the bath-room faucet.
Wilbur Twilly was reading the paper by the oil lamp. Wilbur had watery
blue eyes and cigar ashes all over his knees. The third and fourth
buttons of his vest were undone. It was too hideous.
He was conscious of his family seated in chairs about him. His mother,
chewing crumbs. His wife Mabel, with her stringy hair, reading. His
sister Bernice, with projecting front teeth, who sat thinking of the man
who came every day to take away the waste paper. Bernice was wondering
how long it would be before her family would discover that she had been
married to this man for three years.
How Wilbur hated them all. It didn't seem as if he could stand it any
longer. He wanted to scream and stick pins into every one of them and
then rush out and see the girl who worked in his office snapping
rubber-bands all day. He hated her too, but she wore side-combs.