* * * * *

Look at the time-table for a train which leaves about 2:45 (Eastern

Standard Time). Write down, "2:45" on a piece of paper. Add 150.

Subtract the number of stations that Valhalla is above White Plains.

Sharpen your pencil and bind up your cut finger and subtract the number

you first thought of, and the result will show the number of Presidents

of the United States who have been assassinated while in office. Then go

over to the Grand Central Terminal and ask one of the information

clerks what you want to know.

[Illustration: "Listen, Ed! This is how it goes!"]

They will be glad to see you, for during the last three days they have

been actually hungering for the sight of a human face. Sometimes it has

seemed to them that the silence and loneliness there behind the

information counter would drive them mad. If some one--any one--would

only come and speak to them! That is why one of them is over in the

corner chewing up time-tables into small balls and playing marbles with

them. He has gone mad from loneliness. The other clerk, the one who is

looking at the tip of his nose and mumbling Lincoln's Gettysburg

Address, has only a few more minutes before he too succumbs.

* * * * *

And that low, rumbling sound, what is that? It comes from the crowd of

commuters standing in front of the gate of what used to be the 5:56. Let

us draw near and hear what they are discussing. Why, it is the new

time-table, of all things!

"Listen, Ed. This is how it goes. This train that goes at 4:25 according

to this time-table is really the old 5:20. See? What you do is add an

hour"--

"Aw, what kind of talk is that? Add an hour to your grandmother! You

subtract an hour from the time as given here. This is Eastern Standard

Time. See, it says right here: 'The time shown in this folder is Eastern

Standard Time, one hour slower than Daylight-Saving Time.' See? One hour

slower. You subtract."

"Here, you guys are both way off. I just asked one of the trainmen. The

5:56 has gone. It went at 4:20. The next train that we get is the 6:20

which goes at 5:19. Look, see here. It says 5:19 on the time-table but

that means that by your watch it is 6:19"--

"By my watch it is not 6:19. My watch I set by the clock in the station

this morning when I came in"--

"Well, the clock in the station is wrong. That is, the clock in the

station is an hour ahead of all the other clocks."

"An hour ahead? An hour behind, you mean."

"The clock in the station is an hour ahead. I know what I'm talking

about."

"Now listen, Jo. Didn't you see in the paper Monday morning"--

"Yaas, I saw in the paper Monday morning, and it said that"--

"Look, Gus. By my watch--look, Gus--listen, Gus--by my watch"--

"Aw, you and your watch! What's that got to do with it?"

"Now looka here. On this time-table it says"--

"Lissen, Eddie"--

Whatever else its publishers may say about it, the new New York Central

time-table bids fair to be the most-talked-of publication of the

season.

XLII

MR. BOK'S AMERICANIZATION

If ever you should feel important enough to write an autobiography to

give to the world, and dislike to say all the nice things about yourself

that you feel really ought to be said, just write it in the third

person. Edward Bok has done this in "The Americanization of Edward Bok"

and the effect is quite touching in its modesty.

In "An Explanation" at the beginning of the book Mr. Bok disclaims any

credit for the winning ways and remarkable success of his hero, Edward

Bok. Edward Bok, the little Dutch boy who landed in America in 1870 and

later became the editor of the greatest women's advertising medium in

the country, is an entirely different person from the Edward Bok who is

telling the story. You understand this to begin with. Otherwise you may

misjudge the author.

"I have again and again found myself," writes Mr. Bok, "watching with

intense amusement and interest the Edward Bok of this book at work....

His tastes, his outlook, his manner of looking at things were totally

at variance with my own.... He has had and has been a personality apart

from my private self."

The only connection between Edward Bok the editor and Edward Bok the

autobiographer seems to be that Editor Bok allows Author Bok to have a

checking account in his bank under their common name.

Thus completely detached from his hero, Mr. Bok proceeds and is able to

narrate on page 3, in the manner of Horatio Alger, how young Edward,

taunted by his Brooklyn schoolmates, gave a sound thrashing to the

ringleader, after which he found himself "looking into the eyes of a

crowd of very respectful boys and giggling girls, who readily made a

passageway for his brother and himself when they indicated a desire to

leave the school-yard and go home."

He can also, without seeming in the least conceited, tell how, through

his clear-sighted firmness in refusing to write in the Spencerian manner

prescribed in school, he succeeded in bringing the Principal and the

whole Board of Education to their senses, resulting in a complete

reversal of the public-school policy in the matter of handwriting

instruction.

The Horatio Alger note is dominant throughout the story of young

Edward's boyhood. His cheerfulness and business sagacity so impressed

everyone with whom he came in contact that he was soon outdistancing all

the other boys in the process of self-advancement. And no one is more

smilingly tolerant of the irresistible progress of young Edward Bok in

making friends and money than Edward Bok the impersonal author of the

book. He just loves to see the young boy get ahead.

* * * * *

It will perhaps aid in getting an idea of the personality and confident

presence of the Boy Bok to state that he was a feverish collector of

autographs. Whenever any famous personage came to town the young man

would find out at what hotel he was staying and would proceed to hound

him until he had got him to write his name, with some appropriate

sentiment, in a little book. In advertising the present volume the

publishers give a list of names of historical characters who feature in

Mr. Bok's reminiscences--Gens. Grant and Garfield, Oliver Wendell

Holmes, Longfellow, Emerson and dozens of others. And so they do figure

in the book, but as victims of the young Dutch boy's passion for

autographs. Still, perhaps, they did not mind, for the author gives us

to understand that they were all so charmed with the prepossessing

manner and intelligent bearing of the young autograph hound that they

not only were continually asking him to dinner (he usually timed his

visit so as to catch them just as they were entering the dining-room)

but insisted on giving him letters of introduction to their friends.

Only Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson neglected to register

extreme pleasure at being approached by the smiling lad. Both Mrs.

Lincoln and Emerson were failing in their minds at the time, however,

which satisfactorily explains their coolness, at least for the author.

In Mrs. Lincoln's case an attempt was made to interest her in an

autographed photograph of Gen. Grant. But "Edward saw that the widow of

the great Lincoln did not mentally respond to his pleasure in his

possession." Could it have been possible that the widow of the great

Lincoln was a trifle bored?

The account of the intrusion on Emerson in Concord borders on the

sacrilegious. Here was the venerable philosopher, five months before his

death, when his great mind had already gone on before him, being visited

by a strange lad with a passion for autographs, who sat and watched for

those lucid moments when then sun would break through the clouded brain,

making it possible for Emerson to hold the pen and form the letters of

his name. Then young Edward was off, with another trophy in his belt and

another stride made in his progress toward Americanization. Lovers of

Emerson could wish that the impersonal editor of these memoirs had

omitted the account of this victory.

* * * * *

Americanization seems, from the present document, to consist of, first,

making as many influential friends as possible who may be able to help

you at some future time; second, making as much money as possible (young

Edward used his position as stenographer to Jay Gould to glean tips on

the market, thereby cleaning up for himself and his Sunday-school

teacher at Plymouth Church), and third, keeping your eye open for the

main chance.

In conclusion, nothing more fitting could be quoted than the touching

caption under the picture of the author's grandmother, "who counselled

each of her children to make the world a better and more beautiful place

to live in--a counsel which is now being carried on by her

grandchildren, one of whom is Edward Bok."

Could detachment of author and hero be more complete?

XLIII

ZANE GREY'S MOVIE

The hum of the moving-picture machine is the predominating note in "The

Mysterious Rider," Zane Grey's latest contribution to the literature of

unrealism. All that is necessary for a complete illusion is the

insertion of three or four news photographs at the end, showing how they

catch salmon in the Columbia River, the allegorical floats in the Los

Angeles Carnival of Roses and the ice-covered fire ruins in the business

section of Worcester, Mass.

In order that the change from book to film may be made as quickly as

possible, the author has written his story in the language of the

moving-picture subtitle. All that the continuity-writer in the studio

will have to do will be to take every third sentence from the book and

make a subtitle from it. We might save him the trouble and do it here,

together with some suggestions for incidental decorations.

Remember, nothing will be quoted below which is not in the exact wording

of Zane Grey's text. We first see Columbine Belllounds, adopted

daughter of old Belllounds the rancher of Colorado. She is riding along

the trail overlooking the valley.

"TODAY GIRLISH ORDEALS AND GRIEFS SEEMED BACK IN THE PAST: SHE WAS A

WOMAN AT NINETEEN AND FACE TO FACE WITH THE FIRST GREAT PROBLEM IN HER

LIFE." (Suggestion for title decoration: A pair of reluctant feet

standing at the junction of a brook and a river.)

She stops to pick some columbines and soliloquizes. The author says:

"She spoke aloud, as if the sound of her voice might convince her," but

it is not clear from the text just what she expected to be convinced of.

Here is her argument to herself:

"COLUMBINE!... SO THEY NAMED ME--THOSE MINERS WHO FOUND ME--A BABY--LOST

IN THE WOODS--ASLEEP AMONG THE COLUMBINES." (Decorative nasturtiums.)

Having convinced herself in these reassuring words as she stands alone

on the ridge in God's great outdoors, she explains that she has promised

to marry Jack Belllounds, the worthless son of her foster-father,

although any one can tell that she is in love with Wilson Moore, a

cow-puncher on the ranch. You will understand what a sacrifice this was

to be when the author says that "the lower part of Jack Belllounds's

face was weak."

To the ranch comes "Hell-Bent" Wade, the mysterious man of the plains.

He applies for a job, and not only that, but he gets it, which gives him

a chance to let us know that:

"EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO HE HAD DRIVEN THE WOMAN HE LOVED AWAY FROM HIM, OUT

INTO THE WORLD WITH HER BABY GIRL ... JEALOUS FOOL!... TOO LATE HAD HE

DISCOVERED HIS FATAL BLUNDER.... THAT WAS BENT WADE'S SECRET." (Fancy

sketch of a secret.)

And as we already know that Columbine is almost nineteen (I think she

told herself this fact aloud once when she was out riding alone, just to

convince herself), the shock is not so great as it might have been to

hear Wade murmur aloud (doubtless to convince himself too), "Baby would

have been--let's see--'most nineteen years old now--if she'd lived."

Any bets on who Columbine really is?

* * * * *

Let us digress from the scenario a minute to cite a scintillating

passage, one of many in the book. Wade is speaking:

"'You can never tell what a dog is until you know him. Dogs are like

men. Some of 'em look good, but they're really bad. An' that works the

other way round.'"

Oscar Wilde stuff, that is. How often have you felt the truth of what

Mr. Grey says here, and yet have never been able to put it into words!

It is this ability to put thoughts into words that makes him one of our

most popular authors today.

* * * * *

But enough of this. "Hell-Bent" Wade determines that his little gel

shall not know him as her father, and, furthermore, that she shall not

marry Jack Belllounds. So he goes to the cabin of Wils Moore and tells

him that Columbine is unhappy at the thought of her approaching--you

guessed it--nuptials.

"PARD! SHE LOVES ME--STILL?"

"WILS, HERS IS THE KIND THAT GROWS STRONGER WITH TIME, I KNOW." (Heart

and an hour-glass intertwined.)

* * * * *

Let it be said right here, however, that Jack Belllounds, rough and

villainous as he is, is the kind of cow-puncher who says to his father:

"I still love you, dad, despite the cruel thing you did to me." No

cow-puncher who says "despite" can be entirely bad. Neither can he be a

cow-puncher.

It is later, after a thrilling series of physical encounters, that

Columbine tells Jack Belllounds in so many words that she loves Wils

Moore. "Then Wade saw the glory of her--saw her mother again in that

proud, fierce uplift of face that flamed red and then blazed white--saw

hate and passion and love in all their primal nakedness.

"LOVE HIM! LOVE WILSON MOORE? YES, YOU FOOL! I LOVE HIM! YES! YES! YES!"

(Decorative heart, in which a little door slowly opens, showing the face

of Columbine.)

* * * * *

But time is short and there is a Semon comedy to follow immediately

after this. So all that we can divulge is that Jack has Wils Moore

wrongly accused of cattle-rustling, bringing down on his own head the

following chatty bit from his affianced bride:

"SO THAT'S YOUR REVENGE.... BUT YOU'RE TO RECKON WITH ME, JACK

BELLLOUNDS! YOU VILLAIN! YOU DEVIL! YOU"--

It would be unfair to the millions of readers who will struggle for

possession of the circulating-library copies of "The Mysterious Rider"

to tell just what happens after this. But need we hesitate to divulge

that the final subtitle will be:

"'I HAVE FAITH AND HOPE AND LOVE, FOR I AM HIS DAUGHTER.' A FAINT, COOL

BREEZE STRAYED THROUGH THE ASPENS, RUSTLING THE LEAVES WHISPERINGLY, AND

THE SLENDER COLUMBINES, GLEAMING PALE IN THE TWILIGHT LIFTED THEIR SWEET

FACES." (Decorative bull.)

XLIV

SUPPRESSING "JURGEN"

Of course it was silly to suppress "Jurgen." That goes without saying.

But it seems equally silly, because of its being suppressed, to hail it

as high art. It is simply Mr. James Branch Cabell's quaint way of

telling a raw story and it isn't particularly his own way, either.

Personally, I like the modern method much better.

"Jurgen" is a frank imitation of the old-time pornographers and although

it is a very good imitation, it need not rank Mr. Cabell any higher than

the maker of a plaster-of-paris copy of some Boeotian sculptural oddity.

The author, in defense of his fortunate book, lifts his eyebrows and

says, "Honi soit." He claims, and quite rightly, that everything he has

written has at least one decent meaning, and that anyone who reads

anything indecent into it automatically convicts himself of being in a

pathological condition. The question is, if Mr. Cabell had been

convinced beforehand that nowhere in all this broad land would there be

anyone who would read another meaning into his lily-white words, would

he ever have bothered to write the book at all?

Mr. Cabell is admittedly a genealogist. He is an earnest student of the

literature of past centuries. He has become so steeped in the phrases

and literary mannerisms of the middle and upper-middle ages that, even

in his book of modern essays "Beyond Life," he is constantly emitting

strange words which were last used by the correspondents who covered the

crusades. No man has to be as artificially obsolete as Mr. Cabell is. He

likes to be.

In "Jurgen" he has simply let himself go. There is no pretense of

writing like a modern. There is no pretense of writing in the style of

even James Branch Cabell. It is frankly "in the manner of" those ancient

authors whose works are sold surreptitiously to college students by

gentlemen who whisper their selling-talk behind a line of red sample

bindings. And it is not in the manner of Rabelais, although Rabelais's

name has been frequently used in describing "Jurgen." Rabelais seldom

hid his thought behind two meanings. There was only one meaning, and you

could take it or leave it. And Rabelais would never have said "Honi

soit" by way of defense.

The general effect is one of Fielding or Sterne telling the story of

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with their own embellishments, to the

boys at the club.

* * * * *

If all that is necessary to produce a work of art is to take a drummer's

story and tell it in dusty English, we might try our luck with the

modern smoking-car yarn about the traveling-man who came to the country

hotel late at night, and see how far we can get with it in the manner of

James Branch Cabell imitating Fielding imitating someone else.

* * * * *

It is a tale which they narrate in Nouveau Rochelle, saying: In the old

days there came one night a traveling man to an inn, and the night was

late, and he was sore beset, what with rag-tag-and-bob-tail. Eftsoons he

made known his wants to the churl behind the desk, who was named

Gogyrvan. And thus he spake:

"Any rooms?"

"Indeed, sir, no," was Gogyrvan's glose.

"Now but this is an deplorable thing, God wot," says the traveling man.

"Fie, brother, but you think awry. Come, don smart your thinking-cap and

answer me again. An' you have forgot my query; it was: 'Any rooms,

bo?'"

Whereat the churl behind the desk gat him down from his stool and closed

one eye in a wink.

"There is one room," he says, and places his forefinger along the side

of his nose, in the manner of a man who places his forefinger along the

side of his nose.

But at this point I am stopped short by the warning passage through the

room of a cold, damp current of air as from the grave, and I know that

it is one of Mr. Sumner's vice deputies flitting by on his rounds in

defense of the public morals. So I can go no further, for public morals

must be defended even at the cost of public morality (a statement which

means nothing but which sounds rather well, I think. I shall try to work

it in again some time).

But perhaps enough has been said to show that it is perfectly easy to

write something that will sound classic if you can only remember enough

old words. When Mr. Cabell has learned the language, he ought to write a

good book in modern English. There are lots of people who read it and

they speak very highly of it as a means of expression.

But there are certain things that you cannot express in it without

sounding crass, which would be a disadvantage in telling a story like

"Jurgen."

XLV

ANTI-IBÁÑEZ

While on the subject of books which we read because we think we ought

to, and while Vicente Blasco Ibáñez is on the ocean and can't hear what

is being said, let's form a secret society.

I will be one of any three to meet behind a barn and admit that I would

not give a good gosh darn if a fortune-teller were to tell me tomorrow

that I should never, never have a chance to read another book by the

great Spanish novelist.

Any of the American reading public who desire to join this secret

society may do so without fear of publicity, as the names will not be

given out. The only means of distinguishing a fellow-member will be a

tiny gold emblem, to be worn in the lapel, representing the figure

(couchant) of Spain's most touted animal. The motto will be

"Nimmermehr," which is a German translation of the Spanish phrase "Not

even once again."

* * * * *

Simply because I myself am not impressed by a book, I have no authority

to brand anyone who does not like it as a poseur and say that he is

only making believe that he likes it. And there must be a great many

highly literary people who really and sincerely do think that Señor

Blasco's books are the finest novels of the epoch.

It would therefore be presumptuous of me to say that Spain is now, for

the first time since before 1898, in a position to kid the United States

and, vicariously through watching her famous son count his royalties and

gate receipts, to feel avenged for the loss of her islands. If America

has found something superfine in Ibáñez that his countrymen have missed,

then America is of course to be congratulated and not kidded.

But probably no one was more surprised than Blasco when he suddenly

found himself a lion in our literary arena instead of in his accustomed

rôle of bull in his home ring. And those who know say that you could

have knocked his compatriots over with a feather when the news came that

old man Ibáñez's son had made good in the United States to the extent of

something like five hundred million pesetas.

For, like the prophet whom some one was telling about, Ibáñez was not

known at home as a particularly hot tamale. But, then, he never had such

a persistent publisher in Spain, and book-advertising is not the art

there that it is in America. When the final accounting of the great

success of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" in this country is

taken, honorable mention must be made of the man at the E.P. Dutton &

Co. store who had charge of the advertising.

* * * * *

The great Spanish novelist was in the French propaganda service during

the war. It was his job to make Germany unpopular in Spanish. "The Four

Horsemen of the Apocalypse" is obviously propaganda, and not

particularly subtle propaganda either. Certain chapters might have come

direct from our own Creel committee, and one may still be true to the

Allied cause and yet maintain that propaganda and literature do not mix

with any degree of illusion.

There is no question, of course, that those chapters in the book which

are descriptive of the advance and subsequent retreat of the German

troops under the eye of Don Marcelo are masterpieces of descriptive

reporting. But Philip Gibbs has given us a whole book of masterpieces of

descriptive reporting which do not bear the stamp of approval of the

official propaganda bureau. And, furthermore, Philip Gibbs does not wear

a sport shirt open at the neck. At least, he never had his picture taken

that way.

As for the rest of the books that were dragged out from the Spanish for

"storehouse" when "The Four Horsemen" romped in winners, I can speak

only as I would speak of "The World's Most Famous Battles" or "Heroines

in Shakespeare." I have looked them over. I gave "Mare Nostrum" a great

deal of my very valuable time because the advertisements spoke so highly

of it. "Woman Triumphant" took less time because I decided to stop

earlier in the book. "Blood and Sand" I passed up, having once seen a

Madrid bull-fight for myself, which may account for this nasty attitude

I have toward any Spanish product. I am told, however, that this is the

best of them all.

It is remarkable that for a writer who seems to have left such an

indelible imprint in the minds of the American people, whose works have

been ranked with the greatest of all time and who received more

publicity during one day of his visit here than Charles Dickens received

during his whole sojourn in America, Señor Blasco and his works form a

remarkably small part of the spontaneous literary conversation of the

day. The characters which he has created have not taken any appreciable

hold in the public imagination. Their names are never used as examples

of anything. Who were some of his chief characters, by the way? What did

they say that was worth remembering? What did they do that characters

have not been doing for many generations? Did you ever hear anyone say,

"He talks like a character in Ibáñez," or "This might have happened in

one of Ibáñez's books"?

Of course it is possible for a man to write a great book from which no

one would quote. That is probably happening all the time. But it is

because no one has read it. Here we have an author whose vogue in this

country, according to statistics, is equal to that of any writer of

novels in the world. And as soon as his publicity department stops

functioning, I should like to lay a little bet that he will not be heard

of again.

XLVI

ON BRICKLAYING

After a series of introspective accounts of the babyhood, childhood,

adolescence and inevitably gloomy maturity of countless men and women,

it is refreshing to turn to "Bricklaying in Modern Practice," by Stewart

Scrimshaw. "Heigh-ho!" one says. "Back to normal again!"

For bricklaying is nothing if not normal, and Mr. Scrimshaw has given

just enough of the romantic charm of artistic enthusiasm to make it

positively fascinating.

"There was a time when man did not know how to lay bricks," he says in

his scholarly introductory chapter on "The Ancient Art," "a time when he

did not know how to make bricks. There was a time when fortresses and

cathedrals were unknown, and churches and residences were not to be seen

on the face of the earth. But today we see wonderful architecture, noble

and glorious structures, magnificent skyscrapers and pretty home-like

bungalows."

To one who has been scouring Westchester County for the past two months

looking at the structures which are being offered for sale as homes,

"pretty home-like bungalows" comes as _le mot juste_. They certainly are

no more than pretty home-like.

* * * * *

One cannot read far in Mr. Scrimshaw's book without blushing for the

inadequacy of modern education. We are turned out of our schools as

educated young men and women, and yet what college graduate here tonight

can tell me when the first brick in America was made? Or even where it

was made?... I thought not.

Well, it was made in New Haven in 1650. Mr. Scrimshaw does not say what

it was made for, but a conjecture would be that it was the handiwork of

Yale students for tactical use in the Harvard game. (Oh, I know that

Yale wasn't running in 1650, but what difference does that make in an

informal little article like this? It is getting so that a man can't

make any statement at all without being caught up on it by some busybody

or other.)

* * * * *

But let's get down to the art itself.

Mr. Scrimshaw's first bit of advice is very sound. "The bricklayer

should first take a keen glance at the scaffolding upon which he is to

work, to see that there is nothing broken or dangerous connected with

it.... This is essential, because more important than anything else to

him is the preservation of his life and limb."

Oh, Mr. Scrimshaw, how true that is! If I were a bricklayer I would

devote practically my whole morning inspecting the scaffolding on which

I was to work. Whatever else I shirked, I would put my whole heart and

soul into this part of my task. Every rope should be tested, every board

examined, and I doubt if even then I would go up on the scaffold. Any

bricks that I could not lay with my feet on terra firma (there is a joke

somewhere about terra cotta, but I'm busy now) could be laid by some one

else.

* * * * *

But we don't seem to be getting ahead in our instruction in practical

bricklaying. Well, all right, take this:

"Pressed bricks, which are buttered, can be laid with a one-eighth-inch

joint, although a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch is to be

preferred."

Joe, get this gentleman a joint of three-sixteenths of an inch,

buttered. Service, that's our motto!

* * * * *

It takes a book like this to make a man realize what he misses in his

everyday life. For instance, who would think that right here in New York

there were people who specialized in corbeling? Rain or shine, hot or

cold, you will find them corbeling around like Trojans. Or when they are

not corbeling they may be toothing. (I too thought that this might be a

misprint for "teething," but it is spelled "toothing" throughout the

book, so I guess that Mr. Scrimshaw knows what he is about.) Of all

departments of bricklaying I should think that it would be more fun to

tooth than to do anything else. But it must be tiring work. I suppose

that many a bricklayer's wife has said to her neighbor, "I am having a

terrible time with my husband this week. He is toothing, and comes home

so cross and irritable that nothing suits him."

Another thing that a bricklayer has to be careful of, according to the

author (and I have no reason to contest his warning), is the danger of

stepping on spawls. If there is one word that I would leave with the

young bricklayer about to enter his trade it is "Beware of the spawls,

my boy." They are insidious, those spawls are. You think you are all

right and then--pouf! Or maybe "crash" would be a better descriptive

word. Whatever noise is made by a spawl when stepped on is the one I

want. Perhaps "swawk" would do. I'll have to look up "spawl" first, I

guess.

Well, anyway, there you have practical bricklaying in a nutshell. Of

course there are lots of other points in the book and some dandy

pictures and it would pay you to read it. But in case you haven't time,

just skim over this résumé again and you will have the gist of it.

XLVII

"AMERICAN ANNIVERSARIES"

Mr. Phillip R. Dillon has compiled and published in his "American

Anniversaries" a book for men who do things. For every day in the year

there is a record of something which has been accomplished in American

history. For instance, under Jan. 1 we find that the parcel-post system

was inaugurated in the United States in 1913, while Jan. 2 is given as

the anniversary of the battle of Murfreesboro (or Stone's River, as you

prefer). The whole book is like that; just one surprise after another.

What, for instance, do you suppose that Saturday marked the completion

of?... Presuming that no one has answered correctly, I will disclose

(after consulting Mr. Dillon's book) that July 31 marked the completion

of the 253d year since the signing of the Treaty of Breda. But what, you

may say--and doubtless are saying at this very minute--what has the

Treaty of Breda (which everyone knows was signed in Holland by

representatives of England, France, Holland and Denmark) got to do with

American history? And right there is where Mr. Dillon and I would have

you. In the Treaty of Breda, Acadia (or Nova Scotia) was given to France

and New York and New Jersey were confirmed to England. So, you see,

inhabitants of New York and New Jersey (and, after all, who isn't?)

should have especial cause for celebrating July 31 as Breda Day, for if

it hadn't been for that treaty we might have belonged to Poland and been

mixed up in all the mess that is now going on over there.

* * * * *

I must confess that I turned to the date of the anniversary of my own

birth with no little expectation. Of course I am not so very well known

except among the tradespeople in my town, but I should be willing to

enter myself in a popularity contest with the Treaty of Breda. But

evidently there is a conspiracy of silence directed against me on the

part of the makers of anniversary books and calendars. While no mention

was made of my having been born on Sept. 15, considerable space was

given to recording the fact that on that date in 1840 a patent for a

knitting machine was issued to the inventor, who was none other than

Isaac Wixan Lamb of Salem, Mass.

Now I would be the last one to belittle the importance of knitting or

the invention of a knitting machine. I know some very nice people who

knit a great deal. But really, when it comes to anniversaries I don't

see where Isaac Wixon Lamb gets off to crash in ahead of me or a great

many other people that I could name. And it doesn't help any, either, to

find that James Fenimore Cooper and William Howard Taft are both

mentioned as having been born on that day or that the chief basic patent

for gasoline automobiles in America was issued in 1895 to George B.

Selden. It certainly was a big day for patents. But one realizes more

than ever after reading this section that you have to have a big name to

get into an anniversary book. The average citizen has no show at all.

* * * * *

In spite of these rather obvious omissions, Mr. Dillon's Book is both

valuable and readable. Especially in those events which occurred early

in the country's history is there material for comparison with the

happenings of the present day, events which will some day be

incorporated in a similar book compiled by some energetic successor of

Mr. Dillon.

For instance, under Oct. 27, 1659, we find that William Robinson and

Marmaduke Stevenson were banished from New Hampshire on the charge of

being Quakers and were later executed for returning to the colony.

Imagine!

And on Dec. 8, 1837, Wendell Phillips delivered his first abolition

speech at Boston in Faneuil Hall, as a result of which he got himself

known around Boston as an undesirable citizen, a dangerous radical and a

revolutionary trouble-maker. It hardly seems possible now, does it?

And on July 4, 1776--but there, why rub it in?

XLVIII

A WEEK-END WITH WELLS

In the February Bookman there is an informal article by John Elliot

called "At Home with H.G. Wells" in which we are let in on the ground

floor in the Wells household and shown "H.G." (as his friends and his

wife call him) at play. It is an interesting glimpse at the small doings

of a great man, but there is one feature of those doings which has an

ominous sound.

"The Wells that everyone loves who sees him at Easton is the human

Wells, the family Wells, the jovial Wells, Wells the host of some Sunday

afternoon party. For a distance of ten or twenty miles round folks come

on Sunday to play hockey and have tea. Old and young--people from down

London who never played hockey before in their lives; country farmers

and their daughters, and everybody else who lives in the district--troop

over and bring whoever happens to be the week-end guest. Wells is

delightful to them all. He doesn't give a rap if they are solid Tories,

Bolsheviks, Liberals, or men and women of no political leanings, Can

you play hockey? is all that matters. If you say No you are rushed

toward a pile of sticks and given one and told to go in the forward

line; if you say Yes you are probably made a vice captain on the spot."

* * * * *

I am frank to confess that this sounds perfectly terrible to me. I can't

imagine a worse place in which to spend a week-end than one where your

host is always boisterously forcing you to take part in games and dances

about which you know nothing. A week-end guest ought to be ignored,

allowed to rummage about alone among the books, live stock and cold food

in the ice-box whenever he feels like it, and not rushed willy-nilly

(something good could be done using the famous Willy-Nilly

correspondence as a base, but not here), into whatever the family itself

may consider a good time.

In such a household as the Wells household must be you are greeted by

your hostess in a robust manner with "So glad you're on time. The match

begins at two." And when you say "What match," you are told that there

is a little tennis tournament on for the week-end and that you and Hank

are scheduled to start the thing off with a bang. "But I haven't played

tennis for five years," you protest, thinking of the delightful privacy

of your own little hall bedroom in town. "Never mind, it will all come

back to you. Bill has got some extra things all put out for you

upstairs." So you start off your week-end by making a dub of yourself

and are known from that afternoon on by the people who didn't catch your

name as "the man who had such a funny serve."

Or if it isn't that, it's dancing. Immediately after dinner, just as you

are about to settle down for a comfortable evening by the fire, you

notice that they are rolling back the rugs. "House-cleaning?" you

suggest, with a nervous little laugh. "Oh, no, just a little dancing in

your honor." And then you tell them that your honor will be satisfied

perfectly without dancing, that you haven't danced since you left

school, that you don't dance very well, or that you have hurt

your foot; to which the only reply is an encouraging laugh and a

hail-fellow-well-met push out into the middle of the floor.

A pox on both your house parties!

* * * * *

And yet, in a way, that is just what one might expect from Mr. Wells. He

has done the same thing to me in his books many a time. I personally

have but little facility for world-repairing. I haven't the slightest

idea of how one would go about making things better. And yet before I am

more than two-thirds of the way through "Joan and Peter" or "The

Undying Fire" or "The Outline of History," Mr. Wells has me out on the

hockey-field waving a stick with a magnificent enthusiasm but no aim,

rushing up and down and calling, "Come on, now!" to no one in

particular.

No matter how discouraging things seem when I pick up a Wells book, or

how averse I may be to launching out on a crusade of any sort, I always

end by walking with a firm step to the door (feeling, somehow, that I

have grown quite a bit taller and much handsomer) and saying quietly:

"Meadows, my suit of armor, please; the one with a chain-mail shirt and

a purple plume."

This, of course, is silly, as any of Mr. Wells's critics will tell you.

It is the effect that he has on irresponsible, visionary minds. But if

all the irresponsible, visionary minds in the world become sufficiently

belligerent through a continued reading of Mr. Wells, or even of the New

Testament, who knows but what they may become just practical enough to

take a hand at running things? They couldn't do much worse than the

responsible, practical minds have done, now, could they?

XLIX

ABOUT PORTLAND CEMENT

Portland cement is "the finely pulverized product resulting from the

calcination to incipient fusion of an intimate mixture of properly

proportioned argillaceous and calcareous materials and to which no

addition greater than 3 per cent has been made subsequent to

calcination."

That, in a word, is the keynote of H. Colin Campbell's "How to Use

Cement for Concrete Construction." In case you should never read any

more of the book, you would have that.

But to the reader who is not satisfied with this taste of the secret of

cement construction and who reads on into Mr. Campbell's work, there is

revealed a veritable mine of information. And in the light of the recent

turn of events one might even call it significant. (Any turn of events

will do.)

* * * * *

The first chapter is given over to a plea for concrete. Judging from the

claims made for concrete by Mr. Campbell, it will accomplish everything

that a return to Republican administration would do, and wouldn't be

anywhere near so costly. It will make your barn fireproof; it will

insure clean milk for your children; it will provide a safe housing for

your automobile. Farm prosperity and concrete go hand in hand.

In case there are any other members of society who have been with me in

thinking that Portland cement is a product of Portland, Me., or

Portland, Ore., it might as well be stated right here and now that

America had nothing to do with the founding of the industry, and that

the lucky Portland is an island off the south coast of England.

It was a bright sunny afternoon in May, 1824, when Joseph Aspdin, an

intelligent bricklayer of Leeds, England, was carelessly calcining a

mixture of limestone and clay, as bricklayers often do on their days

off, that he suddenly discovered, on reducing the resulting clinker to a

powder, that this substance, on hardening, resembled nothing so much as

the yellowish-gray stone found in the quarries on the Isle of Portland.

(How Joe knew what grew on the Isle of Portland when his home was in

Leeds is not explained. Maybe he spent his summers at the Portland

House, within three minutes of the bathing beach.)

At any rate, on discovering the remarkable similarity between the mess

he had cooked up and Portland stone, he called to his wife and said:

"Eunice, come here a minute! What does this remind you of?"

The usually cheerful brow of Eunice Aspdin clouded for the fraction of a

second.

"That night up at Bert and Edna's?" she ventured.

"No, no, my dear," said the intelligent bricklayer, slightly irked.

"Anyone could see that this here substance is a dead ringer for Portland

stone, and I am going to make heaps and heaps of it and call it

'Portland cement.' It is little enough that I can do for the old

island."

And so that's how Portland cement was named. Rumor hath it that the

first Portland cement in America was made at Allentown, Pa., in 1875,

but I wouldn't want to be quoted as having said that. But I will say

that the total annual production in this country is now over 90,000,000

barrels.

* * * * *

It is interesting to note that cement is usually packed in cloth sacks,

although sometimes paper bags are used.

"A charge is made for packing cement in paper bags," the books says.

"These, of course, are not redeemable."

One can understand their not wanting to take back a paper bag in which

cement has been wrapped. The wonder is that the bag lasts until you get

home with it. I tried to take six cantaloups home in a paper bag the

other night and had a bad enough time of it. Cement, when it is in good

form, must be much worse than cantaloup, and the redeemable remnants of

the bag must be negligible. But why charge extra for using paper bags?

That seems like adding whatever it is you add to injury. Apologies,

rather than extra charge, should be in order. However, I suppose that

these cement people understand their business. I shall know enough to

watch out, however, and insist on having whatever cement I may be called

upon to carry home done up in a cloth sack. "Not in a paper bag, if you

please," I shall say very politely to the clerk.

L

OPEN BOOKCASES

Things have come to a pretty pass when a man can't buy a bookcase that

hasn't got glass doors on it. What are we becoming--a nation of

weaklings?

All over New York city I have been,--trying to get something in which to

keep books. And what am I shown? Curio cabinets, inclosed whatnots,

museum cases in which to display fragments from the neolithic age, and

glass-faced sarcophagi for dead butterflies.

"But I am apt to use my books at any time," I explain to the salesman.

"I never can tell when it is coming on me. And when I want a book I want

it quickly. I don't want to have to send down to the office for the key,

and I don't want to have to manipulate any trick ball-bearings and open

up a case as if I were getting cream-puffs out for a customer. I want a

bookcase for books and not books for a bookcase."

(I really don't say all those clever things to the clerk. It took me

quite a while to think them up. What I really say is, timidly, "Haven't

you any bookcases without glass doors?" and when they say "No," I thank

them and walk into the nearest dining-room table.)

But if they keep on getting arrogant about it I shall speak up to them

one of these fine days. When I ask for an open-faced bookcase they look

with a scornful smile across the salesroom toward the mahogany

four-posters and say:

"Oh, no, we don't carry those any more. We don't have any call for them.

Every one uses the glass-doored ones now. They keep the books much

cleaner."

Then the ideal procedure for a real book-lover would be to keep his

books in the original box, snugly packed in excelsior, with the lid

nailed down. Then they would be nice and clean. And the sun couldn't get

at them and ruin the bindings. Faugh! (Try saying that. It doesn't work

out at all as you think it's going to. And it makes you feel very silly

for having tried it.)

* * * * *

Why, in the elder days bookcases with glass doors were owned only by

people who filled them with ten volumes of a pictorial history of the

Civil War (including some swell steel engravings), "Walks and Talks

with John L. Stoddard" and "Daily Thoughts for Daily Needs," done in

robin's-egg blue with a watered silk bookmark dangling out. A set of Sir

Walter Scott always helps fill out a bookcase with glass doors. It looks

well from the front and shows that you know good literature when you see

it. And you don't have to keep opening and shutting the doors to get it

out, for you never want to get it out.

[Illustration: I thank them and walk into the nearest dining-room

table.]

A bookcase with glass doors used to be a sign that somewhere in the room

there was a crayon portrait of Father when he was a young man, with a

real piece of glass stuck on the portrait to represent a diamond stud.

And now we are told that "every one buys bookcases with glass doors; we

have no call for others." Soon we shall be told that the thing to do is

to buy the false backs of bindings, such as they have in stage

libraries, to string across behind the glass. It will keep us from

reading too much, and then, too, no one will want to borrow our books.

* * * * *

But one clerk told me the truth. And I am just fearless enough to tell

it here. I know that it will kill my chances for the Presidency, but I

cannot stop to think of that.

After advising me to have a carpenter build me the kind of bookcase I

wanted, and after I had told him that I had my name in for a carpenter

but wasn't due to get him until late in the fall, as he was waiting for

prices to go higher before taking the job on, the clerk said:

"That's it. It's the price. You see the furniture manufacturers can make

much more money out of a bookcase with glass doors than they can

without. When by hanging glass doors on a piece of furniture at but

little more expense to themselves they can get a much bigger profit,

what's the sense in making them without glass doors? They have just

stopped making them, that's all."

So you see the American people are being practically forced into buying

glass doors whether they want them or not. Is that right? Is it fair?

Where is our personal liberty going to? What is becoming of our

traditional American institutions?

I don't know.

LI

TROUT-FISHING

I never knew very much about trout-fishing anyway, and I certainly had

no inkling that a trout-fisher had to be so deceitful until I read

"Trout-Fishing in Brooks," by G. Garrow-Green. The thing is appalling.

Evidently the sport is nothing but a constant series of compromises with

one's better nature, what with sneaking about pretending to be something

that one is not, trying to fool the fish into thinking one thing when

just the reverse is true, and in general behaving in an underhanded and

tricky manner throughout the day.

The very first and evidently the most important exhortation in the book

is, "Whatever you do, keep out of sight of the fish." Is that open and

above-board? Is it honorable?

"Trout invariably lie in running water with their noses pointed against

the current, and therefore whatever general chance of concealment there

may be rests in fishing from behind them. The moral is that the

brook-angler must both walk and fish upstream."

It seems as if a lot of trouble might be saved the fisherman, in case he

really didn't want to walk upstream but had to get to some point

downstream before 6 o'clock, to adopt some disguise which would deceive

the fish into thinking that he had no intention of catching them anyway.

A pair of blue glasses and a cane would give the effect of the wearer

being blind and harmless, and could be thrown aside very quickly when

the time came to show one's self in one's true colors to the fish. If

there were two anglers they might talk in loud tones about their dislike

for fish in any form, and then, when the trout were quite reassured and

swimming close to the bank they could suddenly be shot with a pistol.

* * * * *

But a little further on comes a suggestion for a much more elaborate bit

of subterfuge.

The author says that in the early season trout are often engaged with

larvae at the bottom and do not show on the surface. It is then a good

plan, he says, to sink the flies well, moving in short jerks to imitate

nymphs.

You can see that imitating a nymph will call for a lot of rehearsing,

but I doubt very much if moving in short jerks is the way in which to go

about it. I have never actually seen a nymph, though if I had I should

not be likely to admit it, and I can think of no possible way in which I

could give an adequate illusion of being one myself. Even the most

stupid of trout could easily divine that I was masquerading, and then

the question would immediately arise in its mind: "If he is not a nymph,

then what is his object in going about like that trying to imitate one?

He is up to no good, I'll be bound."

And crash! away would go the trout before I could put my clothes back

on.

* * * * *

There is an interesting note on the care and feeding of worms on page

67. One hundred and fifty worms are placed in a tin and allowed to work

their way down into packed moss.

"A little fresh milk poured in occasionally is sufficient food," writes

Mr. Garrow-Green, in the style of Dr. Holt. "So disposed, the worms soon

become bright, lively and tough."

It is easy to understand why one should want to have bright worms, so

long as they don't know that they are bright and try to show off before

company, but why deliberately set out to make them tough? Good manners

they may not be expected to acquire, but a worm with a cultivated

vulgarity sounds intolerable. Imagine 150 very tough worms all crowded

together in one tin! "Canaille" is the only word to describe it.

* * * * *

I suppose that it is my ignorance of fishing parlance which makes the

following sentence a bit hazy:

"Much has been written about bringing a fish downstream to help drown

it, as no doubt it does; still, this is often impracticable."

I can think of nothing more impracticable than trying to drown a fish

under any conditions, upstream or down, but I suppose that Mr.

Garrow-Green knows what he is talking about.

And in at least one of his passages I follow him perfectly. In speaking

of the time of day for fly-fishing in the spring he says:

"'Carpe diem' is a good watchword when trout are in the humor." At

least, I know a good pun when I see one.

LII

"SCOUTING FOR GIRLS"

"Scouting for Girls" is not the kind of book you think it is. The verb

"to scout" is intransitive in this case. As a matter of fact, instead of

being a volume of advice to men on how to get along with girls, it is

full of advice to girls on how to get along without men, that is, within

reason, of course.

It is issued by the Girl Scouts and is very subtle anti-man propaganda.

I can't find that men are mentioned anywhere in the book. It is given

over entirely to telling girls how to chop down trees, tie knots in

ropes, and things like that. Now, as a man, I am very jealous of my

man's prerogative of chopping down trees and tying knots in ropes, and I

resent the teaching of young girls to usurp my province in these

matters. Any young girl who has taken one lesson in knot-tying will be

able to make me appear very silly at it. After two lessons she could tie

me hand and foot to a tree and go away with my watch and commutation

ticket. And then I would look fine, wouldn't I? Small wonder to me that

I hail the Girl Scout movement as a menace and urge its being nipped in

the bud as you would nip a viper in the bud. I would not be surprised if

there were Russian Soviet money back of it somewhere.

A companion volume to "Scouting for Girls" is "Campward, Ho!" a manual

for Girl Scout camps. The keynote is sounded on the first page by a

quotation from Chaucer, beginning:

"_When that Aprille with his schowres swoote

The drought of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathus every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertue engendred is the flour._"

One can almost hear the girls singing that of an evening as they sit

around the campfire tying knots in ropes. It is really an ideal camping

song, because even the littlest girls can sing the words without

understanding what they mean.

But it really lacks the lilt of the "Marching Song" printed further on

in the book. This is to be sung to the tune of "Where Do We Go From

Here, Boys?" Bear this in mind while humming it to yourself:

_MARCHING SONG

Where do we go from here, girls, where do we go from here?

Anywhere (our Captain[5]) leads we'll follow, never fear.

The world is full of dandy girls, but wait till we appear--

Then!

Girl Scouts, Girl Scouts, give us a hearty cheer_!

A very stirring marching song, without doubt, but what would they do if

the leader's name happened to be something like Mary Louise Abercrombie

or Elizabeth Van Der Water? They just couldn't have a Captain with such

a long name, that's all. And there you have unfair discrimination

creeping into your camp right at the start.

In "Scouting for Girls" there is some useful information concerning

smoke signals. In case you are lost, or want to communicate with your

friends who are beyond shouting distance, it is much quicker than

telephoning to build a clear, hot fire and cover it with green stuff or

rotten wood so that it will send up a solid column of black smoke. By

spreading and lifting a blanket over this smudge the column can be cut

up into pieces, long or short (this is the way it explains it in the

book, but it doesn't sound plausible to me), and by a preconcerted code

these can be made to convey tidings.

For instance, one steady smoke means "Here is camp."

Two steady smokes mean "I am lost. Come and help me."

Three smokes in a row mean "Good news!"

I suppose that the Pollyanna of the camping party is constantly sending

up three smokes in a row on the slightest provocation, and then when the

rest of the outfit have raced across country for miles to find out what

the good news is she probably shows them, with great enthusiasm, that

some fringed gentians are already in blossom or that the flicker's eggs

have hatched. Unfortunately, there is no smoke code given for snappy

replies, but in the next paragraph it tells how to carry on a

conversation with pistol shots. One of these would serve the purpose for

repartee.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Supply Captain's name.

LIII

HOW TO SELL GOODS

The Retail Merchants' Association ought to buy up all the copies of

"Elements of Retail Salesmanship," by Paul Westley Ivey (Macmillan), and

not let a single one get into the hands of a customer, for once the

buying public reads what is written there the game is up. It tells all

about how to sell goods to people, how to appeal to their weaknesses,

how to exert subtle influences which will win them over in spite of

themselves. Houdini might as well issue a pamphlet giving in detail his

methods of escape as for the merchants of this country to let this book

remain in circulation.

The art of salesmanship is founded, according to Mr. Ivey, on, first, a

thorough knowledge of the goods which are to be sold, and second, a

knowledge of the customer. By knowing the customer you know what line of

argument will most appeal to him. There are several lines in popular

use. First is the appeal to the instinct of self-preservation--i.e.,

social self-preservation. The customer is made to feel that in order to

preserve her social standing she must buy the article in question. "She

must be made to feel what a disparaged social self would mean to her

mental comfort."

It is reassuring to know that it is a recognized ruse on the part of the

salesman to intimate that unless you buy a particular article you will

have to totter through life branded as the arch-piker. I have always

taken this attitude of the clerks perfectly seriously. In fact, I have

worried quite a bit about it.

In the store where I am allowed to buy my clothes it is quite the thing

among the salesmen to see which one of them can degrade me most. They

intimate that, while they have no legal means of refusing to sell their

goods to me, it really would be much more in keeping with things if I

were to take the few pennies that I have at my disposal and run around

the corner to some little haberdashery for my shirts and ties. Every

time I come out from that store I feel like Ethel Barrymore in

"Déclassée." Much worse, in fact, for I haven't any good looks to fall

back upon.

[Illustration: They intimate that I had better take my few pennies and

run 'round the corner to some little haberdashery.]

But now that I know the clerks are simply acting all that scorn in an

attempt to appeal to my instinct for the preservation of my social self,

I can face them without flinching. When that pompous old boy with the

sandy mustache who has always looked upon me as a member of the

degenerate Juke family tries to tell me that if I don't take the

five-dollar cravat he won't be responsible for the way in which decent

people will receive me when I go out on the street, I will reach across

the counter and playfully pull his own necktie out from his waistcoat

and scream, "I know you, you old rascal! You got that stuff from page 68

of 'Elements of Retail Salesmanship' (Macmillan)."

* * * * *

Other traits which a salesperson may appeal to in the customer are:

Vanity, parental pride, greed, imitation, curiosity and selfishness. One

really gets in touch with a lot of nice people in this work and can

bring out the very best that is in them.

Customers are divided into groups indicative of temperament. There is

first the Impulsive or Nervous Customer. She is easily recognized

because she walks into the store in "a quick, sometimes jerky manner.

Her eyes are keen-looking; her expression is intense, oftentimes

appearing strained." She must be approached promptly, according to the

book, and what she desires must be quickly ascertained. Since these are

the rules for selling to people who enter the store in this manner, it

might be well, no matter how lethargic you may be by nature, to assume

the appearance of the Impulsive or Nervous Customer as soon as you enter

the store, adopting a quick, even jerky manner and making your eyes as

keen-looking as possible, with an intense expression, oftentimes

appearing strained. Then the clerk will size you up as type No. 1 and

will approach you promptly. After she has quickly filled your order you

may drop the impulsive pose and assume your natural, slow manner again,

whereupon the clerk will doubtless be highly amused at having been so

cleverly fooled into giving quick service.

* * * * *

The opposite type is known as the Deliberate Customer. She walks slowly

and in a dignified manner. Her facial expression is calm and poised.

"Gestures are uncommon, but if existing tend to be slow and

inconspicuous." She can wait.

Then there is the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, the Confident or

Decisive Customer (this one should be treated with subtle flattery and

agreement with all her views), The Talkative or Friendly Customer, and

the Silent or Indifferent one. All these have their little weaknesses,

and the perfect salesperson will learn to know these and play to them.

There seems to be only one thing left for the customer to do in order

to meet this concerted attack upon his personality. That is, to hire

some expert like Mr. Ivey to study the different types of sales men and

women and formulate methods of meeting their offensive. Thus, if I am of

the type designated as the Vacillating or Indecisive Customer, I ought

to know what to do when confronted by a salesman of the Aristocratic,

Scornful type, so that I may not be bulldozed into buying something I do

not want.

If I could only find such a book of instructions I would go tomorrow and

order a black cotton engineer's shirt from that sandy-mustached salesman

and bawl him out if he raised his eyebrows. But not having the book, I

shall go in and, without a murmur, buy a $3 silk shirt for $18 and slink

out feeling that if I had been any kind of sport at all I would also

have bought that cork helmet in the showcase.

LIV

"YOU!"

In the window of the grocery store to which I used to be sent after a

pound of Mocha and Java mixed and a dozen of your best oranges, there

was a cardboard figure of a clerk in a white coat pointing his finger at

the passers-by. As I remember, he was accusing you of not taking home a

bottle of Moxie, and pretty guilty it made you feel too.

This man was, I believe, the pioneer in what has since become a great

literary movement. He founded the "You, Mr. Business-Man!" school of

direct appeal. It is strictly an advertising property and has long been

used to sell merchandise to people who never can resist the flattery of

being addressed personally. When used as an advertisement it is usually

accompanied by an illustration built along the lines of the pioneer

grocery-clerk, pointing a virile finger at you from the page of the

magazine, and putting the whole thing on a personal basis by

addressing you as "You, Mr. Rider-in-the-Open-Cars!" or "You, Mr.

Wearer-of-14½-Shirts!" The appeal is instantaneous.

In straight reading-matter, bound in book form and sold as literature,

this Moxie talk becomes a volume of inspirational sermonizing, and

instead of selling cooling drinks or warming applications, it throws

dynamic paragraph after dynamic paragraph into the fight for efficiency,

concentration, self-confidence and personality on the part of our body

politic. A homely virtue such as was taught us at our mother's knee (or

across our mother's knees) at the age of four, in a dozen or so simple

words, is taken and blown up into a book in which it is stated very

impressively in a series of short, snappy sentences, all saying the same

thing.

Such a book is called, for instance "You," written by Irving R. Allen.

* * * * *

"You" takes 275 pages to divulge a secret of success. It would not be

fair to Mr. Allen to give it away here after he has spent so much time

concealing it. But it might be possible to give some idea of the

importance of Mr. Allen's discovery by stating one of my own, somewhat

in the manner in which he has stated his. I will give my little

contribution to the world's inspiration the title of

HEY, YOU!

You and I are alone.

No, don't try to get away. That door is locked. I won't hurt you--much.

What I want to do is make you see yourself. I want you, when you put

down this book, to say, "I know myself!" I want you to be able to look

at yourself in the mirror and say: "Why, certainly I remember you, Mr.

Addington Simms of Seattle, you old Rotary Club dog! How's your merger?"

And the only way that you can ever be able to do this is to read this

book through.

Then read it through again.

Then read it through again.

Then ring Dougherty's bell and ask for "Chester."

Now let's get down to business.

I knew a man once who had made a million dollars. If he hadn't been

arrested he would have made another million.

Do you see what I mean?

If not, go back and read that over a second time. It's worth it. I wrote

it for you to read. You, do you hear me? You!

If you want to know the secret of this man's success, of the success of

hundreds of other men just like him, if you want to make his success

your success, you must first learn the rule.

What is this rule? you may ask.

Go ahead and ask it.

Very well, since you ask.

It is a rule which has kept J.P. Morgan what he is. It is a rule which

gives John D. Rockefeller the right to be known as the Baptist man

alive. It is a rule which is responsible for the continued existence of

every successful man of today.

And now I am going to tell it to you.

You, the you that you know, the real you, are going to learn the secret.

Can you bear it?

Here it is:

You can't win if you breathe under water.

Read that again.

Read it backward.

It may sound simple to you now. You may say to yourself, "What do you

take me for, a baby boy?"

Well, you paid good money for this book, didn't you?

LV

THE CATALOGUE SCHOOL

Without wishing in the least to detract from the praise due to Sinclair

Lewis for the remarkable accuracy with which he reports details in his

"Main Street," it is interesting to speculate on how other books might

have read had their authors had Mr. Lewis's flair for minutiae and their

publishers enough paper to print the result.

For instance, Carol Kennicott, the heroine, whenever she is overtaken by

an emotional scene, is given to looking out at the nearest window to

hide her feelings, whereupon the author goes to great lengths to

describe just exactly what came within her range of vision. Nothing

escapes him, even to shreds of excelsior lying on the ground in back of

Howland & Gould's grocery store.

* * * * *

Let us suppose that Harriet Beecher Stowe had been endowed with Mr.

Lewis's gift for reporting and had indulged herself in it to the extent

of the following in "Uncle Tom's Cabin:"

"Slowly Simon Legree raised his whip-arm to strike the prostrate body

of the old negro. As he did so his eye wandered across the plantation to

the slaves' quarters which crouched blistering in the sun. Cowed as they

were, as only ramshackle buildings can be cowed, they presented their

gray boards, each eaten with four or five knot-holes, to the elements in

abject submission. The door of one hung loose by a rust-encased hinge,

of which only one screw remained on duty, and that by sheer willpower of

two or three threads. Legree could not quite make out how many threads

there were on the screw, but he guessed, and Simon Legree's guess was

nearly always right. On the ground at the threshold lay a banjo G

string, curled like a blond snake ready to strike at the reddish, brown

inner husk of a nut of some sort which was blowing about within reach.

There were also several crumbs of corn-pone, well-done, a shred of

tobacco which had fallen from the pipe of some negro slave before the

fire had consumed more than its very tip, an old shoe which had, Legree

noticed by the maker's name, been bought in Boston in its palmier days,

doubtless by a Yankee cousin of one of Uncle Tom's former owners, and an

indiscriminate pile of old second editions of a Richmond newspaper,

sweet-potato peelings and seeds of unripe watermelons.

"Swish! The blow descended on the crouching form of Uncle Tom."

* * * * *

Or Sir Walter Scott:

"Sadly Rowena turned from her lover's side and looked out over the

courtyard of the castle. Beneath her she saw the cobble-stones all

scratched and marred with gray bruises from the horses' hoofs, a faded

purple ribbon dropped from the mandolin of a minstrel, three slightly

imperfect wassails and a trencher with a nick on the rim, all that had

not been used of the wild boar at last night's feast, a peach-stone like

a wrinkled almond nestling in a sardine tin. Slowly she faced her

knight:

"'Prithee,' she said."

* * * * *

And I am not at all sure that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Ivanhoe" wouldn't

have made better reading if they had lapsed into the photographic at

times. Mr. Lewis may overdo it, but I expect to re-read "Main Street"

some day, and that is more encouragement than I can hold out to Mrs.

Stowe or Sir Walter Scott.

LVI

"EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS"

To the hurrying commuter as he waits for his two cents change at the

news stand it looks as if all the periodicals in the United States were

on display there, none of which he ever has quite time enough to buy. It

seems incredible that there should be presses enough in the country to

print all the matter that he sees hanging from wires, piled on the

counter and dangling from clips over the edge, to say nothing of his

conceiving of there being other periodicals in circulation which he

never even hears about. But any one knowing the commuter well enough to

call him "dearie" might tell him in slightly worn vernacular that he

doesn't know the half of it.

One cannot get a true idea of the amount of sideline printing that is

done in this country without reading "Effective House Organs," written

by Robert E. Ramsay. The mass effect of this book is appalling. Page

after page of clear-cut illustrations show reproductions of hundreds and

hundreds of house-organ covers and give the reader a hopeless sensation

of going down for the third time. Such names as "Gas Logic,"

"Crane-ing," "Hidden's Hints," "The Y. and E. Idea," "Vim," "Tick Talk"

and "The Smileage" show that Yankee ingenuity has invaded the publishing

field, which means that the literature of business is on its way to

becoming the literature of the land.

For those who are so illiterate as not to be familiar with the

literature of business, I quote a definition of the word "house organ":

"A house magazine or bulletin to dealers, customers or employees,

designed to promote goodwill, increase sales, induce better salesmanship

or develop better profits."

* * * * *

In spite of Mr. Ramsay's exceedingly thorough treatment of his subject,

there is one type of house organ to which he devotes much too little

space. This is the so-called "employee or internal house organ" and is

designed to keep the help happy and contented with their lot and to spur

them on to extra effort in making it a banner year for the stockholders.

The possibilities of this sort of house organ in the solution of the

problem of industrial unrest are limitless.

Publications for light reading among employees are usually called by

such titles as "Diblee Doings," "Tinkham Topics," "The Mooney and

Carmiechal Machine Lather" or "Better Belting News."

First of all, they carry news notes of happenings among the employees,

so that a real spirit of cooperation and team-play may be fostered.

These news notes include such as the following:

"Eddie Lingard of the Screen Room force, was observed last Saturday

evening between the mystic hours of six-thirty with a certain party from

the Shipping Room, said party in a tan knit sweater, on their way to

Ollie's. Come, 'fess up, Eddie!"

"Everyone is wondering who the person is who put chocolate peppermints

in some of the girls' pockets while they were hanging in the Girls' Rest

Room Thursday afternoon, it being so hot that they melted and

practically ruined some of their clothing. Some folks have a funny sense

of humor."

* * * * *

Then there are excerpts from speeches made by the Rev. Charles Aubrey

Eaton and young Mr. Rockefeller or by the President and Treasurer of the

Diamond Motor Sales Corporation, saying, in part:

"The man who makes good in any line of work is the man who gives the

best there is in him. He doesn't watch the clock. He doesn't kick when

he fails to get that raise that he may have expected. He just digs into

the job harder and makes the dust fly. And when some one comes along

waving a red flag and tries to make him stop work and strike for more

money, he turns on the agitator and says: 'You get the h---- out of

here. I know my job better than you do. I know my boss better than you

do, and I know that he is going to give me the square deal just as soon

as he can see his way clear to do it. And in the mean time I am going to

WORK!'

"That is the kind of man who makes good."

* * * * *

And then there are efficiency contests, with the force divided into

teams trying to see which one can wrap the most containers or stamp the

largest number of covers in the week. The winning team gets a felt

banner and their names are printed in full in that week's issue of "Pep"

or "Nosey News."

And biographies of employees who have been with the company for more

than fifty years, with photographs, and a little notice written by the

Superintendent saying that this will show the company's appreciation of

Mr. Gomble's loyal and unswerving allegiance to his duty, implying that

any one else who does his duty for fifty years will also get his

picture in the paper and a notice by the Superintendent.

It will easily be seen how this sort of house organ can be made to

promote good feeling and esprit de corps among the help. If only more

concerns could be prevailed upon to bring this message of weekly or

monthly good cheer to their employees, who knows but what the whole

caldron of industrial unrest might not suddenly simmer down to mere

nothingness? It has been said that all that is necessary is for capital

and labor to understand each other. Certainly such a house organ helps

the employees to understand their employers.

Perhaps some one will start a house organ edited by the employees for

circulation among the bosses, containing newsy notes about the owners'

families, quotations from Karl Marx and the results of the

profit-sharing contest between the various mills of the district.

This would complete the circle of understanding.

LVII

ADVICE TO WRITERS

Two books have emerged from the hundreds that are being published on the

art of writing. One of them is "The Lure of the Pen," by Flora

Klickmann, and the other is "Learning to Write," a collection of

Stevenson's meditations on the subject, issued by Scribners. At first

glance one might say that the betting would be at least eight to one on

Stevenson. But for real, solid, sensible advice in the matter of writing

and selling stories in the modern market, Miss Klickmann romps in an

easy winner.

It must be admitted that John William Rogers Jr., who collected the

Stevenson material, warns the reader in his introduction that the book

is not intended to serve as "a macadamized, mile-posted road to the

secret of writing," but simply as a help to those who want to write and

who are interested to know how Stevenson did it. So we mustn't compare

it too closely with Miss Klickmann's book, which is quite frankly a

mile-posted road, with little sub-headings along the side of the page

such as we used to have in Fiske's Elementary American History. But

Miss Klickmann will save the editors of the country a great deal more

trouble than Stevenson's advice ever will. She is the editor of an

English magazine herself, and has suffered.

* * * * *

Where Miss Klickmann enumerates the pitfalls which the candidate must

avoid and points out qualities which every good piece of writing should

have, Stevenson writes a delightful essay on "The Profession of Letters"

or "A Gossip on Romance." These essays are very inspiring. They are too

inspiring. They make the reader feel that he can go out and write like

Stevenson. And then a lot of two-cent stamps are wasted and a lot more

editors are cross when they get home at night.

On the other hand, the result of Miss Klickmann's book is to make the

reader who feels a writing spell coming on stop and give pause. He finds

enumerated among the horrors of manuscript-reading several items which

he was on the point of injecting into his own manuscript with

considerable pride. He may decide that the old job in the shipping-room

isn't so bad after all, with its little envelope coming in regularly

every week. As a former member of the local manuscript-readers' union, I

will give one of three rousing cheers for any good work that Miss

Klickmann may do in this field. One writer kept very busy at work in the

shipping-room every day is a victory for literature. I used to have a

job in a shipping-room myself, so I know.

If, for instance, the subject under discussion were that of learning to

skate, Miss Klickmann might advise as follows:

1. Don't try to skate if your ankles are weak.

2. Get skates that fit you. A skate which can't be put on when you get

to the pond, or one which drags behind your foot by the strap, is worse

than no skate at all.

3. If you are sure that you are ready, get on your feet and skate.

On the same subject, Scribners might bring to light something that

Stevenson had written to a young friend about to take his first lesson

in skating, reading as follows:

"To know the secret of skating is, indeed, I have always thought, the

beginning of winter-long pleasance. It comes as sweet deliverance from

the tedium of indoor isolation and brings exhilaration, now with a swift

glide to the right, now with a deft swerve to the left, now with a deep

breath of healthy air, now with a long exhalation of ozone, which the

lungs, like greedy misers, have cast aside after draining it of its

treasure. But it is not health that we love nor exhilaration that we

seek, though we may think so; our design and our sufficient reward is to

verify our own existence, say what you will.

"And so, my dear young friend, I would say to you: Open up your heart;

sing as you skate; sing inharmoniously if you will, but sing! A man may

skate with all the skill in the world; he may glide forward with

incredible deftness and curve backward with divine grace, and yet if he

be not master of his emotions as well as of his feet, I would say--and

here Fate steps in--that he has failed."

* * * * *

There is, of course, plenty of good advice in the Stevenson book. But it

is much better as pure reading matter than as advice to the young idea

or even the middle-aged idea. It may have been all right for Stevenson

to "play the sedulous ape" and consciously imitate the style of Hazlitt,

Lamb, Montaigne and the rest, but if the rest of us were to try it there

would result a terrible plague of insufferably artificial and affected

authors, all playing the sedulous ape and all looking the part.

On the whole, the Stevenson book makes good reading and Miss Klickmann

gives good advice.

LVIII

"THE EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE"

Joseph A. Mosher begins his book on "The Effective Speaking Voice" by

saying:

"Among the many developments of the great war was a widespread activity

in public speaking."

Mr. Mosher, to adopt a technical term of elocution, has said a mouthful.

Whatever else the war did for us, it raised overnight an army of public

speakers among the civilian population, many of whom seem not yet to

have received their discharge. It is the aim of Mr. Mosher's book to

keep this Landwehr in fighting trim and aid in recruiting its ranks,

possibly against the next war. Until every nation on earth has subjected

its public speakers to a devastating operation on the larynx no true

disarmament can be said to have taken place.

* * * * *

In the first place there are exercises which must be performed by the

man who would have an effective speaking voice, exercises similar to

Walter Camp's Daily Dozen. You stand erect, with the chest held

moderately high. (Moderation in all things is the best rule to follow,

no matter what you are doing.) Place the thumbs just above the hips,

with the fingers forward over the waist to note the muscular action.

Then you inhale and exhale and make the sound of "ah" and the sound of

"ah-oo-oh," and, if you aren't self-conscious, you say "wah-we-wi-wa,"

slowly, ten or a dozen times.

"The student should stop at once if signs of dizziness appear," says the

book, but it does not say whether the symptoms are to be looked for in

the student himself or in the rest of the family.

* * * * *

The author does the public a rather bad turn when he suggests to student

speakers that, under stress, they might use what is known as the

"orotund." The orotund quality in public speaking is saved for passages

containing grandeur of thought, when the orator feels the need of a

larger, fuller, more resonant and sounding voice to be in keeping with

the sentiment. Its effect is somewhat that of a chant, and here is how

you do it:

The chest is raised and tensed, the cavities of the mouth and pharynx

are enlarged, more breath is directed into the nasal chambers and the

lips are opened more widely to give free passage to the increased volume

of voice.

The effectiveness of the orotund might be somewhat reduced if the

audience knew the conscious mechanical processes which went to make it

up. Or if, in the Congressional Record, instead of (laughter and

applause) the vocal technique of the orator could be indicated, how few

would be the wars into which impassioned Senators could plunge us! For

example, Mr. Thurston's plea for intervention in Cuba:

"The time for action has come. (Tensing the chest.) No greater reason

for it can exist tomorrow than exists today. (Enlarging the cavities of

the mouth.) Every hour's delay only adds another chapter to the awful

story of misery and death. (Enlarging the cavities of the pharynx.) Only

one power can intervene--the United States of America. (Directing more

breath into the nasal chambers.) Ours is the one great nation of the New

World--the mother of republics. (Elevating the diaphragm.) We cannot

refuse to accept this responsibility which the God of the Universe has

placed upon us as the one great power of the New World. We must act!

(Raising the tongue and thrusting it forward so that the edges of the

blade are pressed against the upper grinders.) What shall our action be?

(Lifting the voice-box very high and the edges of the tongue blade

against the soft palate, leaving only a small central groove for the

passage of air.)"

* * * * *

The aspirate quality, or whisper, is very effective when well handled,

and the book gives a few exercises for practice's sake. Try whispering a

few of them, if you are sure that you are alone in the room. You will

sound very silly if you are overheard.

a. "I can't tell just how it happened; I think the beam fell on me."

b. "Keep back; wait till I see if the coast is clear."

c. "Ask the man next to you if he'll let me see his programme."

d. "Hark! What was that?"

e. "It's too steep--he'll never make it--oh, this is terrible!"

* * * * *

For the cheery evening's reading, if you happen to be feeling low in

your mind, let me recommend that section of "The Effective Speaking

Voice" which deals with "the Subdued Range." The selections for the

practice-reading include the following well-known nuggets in lighter

vein:

"The Wounded Soldier," "The Death of Molly Cass," "The Little Cripple's

Garden," "The Burial of Little Nell," "The Light of Other Days," "The

Baby is Dead," "King David Mourns for Absalom," and "The Days That Are

No More."

After all, a good laugh never does anyone any harm.

LIX

THOSE DANGEROUSLY DYNAMIC BRITISH GIRLS

It is difficult to get into Rose Macaulay's "Dangerous Ages" once you

discover that it is going to be about another one of those offensively

healthy English families. Ever since "Mr. Britling" we have been deluged

with accounts from overseas of whole droves of British brothers and

sisters, mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, who all get

out at six in the morning and play hockey all over the place. Each has

some strange, intimate name like "Bim," or "Pleda," or "Goots," and you

can never tell which are the brothers and which the sisters until they

begin to have children along in the tenth or eleventh chapter.

In "Dangerous Ages" they swim. Dozens of them, all in the same family,

go splashing in at once and persist in calling out health slogans to one

another across the waves. There are _Neville_ and _Rodney_ and _Gerda_

and _Kay_, and one or two very old ladies whose relationship to the rest

of the clan is never very definitely established. Grandma, for some

reason or other, doesn't go in swimming that day, doubtless because she

had already been in before breakfast and her suit wasn't dry.

These dynamic British girls are always full of ruddy health and current

information. They go about kidding each other on the second reading of

the Home Rule bill or fooling in their girlish way about the chances of

the Labor candidate in the coming Duncastershire elections. It is

getting so that no novel of British life will be complete without

somewhere in its pages a scene like the following:

"A chance visitor at The Beetles some autumn morning along about five

o'clock might have been surprised to see a trail of dog-trotting figures

winding their way heatedly across the meadow. No one but a chance

visitor would be surprised, however, for it was well known to invited

guests that the entire Willetts family ran cross-country down to the

outskirts of London and back every morning before breakfast, a matter of

fourteen miles. In the lead was, of course, Dungeon in running costume,

followed closely by the flaxen-haired Mid and snub-nosed Boola, then

Arlix and Linny, striving valiantly for fourth place but not reckoning

on the fleet-footed Meeda, who was no longer content to hobble in the

vanguard with Grandpa Willetts and Grandpa's old mother, who still

insisted on cross-country running, although she had long since been put

on the retired list at the Club.

[Illustration: "Why didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on

birth control?"]

"'Oh, Linny,' called out Dungeon over her shoulder, 'you young minx! Why

didn't you tell us that you were reading a paper on Birth Control at the

next meeting of the Spiddix? Twiller just told me today. It's too

ripping of you!'

"'Silly goose,' panted Linny, stumbling over a hedgerow, 'how about what

the vicar said the other night about your inferiority complex? It was

toppo, and you know it.'

"'It won't be long now before we'll have disenfranchisement through,

anyway,' muttered Grandpa Willetts, crashing down into a stone quarry,

at which exhibition of reaction a loud chorus of laughter went up from

the entire family, who by this time had reached Nogroton and were

bursting with health."

LX

BOOKS AND OTHER THINGS

For those to whom the purple-and-gold filigreed covers of Florence L.

Barclay's books bring a stirring of the sap and a fluttering of the

susceptible heart, "Returned Empty" comes as a languorous relief from

the stolid realism of most present-day writing. One reads it and swoons.

And on opening one's eyes again, one hears old family retainers

murmuring in soft retentive accents: "Here, sip some of this, my lord;

'twill bring the roses back to those cheeks and the strength to those

poor limbs." It's elegant, that's all there is to it, elegant.

"Returned Empty" was the inscription on the wrappings which enfolded the

tiny but aristocratic form of a man-child left on the steps of the

Foundlings Institution one moonless October night. There was also some

reference to Luke, xii., 6, which in return refers to five sparrows sold

for two farthings. What more natural, then, than for the matron to name

the little one Luke Sparrow?

Luke was an odd boy but refined. So odd that he used to go about

looking in at people's windows when they forgot to pull down the shades,

and so refined that he never wished to be inside with them.

But one night, when he was thirty years old, he looked in at the window

of a very refined and elegant mansion and saw a woman. In the simple

words of the author, "in court or cottage alike she would be queen."

That's the kind of woman she was.

And what do you think? She saw Luke looking in. Not only saw him but

came over to the window and told him that she had been expecting him.

Well, you could have knocked Luke over with a feather. However, he

allowed himself to be ushered in by the butler (everything in the house

was elegant like that) and up to a room where he found evening clothes,

bath-salts and grand things of that nature. On passing a box of books

which stood in the hall he read the name on it "before he realized what

he was doing." Of course the minute he thought what an unrefined thing

it was to do he stopped, but it was too late. He had already seen that

his hostess's name was "Lady Tintagel."

When later he met her down in the luxurious dining-room she was just as

refined as ever. And so was he. They both were so refined that she had

to tell the butler to "serve the fruit in the Oak Room, Thomas."

* * * * *

Once in the Oak Room she told him her strange tale. It seemed that he

was her husband. He didn't remember it, but he was. He had been drowned

some years before and she had wished so hard that he might come back to

life that finally he had been born again in the body of Luke Sparrow.

It's funny how things work out like that sometimes.

But Luke, who, as has been said before, was an odd boy, took it very

hard and said that he didn't want to be brought back to life. Not even

when she told him that his name was now Sir Nigel Guido Cadross

Tintagel, Bart. He became very cross and said that he was going out and

drown himself all over again, just to show her that she shouldn't have

gone meddling with his spirit life. He was too refined to say so, but

when you consider that he was just thirty, and his wife, owing to the

difference in time between the spirit world and this, had gone on

growing old until she was now pushing sixty, he had a certain amount of

justice on his side. But of course she was Lady Tintagel, and all the

lovers of Florence Barclay will understand that that is something.

So, after reciting Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," at her request

(credit is given in the front of the book for the use of this poem, and

only rightly too, for without it the story could never have been

written), he goes out into the ocean. But there--we mustn't give too

much of the plot away. All that one need know is that Luke or Sir Nigel,

as you wish (and what reader of Florence Barclay wouldn't prefer Sir

Nigel?), was so cultured that he said, "Nobody in the whole world knows

it, save you and I," and referred to "flotsam and jetson" as he was

swimming out into the path of the rising sun. "Jetsam" is such an ugly

word.

It is only fitting that on his tombstone Lady Tintagel should have had

inscribed an impressive and high-sounding misquotation from the Bible.

LXI

"MEASURE YOUR MIND"

"Measure Your Mind" by M.R. Traube and Frank Parker Stockbridge, is apt

to be a very discouraging book if you have any doubt at all about your

own mental capacity. From a hasty glance through the various tests I

figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating "Low

Average Ability," reserved usually for those just learning to speak the

English language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while

another man hits it. If they ever adopt the "menti-meter tests" on this

journal I shall last just about forty-five minutes.

And the trouble is that each test starts off so easily. You begin to

think that you are so good that no one has ever appreciated you. There

is for instance, a series of twenty-four pictures (very badly drawn too,

Mr. Frank Parker Stockbridge. You think you are so smart, picking flaws

with people's intelligence. If I couldn't draw a better head than the

one on page 131 I would throw up the whole business). At any rate, in

each one of these pictures there is something wrong (wholly apart from

the drawing). You are supposed to pick out the incongruous feature, and

you have 180 seconds in which to tear the twenty-four pictures to

pieces.

* * * * *

The first one is easy. The rabbit has one human ear. In the second one

the woman's eye is in her hair. Pretty soft, you say to yourself. In the

third the bird has three legs. It looks like a cinch. Following in quick

succession come a man with his mouth in his forehead, a horse with cow's

horns, a mouse with rabbit's ears, etc. You will have time for a

handspring before your 180 seconds are up.

But then they get tricky. There is a post-card with a stamp upside down.

Well, what's wrong with that? Certainly there is no affront to nature in

a stamp upside down. Neither is there in a man's looking through the

large end of a telescope if he wants to. You can't arbitrarily say at

the top of the page, "Mark the thing that is wrong," and then have a

picture of a house with one window larger than all the others and expect

any one to agree with you that it is necessarily _wrong_. It may look

queer, but so does the whole picture. You can't tell; the big window may

open from a room that needs a big window. I am not going to stultify

myself by making things wrong about which I know none of the facts. Who

am I that I should condemn a man for looking through the large end of a

telescope? Personally, I like to look through the large end of a

telescope. It only shows the state of personal liberty in this country

when a picture of a man looking at a ship through the large end of a

telescope is held before the young and branded as "wrong."

* * * * *

Arguing these points with yourself takes up quite a bit of time and you

get so out of patience with the man that made up the examination that

you lose all heart in it.

Then come some pictures about which I am frankly in the dark. There is a

Ford car with a rather funny-looking mud-guard, but who can pick out any

one feature of a Ford and say that it is wrong? It may look wrong but

I'll bet that the car in this picture as it stands could pass many a big

car on a hill.

Then there is a boy holding a bat, and while his position isn't all that

a coach could ask, the only radically wrong thing that I can detect

about the picture is that he is evidently playing baseball in a clean

white shirt with a necktie and a rather natty cap set perfectly straight

on his head. It is true he has his right thumb laid along the edge of

the bat, but maybe he likes to bunt that way. There is something in the

picture that I don't get, I am afraid, just as there is in the picture

of two men playing golf. One is about to putt. Aside from the fact that

his putter seems just a trifle long, I should have to give up my guess

and take my defeat like a man.

But I do refuse to concede anything on Picture No. 22. Here a baby is

shown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a half

old. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on the

floor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, a

rattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently,

the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in the

possession of such a small child.

The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthings

for a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of a

year and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin and

hit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy when

Daddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all the

toys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical.

I suppose that the author of this test would insist on calling a picture

wrong which showed a baby with a safety-razor in his hand or an

overshoe on his head, and yet a photograph of the Public Library could

not be more true to life.

That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. I

always want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is always

so obviously wrong.

LXII

THE BROW-ELEVATION IN HUMOR

After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly

difficult for his publishers to get out a new book by him each year.

Without recourse to the ouija board, Harper & Brothers manage to do very

well by Mark Twain, considering that all they have to work with are the

books that he wrote when he was alive. Each year we get something from

the pen of the famous humorist, even though the ink has faded slightly.

An introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine and a hitherto unpublished

photograph as a frontspiece, and there you are--the season's new Mark

Twain book.

This season it is "Moments With Mark Twain," a collection of excerpts

from his works for quick and handy reading. We may look for further

books in this series in 1923, 1924, 1925, &c., to be entitled "Half

Hours With Mark Twain" (the selections a trifle longer), "Pleasant

Week-Ends With Mark Twain," "Indian Summer With Mark Twain," &c.

There is an interesting comparison between this sample bottle of the

humor of Mark Twain and that contained in the volume entitled "Something

Else Again," by Franklin P. Adams. The latter is a volume of verse and

burlesques which have appeared in the newspapers and magazines.

In the days when Mark Twain was writing, it was considered good form to

spoof not only the classics but surplus learning of any kind. A man was

popularly known as an affected cuss when he could handle anything more

erudite than a nasal past participle or two in his own language, and any

one who wanted to qualify as a humorist had to be able to mispronounce

any word of over three syllables.

Thus we find Mark Twain, in the selections given in this volume, having

amusing trouble with the pronunciation of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da

Vinci, expressing surprise that Michael Angelo was dead, picking flaws

in the old master's execution and complaining of the use of foreign

words which have their equivalent "in a nobler language--English."

There certainly is no harm in this school of humor, and it has its

earnest and prosperous exponents today. In fact, a large majority of the

people still like to have some one poke fun at the things in which they

themselves are not proficient, whether it be pronunciation, Latin or

bricklaying.

* * * * *

But there is an increasingly large section of the reading public who

while they may not be expert in Latin composition, nevertheless do not

think that a Latin word in itself is a cause for laughter. A French

phrase thrown in now and then for metrical effect does not strike them

as essentially an affectation, and they are willing to have references

made to characters whose native language may not have been that noblest

of all languages, our native tongue.

That such a school of readers exists is proved by the popularity of

F.P.A's verses and prose. If any one had told Mark Twain that a man

could run a daily newspaper column in New York and amass any degree of

fame through translations of the "Odes of Horace" into the vernacular,

the veteran humorist would probably have slapped Albert Bigelow Paine on

the back and taken the next boat for Bermuda. And yet in "Something Else

Again" we find some sixteen translations of Horace and other

"furriners," exotic phrases such as "eheu fugaces" and "ex parte" used

without making faces over them, and a popular exposition of highly

technical verse forms which James Russell Lowell and Hal Longfellow

would have considered terrifically high-brow. And yet thousands of

American business men quote F.P.A. to thousands of other American

business men every morning.

* * * * *

Can it be said that the American people are not so low-brow as they like

to pretend? There is a great deal of affectation in this homespun frame

of mind, and many a man makes believe that he doesn't know things simply

because no one has ever written about them in the American Magazine. If

the truth were known, we are all a great deal better educated than we

will admit, and the derisive laughter with which we greet signs of

culture is sometimes very hollow. In F.P.A. we find a combination which

makes it possible for us to admit our learning and still be held

honorable men. It is a good sign that his following is increasing.

LXIII

BUSINESS LETTERS

A text-book on English composition, giving examples of good and bad

letter-writing, is always a mine of possibilities for one given to

ruminating and with nothing in particular to do. In "Business Man's

English" the specimen letters are unusually interesting. It seems almost

as if the authors, Wallace Edgar Bartholomew and Floyd Hurlbut, had

selected their examples with a view to their fiction possibilities. It

also seems to the reader as if he were opening someone else's mail.

For instance, the following is given as a type of "very short letter,

well placed":

* * * * *

Mr. Richard T. Green,

Employment Department,

Travellers' Insurance Co.,

Chicago, Ill.

Dear Mr. Green:

The young man about whom you inquire has much native ability and while

in our employ proved himself a master of office routine.

I regret to say, however, that he left us under circumstances that

would not justify our recommending him to you.

Cordially yours,

C.S. THOMPSON

* * * * *

Now I want to know what those "circumstances" were. And in lieu of the

facts, I am afraid that I shall have to imagine some circumstances for

myself. Personally, I don't believe that the "young man" was to blame.

Bad companions, maybe, or I shouldn't be at all surprised if he was

shielding someone else, perhaps a young lady stenographer with whom he

was in love. The more I think of it the more I am sure that this was the

secret of the whole thing. You see, he was a good worker and had, Mr.

Thompson admits, proved himself a master of office routine. Although Mr.

Thompson doesn't say so, I have no doubt but that he would have been

promoted very shortly.

And then he fell in love with a little brown-eyed stenographer. You know

how it is yourself. She had an invalid mother at home and was probably

trying to save enough money to send her father to college. And whatever

she did, it couldn't have been so very bad, for she was such a nice

girl.

Well, at any rate, it looks to me as if the young man, while he was

arranging the pads of paper for the regular Monday morning conference,

overheard the office-manager telling about this affair (I have good

reason to believe that it was a matter of carelessness in the payroll)

and saying that he considered the little brown-eyed girl dishonest.

At this the young man drew himself up to his full height and, looking

the office-manager squarely in the eye, said:

"No, Mr. Hostetter; it was I who did it, and I will take the

consequences. And I want it understood that no finger of suspicion shall

be pointed at Agnes Fairchild, than whom no truer, sweeter girl ever

lived!"

"I am sorry to hear this, Ralph," said Mr. Hostetter. "You know what

this means."

"I do, sir," said Ralph, and turned to look out over the chimney-pots of

the city, biting his under lip very tight.

And on Saturday Ralph left.

* * * * *

Since then he has applied at countless places for work, but always they

have written to his old employer, Mr. Thompson, for a reference, and

have received a letter similar to the one given here as an example.

Naturally, they have not felt like taking him on. You cannot blame them.

And, in a way, you cannot blame Mr. Thompson. You see, Mr. Hostetter

didn't tell Mr. Thompson all the circumstances of the affair. He just

said that Ralph had confessed to responsibility for the payroll mix-up.

If Mr. Thompson had been there at the time I am sure that he would have

divined that Ralph was shielding Miss Fairchild, for Mr. Thompson liked

Ralph. You can see that from his letter.

But as it stands now things are pretty black for the boy, and it

certainly seems as if in this great city there ought to be some one who

will give him a job without writing to Mr. Thompson about him. This

department will be open as a clearing-house for offers of work for a

young man of great native ability and master of office routine who is

just at present, unfortunately, unable to give any references, but who

will, I am quite sure, justify any trust that may be placed in him in

the future.