which had been laid down to me by one authority and another were not
true. All so-called good men were not necessarily good, I was beginning
to suspect, and all bad men not hopelessly bad. There were things in
cities and towns which, as I was coming to see, did not accord with the
theories of the particular realm from which I had sprung and seemed to
indicate another kind of human being, different from the type among
which I had been raised. My mother, as I even then saw, admire her as I
might, was a mere woman, not an angel; my father a mere, mere crotchety
man. My sisters and brothers were individuals such as I soon began to
find were breasting the stormy waters of life outside, and not very
different from all other brothers and sisters, not perfect souls set
apart from life and happy in the contemplation of each other’s
perfections. In short, I was beginning to find the world a seething,
stormy, bitter, gay, rewarding and destroying realm, in which the strong
and the subtle and the charming and the magnetic were apt to be victors,
and the weak and the homely and the ignorant and the dull were apt to be
deprived of any interesting share, not because of any innate depravity
but rather because of the lacks by which they were handicapped and which
they could not possibly overcome.
And there were other phases which previously I had scarcely suspected.
The race was to the swift and the battle to the strong. All great
successes, as I was beginning to discover for myself, were relatively
gifts, the teachings of the self helpers and virtue mongers to the
contrary notwithstanding. Artists, singers, actors, policemen,
statesmen, generals, were born and not made. Sunday-school maxims,
outside of the narrowest precincts, did not apply. People might preach
one thing on Sunday or in the bosom of their families or in the
meeting-places of conventional social groups, but they did not practice
them except under compulsion, particularly in the marts of trade and
exchange. Mark the phrase “under compulsion.” I admit a vast compulsion
which has nothing to do with the individual desires or tastes or
impulses of individuals. That compulsion springs from the settling
processes of forces which we do not in the least understand, over which
we have no control and in whose grip we are as grains of dust or sand,
blown hither and thither, for what purpose we cannot even suspect.
Politics, as I found in working as a newspaper man, was a low mess;
religion, both as to its principles and its practitioners, a ghastly
fiction based on sound and fury, signifying nothing; trade was a
seething war in which the less subtle and the less swift or strong went
under, while the more cunning succeeded; the professions were largely
gathering-places of weaklings, mediocrities or mercenaries, to be
bought by, or sold to, the highest bidder.
The individual, as I found, was trying to do one thing: make himself
happy principally; life was plainly trying to do another, or at least
what it was doing involved no great concern for the welfare of any
particular individual. He might live, he might die; he might be well
fed, he might be hungry; he might, accidentally or by taking thought,
ally himself with successful movements, or he might inherently, by some
incapacity or fatality of disposition, involve himself in the drifts
toward failure; he might be weak, he might be strong; he might be wise,
he might be dull or narrow. Life in the large thrashing sense in which
we see it to move about us cared no whit for him. Why so many failures?
I was constantly asking myself; so many early deaths, so many accidents,
crass and unexplained? Why so many fires? So many cyclones? So many
destroying epidemics? So many breaks in health or in trade or by reason
of vice or crime or mere increasing age and mood? So many, many
individuals going down into the limbo of nothingness or failure, so few
attaining to that vast and lonesome supremacy which all were seeking?
Why? Why? I persistently asked myself; and I have yet to find the answer
in any current code of morals or ethics or the dogma of any religion.
If you should chance to consult a Methodist, a Baptist, a Presbyterian,
a Lutheran, or any other current American sectarian, on this subject you
would find (which after all is a dull thing to point out at this day and
date) that his conception of the things which he sees about him is
bounded by what he was taught in his Sunday School or his church, or
what he has stored up or gathered from the conventions of his native
town. (His native town! Kind heaven!) And although the world has stored
up endless treasures in chemistry, sociology, history, philosophy, still
the millions and millions who tramp the streets and occupy the stores
and fill the highways and byways and the fields and the tenements have
no faintest knowledge of this, or of anything else that can be said to
be intellectually “doing.” They live in theories and isms, and under
codes dictated by a church or a state or an order of society which has
no least regard for or relationship to their natural mental development.
The darkest side of democracy, like that of autocracy, is that it
permits the magnetic and the cunning and the unscrupulous among the
powerful individuals to sway vast masses of the mob, not so much to
their own immediate destruction as to the curtailment of their natural
privileges and the ideas which they should be allowed to entertain if
they could think at all--and incidentally to the annoying and sometimes
undoing of individuals who have the truest brain interests of the race
at heart: vide Giordano Bruno! Jan Huss! Savonarola! Tom Paine! Walt
Whitman! Edgar Allan Poe!
For after all the great business of life and mind is life. We are here,
I take it, not merely to moon and vegetate, but to do a little thinking
about this state in which we find ourselves, or at least to try. It is
perfectly legitimate, all priests and theories and philosophies to the
contrary, to go back, in so far as we may, to the primary sources of
thought, i. e., the visible scene, the actions and thoughts of people,
the movements of Nature and its chemical and physical subtleties, in
order to draw original and radical conclusions for ourselves. The great
business of the individual, if he has any time after struggling for life
and a reasonable amount of entertainment or sensory satiation, should be
this very thing. He should question the things he sees--not some things,
but everything--stand, as it were, in the center of this whirling storm
of contradiction which we know as life, and ask of it its source and its
import. Else why a brain at all? If only one could induce or enable a
moderate number of the individuals who pass this way and come no more
apparently to pause and think about life and take an individual point of
view, the freedom and individuality and interest of the world might be
greatly enhanced. We complain of the world as dull. If it is so, lack of
thinking by individuals is the reason. But to ask the poor,
half-equipped mentality of the mass to think, to be individual--what an
anachronism! You might as well ask of a rock to move or a tree to fly.
Here in America, by reason of an idealistic Constitution which is
largely a work of art and not a workable system, you see a nation
dedicated to so-called intellectual and spiritual freedom, but actually
devoted with an almost bee-like industry to the gathering and storing
and articulation and organization and use of purely material things. In
spite of all our base-drum announcement of our servitude to the
intellectual ideals of the world (copied mostly, by the way, from
England) no nation has ever contributed less, philosophically or
artistically or spiritually, to the actual development of the intellect
and the spirit. We have invented many things, it is true, which have
relieved man from the crushing weight of a too-grinding toil, and this
perhaps may be the sole mission of America in the world and the
universe, its destiny, its end. Personally I think it is not a half bad
thing to have done; the submarine and the flying machine and the armored
dreadnought, no less than the sewing-machine and the cotton-gin and the
binder and the reaper and the cash register and the trolley-car if not
the telephone, may prove in the end, or perhaps already have proved, as
significant in breaking the chains of the physical and mental slavery of
man as anything else. I do not know.
One thing I do know is that America seems profoundly interested in these
things, to the exclusion of anything else. It has no time, you might
almost say, no taste, to stop and contemplate life in the large, from an
artistic or a philosophic point of view. Yet after all, when all the
machinery for lessening man’s burdens has been invented and all the
safeguards for his preservation completed and possibly shattered by
forces too deep or superior for his mechanical cunning, may not a
phrase, a line of poetry, or a single act of some half-forgotten tragedy
be all that is left of what we now see or dream of as materially
perfect? For is it not thought alone, of many famous and powerful
things that have already gone, that endures?--a thought most often
conveyed by art as a medium?
But let me not become too remote or fine-spun in my conception of the
ultimate significance of art itself. The point which I wish to make is
just this: that in a land so devoted to the material, although dedicated
by its Constitution to the ideal, the condition of intellectual freedom,
let alone art, is certainly anomalous. Your trade and your trust
builder, most obviously dominant in America at this time, is of all
people most indifferent to, or most unconscious of, the ultimate and
pressing claims of mind and spirit as expressed by art. If you doubt
this you have only to look about you to see for what purposes, to what
end, the increment of men of wealth and material power in America is
most devoted. Stuffy, tasteless houses crowded with stuffy, tasteless
antiques, safety deposit vaults stuffed with securities, the having and
holding of purely material values always. In proof of which I may add
that we have something like twenty-five hundred colleges and schools and
institutions of various kinds, largely furthered by the money of
American men of wealth, and all presumably devoted to the development of
the mental equipment of man (or so we are told), yet nearly all set with
flinty firmness against anything which is related to truly radical
investigation, or thought, or action, or art. The inculcation of
morality and patriotism are even now laid down as the true task and
province of the so-called schools of higher learning by the educators
themselves, or at least the presidents of most of the leading
institutions--not the getting of knowledge at any cost, patriotic or
other.
As a matter of fact, in spite of the American Constitution and the
American oratorical address on all and sundry occasions, the average
American school, college, university, institution, is as much against
the development of the individual, in the true sense of that word, as
any sect or religion. What it really wants is not an individual but an
automatic copy of some altruistic and impossible ideal, which has been
formulated here or elsewhere under the domination of Christianity or
some other ism. I defy you to read any American college or university
prospectus or address or plea which concerns the purposes or ideals of
these institutions and not agree with me. They are not after
individuals; they are after types or schools of individuals, all to be
very much alike, all to be like themselves. And what type? Listen. I
know of an American college professor in one of our successful State
universities who had this to say of the male graduates of his
institution, after having watched the output for a number of years:
“They are all right, quite satisfactory as machines for the production
of material wealth or for the maintenance of certain forms of
professional skill, but as for ideas of their own or being creators or
men with the normal impulses and passions of manhood they do not fulfill
the requisite in any respect. They are little more than types, machines,
made in the image and likeness of their college. They do not think; they
cannot, because they are held hard and fast by the iron band of
convention. They are afraid to think. They are moral young beings,
Christian beings, model beings, but they are not men in the creative
sense, and the large majority will never do a thing other than work for
a corporation in a routine unindividual way, unless by chance or
necessity the theories and the conventions imposed or generated by their
training and surroundings are broken, and they become free, independent,
self-thinking individuals.”
In this connection I might say I know of one woman’s college, an
American institution of the highest standing, which since its inception
has sent forth into life some thousands of graduates and post-graduates
to battle life as they may for individual supremacy or sensory comfort.
They are (or were) supposed to be individuals capable of individual
thought, procedure, invention, development; yet out of all of them not
one has even entered upon any creative or artistic labor of any kind.
Not one. (Write me for the name of the college, if you wish.) There is
not a chemist, a physiologist, a botanist, a biologist, an historian, a
philosopher, an artist, of any kind or repute among them; not one. They
are secretaries to corporations, teachers, missionaries, college
librarians, educators in any of the scores of pilfered meanings that may
be attached to that much abused word. They are curators, directors,
keepers. They are not individuals in the true sense of that word; they
have not been taught to think; they are not free. They do not invent,
lead, create; they only copy or take care of, yet they are graduates of
this college and its theory, mostly ultra conventional, or, worse yet,
anæmic, and glad to wear its collar, to clank the chains of its ideas or
ideals--automatons in a social scheme whose last and final detail was
outlined to them in the classrooms of their alma mater. That, to me, is
one phase, amusing enough, of intellectual freedom in America.
But the above is a mere detail in any chronicle or picture of the social
or intellectual state of the United States. Turn, for instance, if you
will, to the legislative and judicial phases of our Government--those
grand realms in which only statesmen and judicial students of our
economic and social condition are supposed to move and rule, and what do
we find?
As long ago as 1875 Ernst Haeckel, the eminent German scientist,
complained that the judges and legislatures of his day and country had
“but a superficial acquaintance with that chief and peculiar object of
their activity--the human organism and its most important function, the
human mind,” and that they had no time for anything save “an exhaustive
study of beer and wine and the noble art of fencing.” If that could be
said of intellectual Germany in his day how much more and worse could be
judicated of the American jurist and legislator in America to-day. The
shabby mess which finance and trade rivalries make of our laws and our
halls of legislation--the mental equipment of the average politician,
his henchmen, the legislator and the judge--the hall boys of finance,
and at the same time of religious and therefore arbitrary moral dogma
which they have become, the petty ignoramuses we see on every hand
legislating for the people or interpreting the laws once they are thus
formulated! Haeckel wrote sadly of the judges and law enactors in his
day: “No one can maintain that their condition to-day is in harmony with
our advanced knowledge of this world”--and, certainly, in America
to-day, fifty years later, not a week passes in which we do not read of
legislative deeds and legal decisions which make a thinking man sigh.
Consider the slavish acceptance of religious and moral and financial
dictation from self-interested and equally ignorant people, the running
here and there to find what is temporarily expedient--what will satisfy
or quiet the public for an hour; what will keep them from losing their
petty jobs--by the politicians and legislators and so-called statesmen
and judges; the complete ignorance of every congressman and senator and
state legislator and judge and lawyer as to the commonest facts of
biology, psychology, sociology, economics, and history! One president,
Roosevelt, admitted that he could in no way understand economics. Yet
once the average country or city law student has mastered a few hundred
paragraphs of law he is ready to hire out to the nearest corporation, to
legislate for the people, to prefix “Hon.” to his name and set up in
business as a judge or a statesman.
On the other hand, and in the very teeth of all this, no country in the
world, at least none that I know anything about, has such a peculiar,
such a seemingly fierce determination, to make the Ten Commandments
work. It would be amusing if it were not pitiful, their faith in these
binding religious ideals. I have never been able to make up my mind
whether this springs from the zealotry of the Puritans who landed at
Plymouth Rock, or whether it is indigenous to the soil (which I doubt
when I think of the Indians who preceded the white), or whether it is a
product of the Federal Constitution, compounded by such idealists as
Paine and Jefferson and Franklin and the more or less religious and
political dreamers of the pre-Constitutional days. Certain it is that no
such profound moral idealism animated the French in Canada, the Dutch
in New York, the Swedes in New Jersey, or the mixed French and English
in the extreme South and New Orleans.
The first shipload of white women ever brought to America was sold,
almost at so much a pound. They were landed at Jamestown. The basis of
all the first large fortunes was laid, to speak plainly, in graft--the
most outrageous concessions obtained abroad. The history of our
relations with the American Indians is sufficient to lay any claim to
financial or moral virtue or worth in the white men who settled this
country. We debauched, then robbed and murdered them; there is no other
conclusion to be drawn from the facts covering that relationship as set
down in any history worthy the name. As regards the development of our
land, our canals, our railroads, and the vast organizations supplying
our present-day necessities, their history is a complex of perjury,
robbery, false witness, extortion, and indeed every crime to which
avarice, greed and ambition are heir. If you do not believe this,
examine the various congressional and State legislative investigations
which have been held on an average of every six months since the
Government was founded, and see for yourself. The cunning and
unscrupulousness of American brains can be matched against any the world
has ever known, not even excepting the English.
But an odd thing in connection with this financial and social
criminality is that it has been consistently and regularly accompanied,
outwardly at least, by a religious and a sex-puritanism which would be
scarcely believable if it were not true. I do not say that the robbers
and thieves who did so much to build up our great commercial and social
structures were in themselves always religious or puritanically moral
from the sex point of view, although in regard to the latter they most
frequently made a show of so being; but I do say that the communities
and the States and the nation in which they were committing their
depredations have been individually and collectively, in so far as the
written, printed and acted word are concerned, most loud in their
pretensions. Why? I have a vague feeling that it is the American of
Anglo-Saxon origin only who has been most vivid in his excitement over
religion and morals where the written, printed, acted or painted word
was concerned, yet who at the same time, and perhaps for this very
reason, was failing or deliberately refusing to see the contrast which
his ordinary and very human actions presented to all this. Was he a
hypocrite? Is he one?
Your American of Anglo-Saxon or other origin is actually no better,
spiritually or morally, than any other creature of this earth, be he
Turk or Hindu or Chinese, except from a materially constructive or
wealth-breeding point of view, but for some odd reason he thinks he is.
The only real difference is that, cast out or spewed out by conditions
over which he had no control elsewhere, he chanced to fall into a land
overflowing with milk and honey. Nature in America was, and still is,
kind to the lorn foreigner seeking a means of subsistence, and he seems
to have immediately attributed this to three things: First, his inherent
capacity to dominate and control wealth; second, the especial favor of
God to him; third, to his superior and moral state (due, of course, to
his possession of wealth). These three things, uncorrected as yet by any
great financial pressure or any great natural or world catastrophe, have
served to keep the American in his highly romantic state of
self-deception. He still thinks that he is a superior spiritual and
moral being, infinitely better than the creatures of any other land, and
nothing short of a financial cataclysm, which will come with the
pressure of population on resources, will convince him that he is not.
But that he will yet be convinced is a certainty. You need no fear.
Leave it to Nature.
One of the interesting phases of this puritanism or phariseeism is his
attitude toward women and their morality and their purity. If ever a
people has refined eroticism to a greater degree than the American I am
not aware of it. Owing to a theory of the doctrinaire acceptance of the
Mary legend possibly (Mary-olotry, no less), the good American, capable
of the same gross financial crimes previously indicated, has been able
to look upon most women, but more particularly those above him in the
social scale, as considerably more than human--angelic, no less, and
possessed of qualities the like of which are not to be found in any
breathing being, man, woman, child or animal. It matters not that his
cities and towns, like those of any other nation, are rife with sex;
that in each one are specific and often large areas devoted to Eros or
Venus. While maintaining them he is still blind to their existence or
import. He or his boys or his friends go--but----
Only a mentally one-sided nature or race such as the Anglo-Saxon could
have built upon any such asinine theory as this. One would suppose that
as they did, so they would have the courage to say, or at least cease
this endless pother as to superior virtue. But no. The purity, the
sanctity, the self-abnegation, the delicacy of women in America--how
these qualities have been exaggerated and dinned into our ears, until at
last the average scrubby non-reasoning male, quite capable of visiting
the gardens of Venus or taking a girl off the street, is no more able to
clearly visualize the creature before him than he is the central wilds
of Africa which he has never seen. A princess, a goddess, a divine
mother or creative principle, all the virtues, all the perfections, no
vices, no weaknesses, no errors--some such hodge-podge as this has come
to be the average Anglo-Saxon, or at least American, conception of the
average American woman. I do not say that a portion of this illusion is
not valuable, but as it stands now she is too good to be true, a
paragon, a myth! Actually, she doesn’t exist at all as he has been
taught to imagine her. She is nothing more than a two-legged biped like
the rest of us, but in consequence of this delusion sex itself, being a
violation of this paragon, has become a crime. We enter upon the earth,
it is true, in a none too artistic manner (conceived in iniquity and
born in sin, is the Biblical phrasing of it), but all this has long
since been glozed over, ignored, and to obviate its brutality as much
as possible the male has been called upon to purify himself in thought
and deed, to avoid all private speculation as to women and his
relationship to them, and, much more than that, to avoid all public
discussion, either by word of mouth or the printed page.
To think of women or to describe them, especially in our printed or
publicly uttered word, as anything less than the paragon previously
commented upon has become, by this process, not only a sin but a
shameful infraction of the moral code. Women are now so good, the sex
relationship so vile a thing that to think of the two at once is not to
be thought of. They are supposed to have no connection. We must move in
a mirage of illusion; we must trample fact underfoot and give fancy, in
the guise of our so-called better natures, free rein. How this must
affect or stultify the artistic and creative faculties of the race
itself must be plain, yet that is exactly where we stand to-day,
ethically and spiritually, in regard to sex and women, and that is what
is the matter with American social life, letters and art. Imagine a
puritan or a moralist attempting anything in art, which is nothing if
not a true reflection, emotional and intellectual, of insight into life!
Imagine! And contrast this moral or art narrowness with the American’s
commercial or financial or agricultural freedom and sense, and note the
difference. In regard to all the latter he is cool, skeptical,
level-headed, understanding, natural, consequently well-developed in
those fields; in regard to this other he is disillusioned, theoretic,
religious. In consequence he has no power, except for an occasional
individual who may rise in spite of these untoward conditions (to be
frowned upon), to understand, much less picture, life as it really is.
Artistically, intellectually, philosophically we are weaklings;
financially and in all ways commercial we are very powerful. So
one-sided has been our development that in this latter respect we are
almost giants. Strange, almost fabulous creatures have been developed
here by this process, men so singularly devoid of a rounded human nature
that they have become freaks in the matter of money-getting. I refer to
Rockefeller, Gould, Sage, Vanderbilt the first, H. H. Rogers, Carnegie,
Frick.
America I fear can be most aptly pictured as the land of Bottom the
Weaver; and by Bottom I mean the tradesman or manufacturer who by reason
of his enthusiasm for the sale of paints or powder or threshing machines
or coal has accumulated wealth, and in consequence and by reason of the
haphazard privileges of democracy, has strayed into a position of
counsellor, or even dictator, not in regard to the things about which he
might readily be supposed to know, but about the many things about which
he would be much more likely not to know: art, science, philosophy,
morals, public policy in general. You recall Bottom, of course, in “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream,” unconscious of his furry ears and also of the
fact that he does not know how to play the lion’s part; that it is more
difficult than mere roaring. Here he is now, in America, enthroned as a
lion, and in his way he is an epitome of the Anglo-Saxon temperament.
Bottom is so wise in his own estimation. He never once suspects his
furry ears or that he is not a perfect actor in the rôle of the
lion--or, if you will take it for what it is meant, the arts. He is just
a dull weaver really, made by this dream of our Constitution (“an
exposition of sleep” come upon him) into a roaring lion--in his own
estimation. No one must say that Bottom is not; he will be driven out of
the country, deported or exiled. No one must presume to practice the
arts save as Bottom understands them. If you do, presto, there is his
henchman Comstock and all Comstockery to take you into custody. Men who
have come here from foreign shores (England excepted) have been amazed
at Bottom’s ears and his presumption in passing upon what is a lion’s
part in life. Indeed he is the Anglo-Saxon temperament personified. He
is convinced that liberty was not made for Oberon or Peaseblossom or
Cobweb or Mustard, but for bishops and executives and wholesale grocers
and men who have become vastly rich canning tomatoes or selling oil. The
great desire of Bottom is for all of us to have furry ears and long, and
to believe that he is the greatest actor in the world. He is bewildered
by a world that will not play Pyramus his way. Quince, Snug, Flute,
Snout and Starveling (all those who came over with him in the Mayflower)
agree that he is a great actor, but there are others, and Bottom is
convinced that these others are in error, trying to wreck that dream,
the American Constitution, which brought this “exposition of sleep” upon
him and made him into a lion, “marvelous furry about the face” and with
great ears.
Alas, alas! for art in America. It has a hard, stubby row to hoe.
But my quarrel is not with America as a comfortable commercial and
industrious atmosphere in which to move and have one’s being, but
largely because it is no more than that, because it tends to become a
dull, conventionalized, routine, material world, duller even than its
reputed mother, sacred England. We are drifting, unless most of the
visible signs are deceiving, into the clutches of a commercial oligarchy
whose mental standards outside of trade are so puerile as to be scarcely
worth discussing. Contemplate, if you please, what has happened to one
of the shibboleths or bulwarks of our sacred liberties and intellectual
freedom, i. e., the newspaper, under the dominance of trade. Look at it.
I have not the time here to set forth seriatim all the charges that have
been made, and in the main thoroughly substantiated, against the
American newspaper; but consider for yourself the newspapers which you
know and read. How much, I ask you, if you are in trade, do the
newspapers you read know about trade? How far could you follow their
trade judgment or understanding? And if you are a member of any
profession, how much reported professional knowledge or news, as
presented by a newspaper, can you rely on? If a newspaper reported a
professional man’s judgment or dictum in regard to any important
professional fact, how fully would you accept it without other
corroborative testimony?
You are a play-goer: do you believe the newspaper dramatic critics? You
are a student of literature: do you accept the mouthings of their
literary critics or even look to them for advice? You are an artist or a
lover of art: do you follow the newspapers for anything more than the
barest intelligence as to the whereabouts of anything artistic? I doubt
it. And in regard to politics, finance, social movements and social
affairs, are they not actually the darkest, the most misrepresentative,
frequently the most biased and malicious guides in the world of the
printed word? Newspaper criticism, like newspaper leadership, has long
since come to be looked upon by the informed and intelligent as little
more than the mouthings or bellowings of mercenaries or panderers to
trade; or, worse still, rank incompetents. The newspaper man, _per se_,
either does not know or cannot help himself. The newspaper publisher is
very glad of this and uses his half intelligence or inability to further
his own interests. Politicians, administrations, department stores,
large interests and personalities of various kinds use or control or
compel newspapers to do their bidding. This is a severe indictment to
make against the press in general, but is it not literally true?
Take again the large, almost dominant religious and commercial
organizations of America. What relationship, if any, do they bear to a
free mental development, a subtle understanding, art or life in its
poetic or tragic moulds, its drift, its character? Would you personally
look to the Methodist or the Presbyterian or the Catholic or the Baptist
church to further individualism, or freedom of thought, or directness of
mental action, or art in any form? Do not they really ask of all their
adherents that they lay aside this freedom in favor of the reported word
or dictum of a fabled, a non-historic, an imaginary ruler of the
universe? Think of it! And they are among the powerful, constructive
and controlling elements in government--in this government, to be
accurate--dedicated and presumably devoted to individual liberty, not
only of so-called conscience, but of constructive thought and art.
And our large corporations, with their dominant and controlling captains
of industry so-called; what about their relationship to individuality,
the freedom of the individual to think for himself, to grow mentally?
Take, for instance, the tobacco trust, the oil trust, the milk trust,
the coal trust--in what way do you suppose they help? Are they actively
seeking a better code of ethics, a wider historic or philosophic
perspective, a more delicate art perception for the individual, or are
they definitely and permanently concerned with the customary bludgeoning
tactics of trade, piling up fortunes out of which they are to be
partially bled later by pseudo art collectors and swindling dealers in
antiques and so-called historic art and literature? Of current life and
its accomplishments, what do they actually know? Yet this is a
democracy. Here, as in no other realm of the world, the individual is
supposed to be permitted, even compelled, to seek his own material and
mental salvation as best he may. Yet one trouble with a democracy, in so
far as art and individual intelligence is concerned, as opposed to an
autocracy with a line of titled idlers, is that the latter permits at
least the gift of leisure and art indulgence to a few and there usually
is a central force or group to foster art, to secure letters and art in
their inalienable rights, to make of superior thought a noble and a
sacred thing. I am not saying that democracy will not yet produce such a
central force or group. I believe it may or can. It is entirely possible
that when the time arrives it may prove to be better than any form of
hereditary autocracy. But I am talking about the mental, the social, the
artistic condition of America as it is to-day.
To me it is a thing for laughter, if not for tears; one hundred and
twenty million Americans, rich (a fair percentage of them, anyhow)
beyond the dreams of avarice, and scarcely a sculptor, a poet, a
singer, a novelist, an actor, a musician, worthy the name. One hundred
and forty years (almost two hundred, counting the Colonial days) of the
most prosperous social conditions, a rich soil, incalculable deposits of
gold, silver and precious and useful metals and fuels of all kinds, a
land amazing in its mountains, its streams, its valley prospects, its
wealth-yielding powers, and now its tremendous cities and far-flung
facilities for travel and trade--and yet contemplate it. Artists, poets,
thinkers, where are they? Has it produced a single philosopher of the
first rank--a Spencer, a Nietzsche, a Schopenhauer, a Kant? Do I hear
some one offering Emerson as an equivalent? Or James? Has it produced a
historian of the force of either Macaulay or Grote or Gibbon? A novelist
of the rank of Turgenev, de Maupassant or Flaubert? A scientist of the
standing of Crookes or Röentgen or Pasteur? A critic of the insight and
force of Taine, Sainte-Beuve or the de Goncourts? A dramatist the
equivalent of Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Hauptmann, Brieux? An actor, since
Booth, of the force of Coquelin, Sonnenthal, Forbes-Robertson or Sarah
Bernhardt? Since Whitman, one poet: Edgar Lee Masters. In painting a
Whistler, an Inness, a Sargent. Who else? (And two of these shook the
dust of our shores forever.) Inventors, yes; by the hundreds, one might
almost say thousands; some of them amazing enough, in all conscience,
world figures, and enduring for all time. But of what relationship to
art, the supreme freedom of the mind?
The most significant, and to me discouraging, manifestation in
connection with the United States to-day is the tendency to even
narrower and more puritanic standards than have obtained in the past. I
am constantly astonished by the thousands of men, exceedingly capable in
some mechanical or narrow technical sense, whose world or philosophic
vision is that of a child. As a nation we accept and believe naïvely in
such impossible things. I am not thinking alone of the primary tenets of
all religions, which are manifestly based on nothing at all and which
millions of Americans, along with the humbler classes of other
countries, accept, but rather of those sterner truths which life itself
teaches: the unreliability of human nature; the crass chance which
strikes down and destroys our finest dreams; the fact that man in all
his relations is neither good nor evil, but both. The American, by some
hocus pocus of atavism, has seemingly borrowed or retained from English
lower middle-class puritans all their folderol notions about making
human nature perfect by fiat or edict--the written word, as it were,
which goes with all religions. So, although by reason of the coarsest
and most brutal methods we as a nation have built up one of the most
interesting and domineering oligarchies in the world, we are still not
aware of the fact.
All men, in the mind of the unthinking American, are still free and
equal. They have in themselves certain inalienable rights; what they are
when you come to test them no human being can discover. Life here, as
elsewhere, comes down to the brutal methods of Nature itself. The rich
strike the poor at every turn; the poor defend themselves and further
their lives by all the tricks which stark necessity can conceive. No
inalienable right keeps the average cost of living from rising steadily,
while most of the salaries of our idealistic Americans are stationary.
No inalienable right has ever yet prevented the strong from tricking or
browbeating the weak. And although by degrees the average American is
feeling more and more keenly the sharpening struggle for existence, yet
his faith in his impossible ideals is as fresh as ever. God will save
the good American and seat him at His right hand on the Golden Throne.
With one hand the naïve American takes and executes with all the brutal
insistence of Nature itself; with the other he writes glowing platitudes
concerning brotherly love, virtue, purity, truth, etc., etc. A part of
this right or left hand tendency, as the case may be, is seen in the
constant desire of the American to reform something. No country in the
world, not even England, the mother of folderol reforms, is so prolific
in these frail ventures as this great country of ours. In turn we have
had campaigns for the reform of the atheist, the drunkard, the lecher,
the fallen woman, the buccaneer financier, the drug fiend, the dancer,
the theatergoer, the reader of novels, the wearer of low-neck dresses
and surplus jewelry--in fact every taste and frivolity, wherever
sporadically it has chanced to manifest itself with any interesting
human force. Your reformer’s idea is that any human being, to be a
successful one, must be a pale spindling sprout, incapable of any vice
or crime. And all the while the threshing sea of life is sounding in his
ears! The thief, the lecher, the drunkard, the fallen woman, the greedy,
the inordinately vain, as in all ages past, pass by his door and are not
the whit less numerous for the unending campaigns which have been
launched to save them. In other words, human nature is human nature, but
your American cannot be made to believe it.
Personally my quarrel is with America’s quarrel with original thought.
It is so painful to me to see one after another of our alleged reformers
tilting Don Quixote-like at the giant windmills of fact. We are to have
no pictures which the puritan and the narrow, animated by an obsolete
dogma, cannot approve of. We are to have no theaters, no motion
pictures, no books, no public exhibitions of any kind, no speech even,
which will in any way contravene his limited view of life. Finally we
even contrived a President who was to have no more war! A few years ago
it was the humble dealer in liquor whose life was anathematized and
whose property was descended upon with torch, axe and bomb. A little
later, our cities growing and the sections devoted to the worship of
Venus becoming more manifest, the Vice Crusader was bred, and we now
have the spectacle of whole areas of fallen women scattered to the four
winds and allowed to practice separately what they cannot do
collectively. Also came Mr. Comstock, vindictive, persistent, and with a
nose and taste for the profane and erotic such as elsewhere has not
been equaled since. Pictures, books, the theater, the dance, the
studio--all came under his watchful eye. During the twenty or thirty
years in which he acted as a United States Postoffice Inspector he was,
because of his dull charging against things which he did not understand,
never out of the white light of publicity which he so greatly craved.
One month it would be a novel by d’Annunzio; another, a set of works by
Balzac or de Maupassant, found in the shade of some grovelly
bookseller’s shop; the humble photographer attempting a nude; the
painter who allowed his reverence for Raphael to carry him too far; the
poet who attempted a recrudescence of Don Juan in modern iambics, was
immediately seized upon and hauled before an equally dull magistrate,
there to be charged with his offense and to be fined accordingly. All
this is being continued with emphasis.
Then came the day of the armed White Slave Chasers, and now no American
city and no backwoods Four Corners, however humble, is complete without
a vice commission of some kind, or at least a local agent or
representative charged with the duty of keeping the art, the literature,
the press and the private lives of all those at hand up to that standard
of perfection which only the dull can set for themselves. When the White
Slave question was at its whitest heat the problem of giving expression
to its fundamental aspects was divided between raiding plays which
attempted to show the character of the crime in too graphic a manner,
and licensing those which appealed to the intelligence of those who were
foremost in the crusade. Thus we had the spectacle of an uncensored, but
nevertheless approved, ten-reel film showing more details of the crime
and better methods of securing white slaves than any other production of
the day, running undisturbed to packed houses all over the country;
while two somewhat more dramatic but far less effective distributors of
information via plays were successfully harried from city to city and
finally withdrawn.
Shakespeare has been ordered from the schools in some of the States. A
production of “Antony and Cleopatra” has been raided in Chicago.
Japanese prints of a high art value, intended for the seclusion of a
private collection, have been seized and the most valuable of them
destroyed. By turns, an artistic fountain to Heine in New York, loan
exhibits of paintings in Denver, Kansas City and elsewhere, scores of
books by Stevenson, James Lane Allen, Frances H. Burnett, have been
attacked, not only, as in the case of the latter, with the airy weapons
of the law, but in the case of the former with actual axes. A male
dancer of repute and some artistic ability has been raided publicly by
the Vice Crusaders for his shameless exposure of his person! No play, no
picture, no book, no public or private jubilation of any kind is
complete any more without its vice attack.
To me this sort of thing is dull and bespeaks the low state to which our
mental activities have fallen. When it comes to the matter of serious
letters it is the worst. In New York a literary region of terror has
been and is now being attempted. The publisher of Freud’s “Leonardo” is
warned before he brings it out that he will be prosecuted--a work that
probably has no more defect than that of being intelligent and true.
Similarly, Mr. Przybyszewski’s “Homo Sapiens,” a by no means
pornographic work, was at once seized on its appearance and the
publishers frightened into withdrawing it. This was true of “Hagar
Revelly,” “Tess of the d’Urbevilles,” “Sapho,” “Jude the Obscure,” “Rose
of Dutchers Cooley,” “A Lady of Quality,” “A Summer in Arcady,” and
scores of others. Imagine banning a book like “A Summer in Arcady” from
the public libraries! Even “The Sexual Question” by the eminent August
Forel has been banned and of course all of Kraft-Ebling (Freud and Ellis
are sold only on the written order of a doctor--a mental prescription as
it were). Think of it--the work of a scientist of Freud’s attainments!
This sort of interference with serious letters and science is to me the
worst and most corrupting form of espionage which is conceivable to the
human mind. It plumbs the depths of ignorance and intolerance; if not
checked it can and will dam initiative and inspiration at the source.
Life, if it is anything at all, is a thing to be observed, studied,
interpreted. We cannot know too much about it because as yet we know
nothing. It is our one great realm of discovery. The artist, if left to
himself, may be safely trusted to observe, synchronize and articulate
human knowledge in the most comprehensive form. Human nature will seek
and have what it needs, the vice crusaders to the contrary
notwithstanding. There is no compulsion on any one to read; one must pay
to do so. What is more, one must have taste inherently to select, a
brain and a heart to understand. With all these safeguards and a double
score of capable critics in every land to praise or blame, what need
really is there for a censor, or a dozen of them, each far less fitted
than any of the working critics to indulge his personal predilection and
opposition, and to appeal to the courts if he is disagreed with?
Personally I rise to protest. I look on this interference with serious
art and thought and serious minds as an outrage. I fear for the ultimate
intelligence of America, which in all conscience, judged by world
standards, is low enough. Now comes a band of wasp-like censors to put
the finishing touches on a literature and an art that has struggled all
too feebly as it is. Poe, Hawthorne, Whitman and Thoreau, each in turn
was the butt and jibe of unintelligent Americans, until by now we are
well nigh the laughing-stock of the world. Where is it to end? When will
we lay aside our swaddling-clothes, enforced on us by ignorant,
impossible puritans and their uneducated followers, and stand up
free-thinking men and women? Life is to be learned as much from books
and art as from life itself--almost more so, in my judgment. Art is the
stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.
Shall the dull and the self-seeking and the self-advertising close this
store on the groping human mind?
THE COURT OF PROGRESS
EDITORIAL NOTE: The following manuscript, recovered from one of the
twenty-seven tombs of Federated Chairmen of the Post Federated Period of
World Republics, A.D. 2760-3923, recently discovered in the debris
centers of Exomia, Domas and Polos (Central Asia), plainly refers to
some annual festival or period of congratulation which, according to the
historian, Ruffstuff, who seems to have flourished toward the close of
that period when the great Asiatic and American world floods (the
shifting of the boundaries of the Pacific) ended the old order, was
apparently held, first, at some point in Central South Africa; later in
Middle Western North America, as the then continents were called. The
author or dramatist, Theobromo, plainly of some period later than that
of the Post Federated, when literature of all sorts, owing to the
religious viewpoint of the Federation, was non-existent, was plainly
familiar with records of this great court or festival, now non-existent.
(See mention in closing paragraph of Moline-Emporia-Sedalia sittings,
points or places which have not as yet been identified.) The translator,
Can. Theodore Dreiser, of Cambo, North Dromio, begs to explain that
owing to the peculiar difficulties of the language then used the exact
rendition of certain phrases and passages is not guaranteed.
CHARACTERS
NOXUS PODUNKUS: _Grand Referendunce Chairman of the Federated
Musnud of the World_.
SHISHMASH HASH HASH: _Master of Ceremonies to the Court of
Progress_.
{ _Savants_ }
{ _Moonshees_ }
{ _Roctor-Proctors_ }
Of { _Pundits_ } One hundred
{ _Theorists_ }
{ _Seers_ }
{ _Zadkiels_ }
{ _Oracles_ }
{ _Solons_ }
{ _Nestors_ }
{ _Gamaliels_ }
{ _Daniels_ }
{ _Dizzards_ _50_
{ _Zanys_ _100_
{ _Fuddys_ _100_
Of { _Hoddy-Doddys_ _100_
{ _Loobies_ _1000_
{ _Gaberlunzies_ _1000_
{ _Nizys_ _5000_
{ _Anti-Vivisectionists_ }
{ _Anti-Vaccinationists_ }
{ _Anti-Contraceptionists_ }
{ _Anti-Saloon Leaguers_ }
{ _Anti-Vice Crusaders_ }
{ _Anti-Lewd Book Examiners_ }
{ _Eugenic Sires_ }
{ _Free and Accepted Boy Scouts_ }
{ _Professors of Christian Economy_ }
{ _Feminists_ }
Of Descendant { _Moral Prophylaxers_ }
Sons and { _Non-Smokers’ Social Unionists_ } 50,000
Daughters { _Seventh Day Adventists_ }
of Ancient { _Sabbath Day Exclusivists_ }
and Honorable { _Holy Rollers_ }
{ _Evangelists_ }
{ _King’s Daughters_ }
{ _Women Magazine Editors_ }
{ _Library Protection Association Guards_ }
{ _Watch and Ward Society Guards_ }
{ _Prohibitionists_ }
{ _Federated Philosophers_ }
{ _Union Astronomers_ }
{ _Socialists_ }
{ _Gamblers_ }
{ _Saloon-keepers_ }
{ _Bartenders_ }
{ _Financiers_ }
{ _Thieves_ }
{ _Vivisectionists_ }
{ _Vaccinationists_ }
{ _Philosophers_ }
{ _Politicians_ }
{ _Astronomers_ }
{ _Magdalens_ }
{ _Madams_ }
{ _Novelists_ }
{ _Playwrights_ }
Of plaster { _Scenario Writers_ }
or Ossified { _Musicians_ }
Specimens { _Painters_ } One Each
of Ancient { _Poets_ }
and Degraded { _Cigarette Fiends_ }
{ _Dope Fiends_ }
{ _Sabbath Day Breakers_ }
{ _Pragmatists_ }
{ _Predatory Rich_ }
{ _Anarchists_ }
{ _White Slavers_ }
{ _Nietzscheans_ }
{ _Scientists_ }
{ _Chemists_ }
{ _Physicists_ }
{ _Stoics_ }
{ _Liars_ }
{ _Dogs_ }
{ _Scoundrels_ }
THE COURT OF PROGRESS
SCENE: _A great plain, filled with a vast multitude of people.
Tents, pagodas, pavilions, booths, kiosks, scattered over a wide
area and alive with a swarming mass. Overhead innumerable flags,
banners, shields, emblems and insignia of all kinds, as well as a
welter of decoration and bunting, all symbolic of peace,
prosperity and progress. Innumerable alleyways and passages suggest
a maze. In the center, behind a great open square or drill-ground,
an enormous pink-and-green pavilion of silk, fluttering innumerable
pinions and streamers of the most variegated hues. In the extreme
west of this (center) and facing east (to suggest open-mindedness
and a spirit of receptivity and progress) a giant Musnud or throne
of dried mush, straw and the polished grains of the oyster plant,
each with its spiritual, ethical and social significance. This same
is richly carved and tinted to represent the dawn, while at the
top, by a process of higher coloring, the floridity, variety and
fecundity of tropic life, signifying fullness of development, is
suggested. Over this a canopy of dried morning-glory vines stained
to represent the pink glow of dawn and strung with innumerable
papier-maché flowers representative of the bursting blooms of
perfection. Beneath, a large assortment of pillows, rugs,
bed-ticks, mats, cushions, hassocks and the like, tinted to suggest
the variety, fecundity, beneficence and generosity of Nature. On
these rest the one hundred Moonshees, Savants, Pundits,
Roctor-Proctors, Theorists, Seers, Zadkiels, Oracles, Solons,
Nestors and profound Daniels and Gamaliels, members of the High
Court of Progress of the Federated Republics of the World for the
years 3913-3923, and representing in themselves the world’s
farthest intellectual reaches as well as its peace, progress,
perfection and plenty._
_On their heads tall cornucopias of green-and-yellow tinfoil,
fluttering with ribbons. On their bodies flowing silk robes of
green decorated with red, yellow and blue astrologic designs, each
of special ethical, social and spiritual significance. In the
center of this company, his body clad in yellow, green and blue
cheesecloth, his head surmounted by a tall blue cornucopia
(signifying peace and plenty), and resting on an immense stack of
eiderdown pillows_, NOXUS PODUNKUS, _Grand Referendunce Chairman of
the Federated Republics of the World and President pro tem of the
Court of Progress of the same. He is very fat and restful. Behind
and among them, fifty Dizzards in sky-blue fleshings, jackets of
yellow, and pink coal-scuttle helmets, who keep watch and ward by
whistling between their teeth and laying about them with
feather-stuffed clubs whenever the attention of the Moonshees is
desired. Among the audience, one hundred thousand already admitted
and in their seats, five thousand Nizys in pink fleshings and
striped blue-and-green shawls, each carrying a tin wash-boiler full
of orange and lemon souffle and doling out the same in ice-cream
cones to all who signal. The latter are hung around their waists in
long strings._
_Before the Musnud one hundred Hoddy-Doddys, Ticklers Extraordinary
to the Savants, Zadkiels, etc. These are arrayed in green fleshings
and yellow silk overcoats, and carry yellow feather-dusters
attached to long blue bamboo stalks. They assist the Dizzards in
keeping the Moonshees awake. About the Hoddy-Doddys, ranged in a
semi-circle, one hundred Zanys, Official Wing-Bag Rattlers to the
Musnud. These same wear orange-and-green sweaters and running pants
of black and orange, plus long-visored caps of green, and carry
pear-shaped wind-bags containing dried watermelon seeds, the
ethical symbol of receptivity, which they rattle whenever the
attention of the audience is desired. Between the Hoddy-Doddys and
the Musnud, and at the immediate base of the same, one hundred
Fuddys, Wireless Telegraph Operators Extraordinary to the Court, in
green silk uniforms and plug hats, who are busy sending out
preliminary notices to the world of the assembling of the Court of
Progress. Beyond the Zanys in the aisles and semi-circular passages
between the seats, one thousand Loobies and one thousand
Gaberlunzies, Official First and Second Readers to the Court, the
First arrayed in blue-and-white, the Second in green-and-white
polka-dot gowns and mortar-boards, and each carrying about his
waist a chain to which is attached all the then permitted classics
of the pre-Federated Period (A. D. 1897-1927)--Hamilton Wright
Mabie, Orrison Swett Marden, Harold Bell Wright, Gene Stratton
Porter, Ralph Waldo Trine and others--from which at all moments of
undue excitement it is their duty to read soothing passages in
unison._
_Outside the principal entrance to the pavilion, on the Grand
Concourse, separate companies or regiments of Descendant Sons and
Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Anti-Vivisectionists,
Anti-Vaccinationists, Anti-Contraceptionists, Anti-Vice Crusaders,
Eugenic Sires, Feminists, Non-Smokers’ Social Unionists,
Anti-Saloon Leaguers, Free and Accepted Boy Scouts, Professors of
Christian Economy, Seventh Day Adventists, Sabbath Day
Exclusivists, Holy Rollers, King’s Daughters, Watch and Ward
Guards, Library Protection Association Guards, Union Astronomers,
Federated College Philosophers, Evangelists, etc., each practicing
their separate evolutions and class yells. A giant procession,
fifty thousand in number, soon to start and file before the
assembled Pundits and Zadkiels of the Court sitting on the Musnud
within, is intended to demonstrate to it and to the Universe at
large, via the assembled audience, the happy presence and
persistence and strength of the forces of light and order and
truth, as opposed to the quondom and now all but vanished remnants
of darkness prevailing in the world before the Federation of the
Commission-Governed Republics of the World. As the principal
function of the Court is to catechise its adherents and delegates
as to the reason for the faith that is in them, and to learn as to
the present progress of truth, mercy, justice, etc. via a series of
shrewd and now sacred questions (the Post Federated Tablets of the
Law) especially calculated to bring forth the facts and shame the
forces of darkness into silence, these same stand ready to answer
all such questions as to the certainty of the final perfection of
life and so to receive the approval of the Musnud and the assembled
populace._
_Some companies of these same are at present busy executing their
preliminary maneuvers, walking on their hands, turning hand-springs
and cart-wheels, whirling as dervishes and whistling and
cat-calling. Others ask and answer each other the sacred questions
of the Tablets; still others leap, run around in a ring, roll in
the dust and kick. Still others meditate head in hand or stare in
fixed absorption at Philosophers’ targets fixed on posts at
different points in the grounds. A general air of hope, sequacity,
peace, content, well-being, ease, and other forms of human
satisfaction, pervades each and every section of the field._
_Hauled about by varying groups of Descendant Sons and Daughters of
Free and Accepted Boy Scouts, Anti-Vivisectionists,
Anti-Vaccinationists, etc., all in attractive and unforgettable
raiment of cerise, purple, yellow and nile green, are the only
remaining specimens or images of now all but extinct Gamblers,
Saloon-Keepers, Financiers, Thieves, Vivisectionists,
Vaccinationists, Philosophers, Politicians, Magdalens and Predatory
Rich still in captivity or existence. It should be stated in
passing that all Liars, Thieves, Scoundrels, Lechers, Anarchists
and the like were finally exterminated during the all-memorable
Federated Presidency of Bonehead X, A. D. 3409-3427, just five
hundred years before. Saloons and all forms of illegal as well as
commercialized vice departed this earth some seven hundred years
before. The ladies of the Inner High Council of Descendant Sons and
Daughters of Ancient Thirty-second Degree Anti-Vivisectionists have
here (muzzled and chained) the only extant examples of a
Vivisectionist surgeon of the former cult of inhuman
experimentalists, captured in Greenland. The Federated Union of
Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable
Vice-Crusaders of the World present in a drop-forged steel cage,
painted yellow, blue and green, the only living specimen of a
simon-pure Madam, recently captured in the outlying regions of
Borneo. In other portions of the field, caged and dressed to
represent now extinct types of Materialists, Scientists,
Philosophers, Chemists, Nietzscheans, Pragmatists, Stoics and so
forth, are one hundred volunteers of the East South African School
of Christian Histrionic Culture, freely giving their services for
this great occasion._
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_Grand Secretary-Treasurer of the Indo-African group of
Commission-Governed Republics, now in federation with the rest of the
world, and Master of Ceremonies to the Court of Progress. He is a tall
man, in a suit of red-and-green pajamas, slightly rubberized and
inflated. His ears are pierced and hung with blue earrings and his
cheeks are adorned with yellow lambrequins three feet long. Temporarily
he is entertaining himself just outside the stage entrance to the main
tent by doing back somersaults, but at the sight of five thousand
Descendant Sons and Daughters of Free and Accepted Boy Scouts, Watch and
Ward, and Library Protection Guards in marching order approaching the
main or stage entrance, he executes nine hand-springs, three bounds and
one back somersault, landing in front of the Musnud. At sight of him the
assembled multitude stirs and quivers and he-haws with delight. The
associated Moonshees, Pundits, Roctor-Proctors and others stir slightly
but continue to snore._ SHISHMASH HASH HASH, _executing a jig-step and
tying his whiskers in a bow-knot_.) Your Referendunces! (_At this the
fifty Dizzards directly in attendance on the assembled Moonshees of the
Musnud, each over six feet tall and weighing exactly one hundred and
twenty-seven pounds, stir the latter to wakefulness by whistling between
their fingers and beating them with their feather-stuffed clubs._)
THE FIFTY DIZZARDS
Pfs-s-t!---- Pfs-s-t!---- Pfs-s-t! (_They lay about them mightily with
their clubs._)
THE FIVE THOUSAND NIZYS
(_Bearers of orange and lemon souffle to the Court. Becoming greatly
excited at sight of the platform Dizzards belaboring the Moonshees and
beginning to jump up and down, at the same time ladling out cones of
green and pink souffle._) Refresh yourselves, good people! Refresh
yourselves! Ssh!--Sssssh!--Ssssssssh!
THE ONE HUNDRED HODDY-DODDYS
(_Shaking their long-handled feather-dusters and whirling about in a
ring._) Awake, your Referendunces! Awake! Awake! (_They tickle the
noses, ears, chins and necks of the Moonshees, Zadkiels, etc., who stir
feebly but continue to snore._)
THE ONE HUNDRED ZANYS
(_Rattling their wind-bags and jigging in unison._) Attention!
Attention, good audience! Attention! Their Grand Referendunces of the
Federated Musnud of the World are about to be awakened! Attention!
Attention! (_They rattle their wind-bags vigorously and roll their eyes
from left to right and back nine times._)
THE TWO THOUSAND LOOBIES AND GABERLUNZIES
(_Roaming nervously to and fro, reading._) “At this moment, the sun
sinking low in the West, the faint West wind stirring in the leaves, the
pellucid rill tinkling gently--so, for a heart-beat, he saw her.” (_Each
holds up a restful hand._)
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_Executing three steps to the left and four to the right and spinning
on his right toe._) Your Referendunces! Most Worthy and Grand
Referendunces! Is the High Court of Progress of the Federated Republics
of the World now ready to receive the reports of the various battalions
of Law, Order, Peace, Justice, Truth, etc., accredited to this Court?
They await your Referendunces’ pleasure without. (_At this another
herculean attempt is made to arouse the assembled judges of the Musnud.
The fifty Dizzards who are in direct attendance on the Moonshees begin
whistling between their teeth and striking them with their
feather-clubs. The one hundred Hoddy-Doddys stir up the multitude in the
front rows by dusting off their ears and noses with their long-poled
feather-dusters. The one hundred Zanys rattle their wind-bags, and the
two thousand Loobies and Gaberlunzies read intently and with vigor, each
holding up a hand. The five thousand Nizys hurry here and there offering
souffle to all._)
THE ONE HUNDRED MOONSHEES, ROCTOR-PROCTORS, ZADKIELS, ETC.
(_Stirring slightly and opening their eyes._) Souffle! Souffle! (_Great
panniers of souffle are fed to them, and they relapse into slumber._)
THE FIFTY DIZZARDS
(_Seeing they have the Moonshees partially awake._) Your Referendunces!
Most worthy Referendunces! The Secretary of the Honorable Court desires
to know is it ready to receive the first division of the assembled
Battalions of Knowledge now about to report as to the present state and
progress of the world? (_A vast murmur of “Hee-haw!”--the 30th century
expression of approval--passes over the assemblage._ SHISHMASH HASH HASH
_executes four more hand-springs, lights gracefully on his back and
slowly draws his toes up to his fingers, thus gradually assuming a
standing position, and bows. The fifty Dizzards whistle between their
teeth and beat the Moonshees vigorously with their feather-clubs. The
Zanys rattle their wind-bags lustily. Fifty of the one hundred
Moonshees awake and call for more souffle. Five hundred tons are at
once distributed to the audience, and quiet is restored._)
THE MOONSHEES, ROCTOR-PROCTORS, ZADKIELS, ETC.
(_Stirring feebly and pushing the feather-dusters out of their eyes. In
chorus._) What is the question? What is the question? (_They sink back
heavily on their pillows._ SHISHMASH HASH HASH _throws four fits and
attempts to insert his left foot in his mouth, then stands at attention
while four Dizzards, lifting aloft silk banners on which are pictures of
keys of knowledge and open books, fall to the ground and get up again.
The one hundred Hoddy-Doddys tickle the noses of the Moonshees
frantically. The five thousand Nizys throw handfuls of souffle in the
faces of the audience and spin on one foot. The two thousand Loobies and
Gaberlunzies rear and plunge, murmuring “Shush! Shush!” then read._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Chief Presiding Referendunce of the Federated Court of Progress of the
World. Sitting up, opening one eye and gazing about._) Indeed! You say,
do you? Well, let them enter! (_He collapses again._)
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_Spinning away to the stage entrance, at which the representatives of
the various forces of Progress are waiting in parade array._) Are you
ready? Are you ready? (_A shout goes up. He lifts both hands, and
pirouetting gracefully backward toward the Musnud is followed by the
1st, 316th, 3727th, 4728th, 6914th and 7178th Divisions of Descendant
Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Free and Accepted Boy
Scouts, Watch and Ward and Library Protection Association Guards, King’s
Daughters, Sabbath Day Exclusivists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Holy
Rollers in close formation. They are all in Empire Nicollet silk,
striped with blue bombazine, ruched at neck and feet, and carry immense
banners of green and yellow on which are pictured barred library doors,
sealed books, bonfires of questionable or lewd books, and padlocked
library safes. They are preceded by and interlarded with silver and
gold harp bands in great numbers, as well as a small exhibition corps of
Anti-Lewd Book Examiners, carefully examining lewd books after the
manner of the years_ A. D. 1885-1921. _These last carry large red,
yellow and green-blue pencils and wear horn glasses the size of saucers.
They read, blush, and blue-pencil as they come. They are preceded by
cage-cars containing [one each] Ossified Specimens of Ancient Lewd
Novelist, Playwright and Poet. They pause and stand at attention before
the Musnud, giving first an exhibition of lewd-book editing, then the
Free and Accepted and Descendant yell, “Anti-Vice! Anti-Vice! Boy Scouts
Forever!” after which they clog and whistle._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Scratching one ear and blinking his one open eye, the while the five
thousand Nizys distribute souffle and the audience cheers
vociferously._) Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable
Free and Accepted Boy Scouts, Watch and Ward Guards, King’s Daughters,
Sabbath Day Adventists, Holy Rollers (_whispers to a Dizzard, “Did I get
them all right?”_)--we have, as you know, as President and Referendunces
of this great Court, founded so long ago by our worthy predecessor, Mush
Mush I, a certain duty to perform, and that is the asking of our regular
prepared and revered and revised Sacred Questions, the answers to which,
given as we all know you will give them, constitute in themselves at
once a record and a testimony to the wisdom, perfection, peace and
plenty to which our vast Federated Republics and Peoples the world over
have at last arrived. (_Great applause lasting one hour, during which
transcripts of the proceedings and speech thus far are wirelessed by the
Fuddys to all parts of the world._) Once, as you well know and as we are
sorry to remember, there existed a certain amount of vice and crime in
the world (_vast and prolonged boo-ing and cat-calling_)--less and less,
we will admit, as the forces of righteousness and order such as we
represent here to-day gained momentum (_a second burst of applause
lasting one hour, during which this portion of the speech is wirelessed.
The Zadkiels breathe heavily_), but plentiful enough--plentiful enough,
I am glad to say--Souffle! Souffle! (_he sighs and is fed_)--as well as
a tendency, disobedient in the extreme, to investigate and study and
doubt everything, from stars to ant-hills, and even to make light of the
revealed and divine facts of Nature, which as we all know are
irrefutable and not to be questioned and to which our hearts are always
and only our best guides. (_Enormous applause, lasting thirty minutes._)
Fortunately for us now, however, and happily, and owing, as I may say,
to the benign activities of those noble workers in the cause of
righteousness, Mush Mush I, Bonehead V, and Dish Rag III, who flourished
A. D. 1970-2061 in America and elsewhere, the virtues of sobriety,
justice, truth, mercy, industry and the like were, as we all well know,
firmly and finally established. (_Tremendous applause, lasting one
hundred and eight minutes, during which seven hundred wash-boilers of
souffle are consumed. Wireless messages are sent to all parts._) Thanks
to them and their beneficent efforts, we do not attempt to investigate
any more. (_Prolonged cheering._) We do not seek to reason any more.
(_Immense cheering, lasting two hours._) Man, as you all well know, has
seen the line of his duty and has followed it closely. (_More
cat-calling._) With the greatest care we have been able to eliminate not
only those besetting vices which scarred the face of man with their
hideous thoughts, but also those equally great vices of curiosity and
speculation in regard to chemistry, philosophy, physics, astronomy,
sociology, political economy, those low and evil so-called sciences
which once so disturbed and irritated and afflicted the human mind. (_A
burst of applause, lasting forty-three minutes._) They have been done
for, and instead we have strictly and sensibly confined ourselves, I am
happy to state, to those more acceptable evidences of our place in
Nature and our duties, as revealed by those renowned and profound
teachers and thinkers, our noble and revered ancestors, Billy Sunday the
Great, he of blessed memory (_applause, lasting one hour_)--Ralph
Waldensicuss Trinecuss of Boston (_applause, lasting fifty
minutes_)--Arise-and-Sweat Marden (_applause, lasting forty
minutes_)--Erbert Goughman (_applause, lasting thirty minutes_)--Philip
Dugmore Potts (_applause, lasting twenty minutes_)--and Edith Whiller
Nox Nox (_applause, lasting ten minutes_)--revealers and thinkers all,
the true forerunners and prophets of our present peaceful and happy
state. (_Prolonged applause, enduring over seven-hundred minutes, during
which_ NOXUS _and the Moonshees snore and the two thousand Loobies and
Gaberlunzies read long and refreshing passages from the works of the
individuals mentioned. The Fuddys sizz at their task._)
THE ONE HUNDRED HODDY-DODDYS
(_As the applause subsides, feathering the face of the Moonshees._)
Awake, your Referendunces, awake! (_They pole-vault in front of the
Musnud._)
THE FIFTY DIZZARDS
(_Whistling between their teeth and striking with their feather clubs._)
Oh, your Very Great Referendunces! Oh! Come to! Come to! (_They chatter
and clog._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Batting an eye and being lifted to a sitting position._) Ah, yes! Ah,
yes! Let me see ... where was I? (_A Dizzard, prompted by a Fuddy,
repeats his last sentence._) Ah, yes! As I was saying, these, our
revered leaders, taught us. It is to them, their patient and enduring
labors, their deep, even profound, cogitations as to life, that we all
owe all that we enjoy and revere so deeply to-day--our peace, our
freedom from disturbing thought, from the besetting vice of questioning
or investigating. All we have to do now is ask and re-ask and affirm and
re-affirm our Sacred Questions, so ably asked and answered so many
centuries since by our noble forerunners, Bonehead V. and Dish Rag III.
(_Separate and prolonged applause at each name, during which Podunkus
again slumbers, is feathered and clubbed and lifted to a sitting
position._) Ah, yes! Ah, yes! The Questions--the Questions. (_He fumbles
weakly about, while seven Dizzards hand him seven engrossed and
gold-plated copies of the regulation Sacred Questions as made and
provided for all such occasions. He stares at one feebly and
continues._) Ah yes! Now I have them! The Questions--the Questions, on
which, as I was saying, are based, as on a rock, all our peace,
security, freedom from thought; the very, indeed, pillows--I mean
pillars--of our ease and comfort. The Sacred Questions! To be sure!
Question One--let me see--Question One--Question One (_aside “Where is
it?” A Dizzard points to it._)--Question One is most important, the very
corner-stone, I might say, of our undisturbed security and ease in
thoughtlessness. (_Examines it closely._) It reads--it reads--Ah
yes!--Now I have it!--“Have you kept the faith?” That’s it. “Have you
kept the faith?” To be sure! Have _we_ kept it, I might say? Almost the
most sacred of all our Questions! Have _we_ kept the faith? (_He mumbles
feebly on._) That’s it! Have _we_ kept the faith?
THE 1ST, 316TH, 3727TH, 4728TH, 6914TH, AND 7178TH (_Standing at
attention and in unison._)
We have, we have!
We have, have, have!
(_They clog. Immense applause from the audience, lasting thirty minutes.
The First and Second Readers read soothing passages._)
THE MOONSHEES, ROCTOR-PROCTORS, GAMALIELS, ZADKIELS
(_Turning on the other side and imbibing souffle._) Excellent!
Excellent! Couldn’t be better! They have kept the faith! Most
comforting. Ah!
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Reclining and imbibing souffle._) Charming! Charming! Most sweet of
them! The dear, dear things! They would keep anything we asked them to!
It is really too wonderful! (_He sighs._)
THE FEDERATED SPECTATORS
(_One hundred thousand strong._) Hey! Hey! Hey! Rah! Rah! Rah! Federated
Republics forever! Long live the Court of Progress! (_The cheering
continues for fifteen minutes._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_When comparative silence is restored, and blinking his open eye._)
Beautiful! Beautiful! It is as I thought! A wondrous scene! Now for
Question Number--let me see (_eleven Dizzards point to the place_)--Ah,
yes! To be sure! (_Reads._) Question Number Two--a wonderful question--a
deep and subtly devised question--a question which, as I may say, has
done as much as any of the others to persuade us to and keep us all in
that happy and unquestioning frame of mind which, as we all know, we now
so wisely seek to maintain--Souffle! Souffle! (_he imbibes_)--a question
the like of which is not to be found in any other sacred code the world
has ever known--and here, my dear fellow-Federationists (_he raises a
hand_), and here is it: Question Two--Ah, yes! (_reads_) “Is it not true
that all men are now honest, kind, true, moral, virtuous and wise?” (_He
pauses for breath and looks benignly about._)
THE 1ST, 316TH, 3727TH, 4728TH, 6914TH, AND 7178TH
(_Jigging vigorously._)
They are! They are!
They rarr! rarr! rarr!
(_They walk on their hands._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
Beautiful! Beautiful! Never have I heard such perfect teamwork! It is
wonderful! Not so, my fellow Moonshees?
(_He turns._)
THE MOONSHEES, PUNDITS, ZADKIELS, ETC.
(_Turning over and snoring._) Excellent! Couldn’t be better! They do
perfect work! (_They each catch a wink of sleep._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Aroused and scratching the back of his neck, the while he eyes them
feelingly._) It is too delightful! That I should have lived to have the
exalted honor of presiding on so wonderful an occasion! But now for
Question Three, my dears--Question Three--another beautiful question
(_he fumbles foolishly about seeking the tablet. Seventeen Dizzards
point to it._)--Ah, yes! Ah, yes! Very difficult to manage all of these
questions! But here it is!--And now for Question Three--a lovely
question! A question lovely! I almost hate to read it and have it all
over with! (_Reads._) “And that all women are as pure as driven snow?”
(_Pauses and gazes about ecstatically, one hand up._)
THE 1ST, 316TH, 3727TH, 4728TH, 6914TH, AND 7178TH
(_Executing cart-wheels in circles._)
Aye! Aye! Aye! Aye! Aye! Aye!
’Tis as easy to say as Pie! Pie! Pie!
(_They end by waving with their feet._)
THE FEDERATED SPECTATORS
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
The world’s now safe for ever and a day!
(_An hour of unbroken applause follows._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_As quiet is once more restored and he is dusted into
semi-consciousness._) Quite so! Quite so! Forever and a day! Ah!
And--and (_he looks about for his tablet and twenty-seven Dizzards hand
him each a sacred plate._)--and that--let me see--Ah, yes!--Question
Four! Question Four! Here it is! (_Reads._) “And that God is always on
His Throne?” (_He collapses from exhaustion._)
THE 1ST, 316TH, 3727TH, 4728TH, 6914TH, AND 7178TH
(_Falling flat on their backs._)
He is! He is! It is so plain
Upon His Throne He doth remain!
By day or night, in dark or light,
We feel His presence shining bright!
All’s well with the world!
(_They roll to and fro in rows of one hundred each._)
THE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SPECTATORS
(_Uproariously._)
Hey! Hey! What a glorious day!
Hey! Hey! What a glorious day!
(_The cheering is resumed for fifteen minutes more, during which ten
vanloads of souffle are distributed._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_After order has been restored and surveying his associates of the
Musnud sleepily._) Perfect! Perfect!--or nearly so! Beautiful! I never
saw anything so well done! Never! Such order! Such union! But--let me
see--I believe these are all the questions to be asked of these
divisions, are they not? (_Looks about him helplessly and yet benignly.
The fifty Dizzards all rush together and confer. The Hoddy-Doddys ditto.
The Zanys ditto. The Loobies and Gaberlunzies bite their nails, then
rush together and mumble. The Moonshees sit up and confer with_
PODUNKUS. _He proceeds._) Ah yes! As I was saying! Quite so! Quite so!
Since, then, it is the opinion of the Associated Members of the Musnud
that the report of the Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and
Honorable Free and Accepted Boy Scouts and Anti-(_he reads the entire
roster_) seems to accord with the progress of the year as reported to us
from all outlying sections of the Federation, and it is their wish that
it be accepted and offered and engrossed in the records of the Musnud as
a true picture of the state and progress of the world for this year of
our Lord A. D. 3913, they will signify as much by saying “Aye,”
contrary, “Nay.” The “Ayes” have it. The report of these excelling
representatives is accepted and they are excused. (_He falls back and
into a deep sleep. The Moonshees do likewise._)
THE ONE HUNDRED MOONSHEES
(_Weakly, in their sleep_). Souffle! Souffle!
THE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SPECTATORS
Hey! Hey! Hey! ’Tis a perfect day!
’Tis a perfect day! ’Tis a perfect day!
Hey! Hey! Hey! ’Tis a perfect day!
(_They cheer for one solid hour._)
THE 1ST, 316TH, 3727TH, 4728TH, 6914TH, AND 7178TH
(_Ricochetting and executing triple hand-springs, the while_ SHISHMASH
HASH HASH _sidesteps and returns to the main stage entrance, left._)
What pleasure, oh! What pleasure, oh!
To know the world is perfect, so
That never now by day or night
Need any one feel fear or fright.
(_They zigzag gaily in ranks of one thousand and exit._)
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_At the stage entrance, surveying one hundred and fifty divisions of
Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Moving Picture
Censors, Sabbath Day Observance Leaguers, Baptist and Methodist
Evangelists, and Non-Smokers’ Social Unionists, now ready and in
marching order just outside the tent entrance. These have arranged
themselves in battalions of two thousand each and are arrayed in
snow-white frock coats, bright red silk hats, lavender pants or skirts,
as the case may be, and carry bright brass drum-major batons. Numerous
bands of Descendant and Amalgamated Sons and Daughters of Ancient and
Honorable Anti-Saloon Leaguers and Billysundays are arrayed in
pink-flowered business suits and silver-green capes, carrying hatchets
and bearing aloft the portrait of their patron saint, Mrs. Carrie
Nation, who flourished A. D. 1884-1913, playing on silver and tin horns,
wind instruments, hewgags and jew’s harps. These are preceded by
cage-cars containing one each of Ossified Specimens of Ancient Cigarette
Fiend, Simon-pure American Bartender, Lewd Scenario Writer, Sabbath Day
Breaker. The bands begin playing “All Hail the Peace Which Now
Prevails!” As they enter, preceded by SHISHMASH HASH HASH with his head
between his legs and walking on his hands to the Musnud, forty thousand
members of the audience rise and stand on their heads. Another forty
thousand sink to the floor between their seats and gasp. The five
thousand Nizys pass swiftly among them administering souffle. The first
and second readers read rapidly. SHISHMASH HASH HASH, landing on his
feet as he reaches the Musnud and beginning to jig._) Will the High and
Mighty Referendunces of the Federated Musnud of the World deign to
notice these humble instruments of moral intercession here gathered from
all parts of the world to testify at this great review to the blessings
of peace, morality, fecundity and other social virtues? (_As he says
this he executes nine flip-flaps, whereat the great assemblage bursts
into thunders of applause. The fifty Dizzards on the Musnud leap on each
other’s necks as they whistle between their teeth. The one hundred Zanys
rattle their wind-bags furiously._ NOXUS PODUNKUS, _being simultaneously
beaten by four stuffed clubs and tickled by four feather-dusters, while
two Dizzards whistle in his ears, opens both eyes and looks blandly
around._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_With a fat, ingratiating smile, as the uproar continues._) Are we now
beholding more divisions of the unconquerable forces of Truth, Virtue,
Justice, Sobriety and Righteousness? Good! Good! (_He opens his mouth,
which is immediately filled with souffle._)
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DIVISIONS
(_Cakewalking, shamble-shuffling and tossing their hatchets, batons,
musical instruments, etc., aloft._) Hail! Hail! The end of shame! (_They
sing._)
’Tis now that we with joy behold
The earth of virtue yield fourfold
Of truth and right the crop is great--
Indeed, enough the world to sate!
(_Melody the same as “Behold the Power.” To be sung without lining._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Scratching one ear and making a supreme effort to think._) A charming
sight! A charming sight! The world is indeed progressing! Allow us to
congratulate you, my dears and dearesses! Allow us! Allow us! Perfection
is at hand! It has been long in coming, but now, as I might say, it has
reached its destination. Souffle! Souffle! (_A pannier is brought and
fed him._) As I was saying to those last dear battalions who so
gracefully testified to our Peace and Progress, Security and the like,
it now becomes my duty to read from our revered and Sacred
Questions--the compendium, as you know, of all our Knowledge, Law,
Intelligence--Questions Five, Six, Seven and Eight--I believe that is
the allotted number, is it not? (_Thirty-one Dizzards nod._)--and as I
do so will you please answer in unison so that all may know--the
world--the universe indeed--how well we understand, how firmly we know,
believe, that which has brought us to our present state of peace and
comfort, our ease of mind and body. (_Reads._) Question Five--Question
Five--ah yes! Just as I thought! (_Reads, one hand up._) “There is a
God, is there not? We know that, do we not?”
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DIVISIONS
(_Jabbing their batons into the ground, tossing them in the air and then
catching them again._)
There is! There is! We do! We do!
What joy to know ’tis true, true, true!
(_At this ninety-nine Moonshees, who have risen to a sitting position,
fall back, murmuring “Splendid! Splendid! Wonderful!” The Hoddy-Doddys
exclaim the same thing and practice at sword-play with their
feather-dusters, while the Dizzards play at leap-frog and the Zanys beat
each other with their empty wind-bags. The five thousand Nizys plunge
their heads into the souffle but withdraw them quickly and ladle out
cones to the mass. The two thousand Loobies and Gaberlunzies read many
enchanting passages as the audience applauds, after which the Dizzards
resume normal positions and lay about them with their stuffed clubs._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Scratching his nose and making another great effort to think, the
while he beats the railing before him._) Ah, yes! That is it! “There is!
We do!” It is on our knowledge of that that we rest so peacefully, all
else being of no importance. (_Reads._) Question Six--(_pauses_)--“He is
on His Throne, is He not? We know that, do we not?”
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DIVISIONS
(_Jigging_)
He is! He is! We do! We do!
This truth is ever new and true!
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Sinking into his pillows and peacefully closing his eyes._) Quite so!
Quite so! We need that knowledge to sustain us in our present ease. It
is so comforting! As I often say, what would we do without our dear
Questions? (_He falls asleep. Seven Dizzards and seven Hoddy-Doddys club
and feather him. He resumes._) And now for--ah yes!--let me
see--Question--Question (_various Dizzards gather about him and
point_)--Ah, yes! Seven--Question Seven! (_Ecstatically._) Let me read
this to you, this beautiful Question, the answer to which, as I so often
say, reassures us all so much, keeps us all so sweet and content,
always. (_Raises one hand._) “All is well with the world, is it not? We
know that, do we not? It is, is it not?” Come now, all together--One,
Two, Three----
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DIVISIONS
Yea ho! Yea ho! Yea, Bo! Yea, Bo!
A truer thing we do not know!
(_They fall to the ground and roll rapturously to and fro._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_As wave on wave of applause sweeps over the pavilion and bags out the
sides and top, leaning forward and opening one eye._) ’Tis beautifully
said! Beautifully said! A perfect answer to a perfect Question! A
wonderful testimony to the ever upwardness and onwardness of things! It
is almost more than one could hope for--than any one _can_ hope for! And
now, my dears and dearesses, comes Question--(_looks at the tablet while
all the Dizzards lean and point_)--Question Eight, a very, very great
Question, a Question which, as I always say, has undoubtedly more than
any other Question brought us at last to this very perfect and peaceful
state, in which we rest as, I might say, a babe in its cradle, as
a--a--Souffle! (_he is fed_). Here it is: “How is it that we know that
God is on His Throne and all is well with the world? How is it?” Can’t
you see how important that is, how wonderful? Come now! We must have a
perfect and compelling answer to this! All together--One, Two, Three!
(_Leans forward expectantly, intently._)
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DIVISIONS
Our hearts, our hearts, they tell us so--
What is it that our hearts don’t know!
(_Each places a hand over his heart._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Falling back on seven pillows and taking a deep breath._) Beautiful!
Beautiful! Even so! And given as it should be! Let me hear you say that
again, my dears and dearesses! Let me hear it again! (_They repeat it,
waving pink handkerchiefs. The audience bursts into deafening applause
lasting seventy-eight minutes. The Loobies and Gaberlunzies leap in the
air, turn three somersaults before landing, and fall on their feet. Five
thousand wirelesses are sent. NOXUS PODUNKUS, falling back and
strangling with joy._) This is too much! Too much! Who can say now that
the world has not progressed! (_He is lifted up, feathered and doused
with souffle._) With the consent of my fellow Moonshees (_looks about
him affably at the sleeping Moonshees_), I will now excuse these very
good people. (_Feeble calls of “Beautiful! Beautiful!” and “Let them be
excused!” from the Moonshees._) You may go, my dears and dearesses! You
may go! (_He collapses._)
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DIVISIONS
(_Executing a flank movement and assuming an open formation five hundred
abreast and marching briskly away, twirling their batons and wagging
their heads._) All hail the power of Podunks’ name! (_They exit. Enter
seven thousand Union Astronomers and four thousand Federated College
Philosophers in close formation, all in green knee pants, white spike
tailcoats and blue silk hats. The Astronomers carry green telescopes
instead of canes. The Philosophers are all chewing tutti-frutti. They
are preceded by cage-cars containing each one Specimen of Ossified and
Ancient and Unmoral Stoic, Nietzschean, Pragmatist, Anti-Christ, Chemist
and Physicist._)
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_Preceding them and climbing up the feather pole of a Hoddy-Doddy he
has seized._) The Union Astronomers, your Referendunces! The Federated
College Philosophers, your Referendunces! (_He leaps and tumbles three
times around the arena, holding his toes with his hands._)
THE ONE HUNDRED HODDY-DODDYS
(_Pole-vaulting over the procession as it approaches._) The Union
Astronomers, your Referendunces! The Federated Moral College
Philosophers! (_The Dizzards give an exhibition of feather-club
swallowing. The five thousand Nizys each juggle nine ice-cream cones in
the air._)
THE SEVEN THOUSAND UNION ASTRONOMERS
(_Marching to “Oh, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” and
doing a hop, skip and jump as they near the Musnud._)
The universe is moral! The universe is moral!
’Tis as true--’tis as true--
As that a green horse isn’t sorrel!
(_One-half the division stand on their heads, the others on their
feet._)
THE FIFTY DIZZARDS
(_Receiving souffle handed up by the Nizys below. In chorus._)
“The universe is moral! The universe is moral!
’Tis as true--’tis as true--
As that a green horse isn’t sorrel!”
THE ELEVEN THOUSAND PHILOSOPHERS AND ASTRONOMERS
(_In chorus_)
Hail! Hail! The Comet’s Tail!
All is well! All is swell!
Never was there an age like this!
(_They wave their feet or hands, as the case may be._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Rising on one elbow and rubbing his eyes._) What! What! More? What
have we here? The Union Astronomers, you say? The Federated College
Philosophers? Excellent! A fine body of men, indeed! And, as you say,
the universe _is_ moral. Very, very, very moral. One of the most moral
universes I have ever known. (_Scratches an ear and sinks into his
cushions, but the nearest Dizzards lift him up._)
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_Excitedly touching his toes with his hands nine times._) The
Questions, your Noble Referendunce! The Sacred Questions!
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Heavily and benignly._) Ah, yes! Ah, yes! The Sacred Questions! It is
not intention, but memory, that seems to fail me. Quite so--the Sacred
Questions! (_He takes one of fifty plates offered him and examines it
closely._) Ah yes! Here it is! One of the most significant and wonderful
questions that has ever been planned, I think, to ease our minds and
comfort us. (_Reads._) Question Nine: “Is it not true that the universe
is ordained for Truth, Justice, Virtue, Mercy, Tenderness, Purity?”
(_His voice trails off in utter exhaustion._)
THE SEVEN THOUSAND UNION ASTRONOMERS
(_Doing a light come-all-ye and waving red bandana handkerchiefs._)
It is! It is! We know! We know!
The stars we see, they tell us so!
THE FOUR THOUSAND COLLEGE PHILOSOPHERS
(_Masticating their gum vigorously._)
It is! It is! Hail, loud and long!
Our works, they sing the same sweet song!
(_Loud and prolonged cheering by the audience. Wirelesses are sent to
the waiting world. The Dizzards gnaw excitedly at their feather-clubs,
then do a double-quick clog. The two thousand Loobies and Gaberlunzies
read many, many soothing passages. The Nizys dole out souffle._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Biting his nails and crossing his legs._) So! Quite so! The stars tell
us! It couldn’t be different! And now, my dears (_sighs from
weariness_), for the Tenth Great Question--one of those beautiful things
that I always love to read and re-read. The most important one, I always
think, in so far as astronomy is concerned, that has ever been devised.
A Question so perfect that, when we pause to consider its absolute
truthfulness and perfection, answers fully--oh, so fully!--all our
astronomical needs. (_Reads._) “Are not the stars maintained in their
courses in order that man may progress and be moral?” (_He contemplates
a fly which has lit on the end of his nose._)
THE UNION ASTRONOMERS
(_Juggling their telescopes after the manner of a shillalah and doing a
come-all-ye._)
They are! They are! The stars, they say
That man to truth is on his way!
THE COLLEGE PHILOSOPHERS
(_Catching hands and dancing around in a circle._)
The Universe was made for man--
And man for good, by God’s dear plan!
(_They slap each other on the back._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Rolling back in ecstasy and smearing his face with souffle._) Lovely!
Lovely! “The stars they say!” This certainly is the most inspiring
session we have ever had! Such unity of feeling! Such innate wisdom!
Surely the waiting world must realize now how completely we have
progressed--how absolutely--(_he sinks to his pillows and is lifted to a
sitting position by the Dizzards, who place the tablet in his hand,
while the Moonshees turn over and murmur “Excellent! Excellent!” The
wireless operators send out five thousand messages. PODUNKUS pulls
himself together and continues._) And now, my dear children--and now
comes one of the keenest, the most searching really, of all the Great
and Sacred Questions made and provided for these immortal occasions and
handed down to us by our renowned and dear bygone leaders and saints,
Bonehead V. and Dish Rag III. Really, when I stop to think of their
great work for mankind, when--(_he sinks back and the Hoddy-Doddys
proceed to dust him off_)--Ah yes! Ah, yes! Question Eleven--almost the
most wonderful, the most important of all--(_reads_)--“How--how,” so it
reads, “do we know that, me good men? How?” (_He smiles and waits
expectantly, one finger up._) How do we know? That is the famous, the
keenest and most searching of all the Twelve Sacred Questions. How?
THE SEVEN THOUSAND UNION ASTRONOMERS
(_Telescope to eye and weaving in and out in a wild dance._)
Our hearts, they tell us! We can hear
This truth they whisper, year by year!
(_They kiss each other on each cheek._)
THE FOUR THOUSAND COLLEGE PHILOSOPHERS
(_In chorus, and doing a hop, skip and jump._)
Our hearts do tell us! We do know--
Besides, our Astronomers do say so!
(_They swallow their gum. The multitude breaks into tumultuous applause,
which lasts for one hour, during which one thousand messages are sent
out and five thousand more wash-boilers of souffle are consumed._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Aiming at the fly and missing it._) Ah! Ah! Could the world wish for
anything more--more enlightening? Our hearts tell us! Oh, dear! Our dear
Astronomers and College Philosophers stand in absolute accord as to
this! Wonderful! Wonderful! (_Turning to the Musnud._) I am sure that
you, my dear fellow Moonshees and Savants, must be greatly impressed and
inspired by this! It is what we all so much wish to hear, always!
(_PODUNKUS rolls over on his side, while the Moonshees turn over and
murmur “Excellent! Exquisitely put! Couldn’t be better!” The Union
Astronomers and College Philosophers now march off singing, “Hail! Hail!
The Gang’s all here!” the Philosophers weeping on each other’s necks for
joy while the Astronomers wig-wag the song with their telescopes. The
Moonshees, Zadkiels, etc., squeak feebly for souffle._)
(_Enter forty-eight divisions of five hundred each of Descendant Sons
and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Anti-Vice Crusaders, Prison
Visitation Leaguers, Moral Prophylaxers, Anti-Contraceptionists, Eugenic
Sires and Women Magazine Editors, in green, yellow and blue burnouses
and pink papier-maché casques, fox-trotting as they come. An immense
banner of Chinese silk and Australian wool mixed [symbolic of the
general sequacity, tranquillity, plasticity, yet not to say florescence
or flaccidity which now hovers over all the world] is carried before.
This same contains a pale representation of a jail, such as existed in
former centuries when the world was evil, but now [in the picture], in
order to symbolize the present peace and progress of the world, crumbled
and covered with vines and spiderwebs, while four angels of peace, one
at each corner, hold up palms of victory. They are preceded by cage-cars
containing each one Specimen of Ossified and Ancient White-Slaver,
Gambler, Thief and Predatory Rich. As they approach, the Loobies,
Gaberlunzies, Nizys and Zanys bustle hither and thither among the
audience, the former reading, the latter calling for silence and
explaining the exact significance of the symbol while they ladle out
souffle. On and before the Musnud the Hoddy-Doddys and Dizzards hover
over NOXUS and the Moonshees, who have fallen into a sound sleep. Two
thousand members of the Inter-Federated Association of Inter-Asiatic
Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Eugenic Sires
approach first, the men wearing green Zouave trousers, white silk
overcoats and blue shakos. They carry lilies. The ladies are wrapped in
nine layers of pink asbestos each one inch thick and carry poisoned
hatpins. After charging and counter-charging they form a square in front
of the Musnud, the ladies stacking hatpins, the men presenting lilies._)
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_Tumbling back from the entryway where he has been supervising the
general formation of the new division._) Your Referendunces! Your
Referendunces! Look, oh look! The Inter-Federated Association of
Inter-Asiatic Descendant Sons and Daughters of Eugenic Sires crave the
honor of approaching and testifying before this great Court as to what
Progress has done for them! Your Referendunces!
THE ONE HUNDRED HODDY-DODDYS
(_Ranging in a line and presenting arms with their feather-dusters._)
Oh, never, never has there been
A sight to equal this, we ween!
Glorious!
(_They clog, and chatter their teeth._)
THE MEMBERS OF THE INTER-FEDERATED ASSOCIATION OF INTER-ASIATIC
DESCENDANT SONS AND DAUGHTERS
(_Pirouetting and bowing to each other._)
’Tis six full centuries at least
Since un-Eugenic weddings ceased;
And now each youth and maid you see
Is married full Eugenic-ly.
In us behold the perfect fruitage
That followed on the former brute-age!
(_They ring-around-the-rosy._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Lifted to a sitting position by the Dizzards, tickled with
feather-dusters, beaten with wind-bags and doused with ice-water until
he opens his eyes._) What a sight!--A beautiful sight, I mean! My word!
O never, my celebrated and associated Referendunces (_he turns to them_)
have I seen so much beauty and virtue! Never! So much modesty! So
much--much--everything! Really this is the worst--I mean best--I ever
saw! This in itself is a complete refutation of that foul charge, once
so common, that the world was in danger of not progressing. Look!
Behold! O Progress, where is thy sting? (_He collapses, calling for
souffle, but is bolstered up and ice-water poured over him._)
ONE HUNDRED EUGENIC MAIDS
(_In pink Mother Hubbards and green Quaker bonnets. Stepping forward and
sinking on one knee, hands on their chins. They sing._)
It is our duty to attest
How by Eugenics we are blest!
O ’tis a wondrous art divine,
Which causes all the world to shine!
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Leaning over the railing and eying them closely._) Really! This is the
limit--I mean almost too much--too much! Sweet maids! Dear sweet maids!
This spectacle of the perfect fruitage of Progress under the great
moral care of our forefathers--blessed be the name of the
ever-to-be-remembered Anthony!--(_he bows, and the audience with
him_)--is all but too much! Progress can do no more! I would, if any
service which the mere sight of you does not render--could render--ask
you the Twelfth and final Question, but what would be the use? How well
we know the import of your message, even before you speak! How well we
know the import of you yourselves--wonderful creatures that you are!
(_They bow their heads._) This vast assemblage, which in itself is a
testimony to the value of Eugenics, understands full well that by the
practice of Eugenics alone all weakness, vice, crime, art, philosophy
(_except that which our dear Union Astronomers and Federated
Philosophers instinctively know and proclaim_), the need of white-slave
laws, saloons, the theater--all, all have long since been done away
with, so that we have now--the most of us, I am glad to say--not even so
much as an historic memory of them. Indeed, as we all know, on this once
most unsafe but now safest of planets (_applause lasting seventeen
minutes_), men and women are now as safe and perfect and pure as ever
our worthy forefathers could have dreamed of or desired. Why, to look at
you alone is enough! (_He sighs and rests._)
Dear Eugenic citizens and citizenesses, without taxing you further with
these deep and brain-racking questions, so sacred to us all of course,
the one message of this great Court to you is to go and do as you have
always done: think no more than is absolutely necessary. Don’t tax your
brains. This, our great Federation of Commission-Ruled Republics, is
here to do all that for you (_the Moonshees stir_). The less we know the
better, as we all know. (_Long and loud applause lasting eighteen
minutes._) In former and darker, and therefore sadder, times, there were
many who thought differently. But they and all those who were a part of
them have long since been disposed of. (_Long and uproarious applause._)
And is not, I now ask you, the world happier, fairer, sweeter to the eye
and the mind? (_Cries of “Hear! Hear!” and “Yea! Yea!” lasting two
hours._) Now, dear Eugenic citizens, you need only consider how
thoughtless you are and therefore how happy in these sweet exercises and
games such as we see here to-day which contribute only to the
sustenance, docility and fertility of man, to know how true all this
is. Be thoughtless. Be happy. And by so being, as I always think, you
contribute and testify to the efficiency of Truth, Virtue, Justice,
Mercy, Sobriety, Love, Beauty, Simplicity, Peace--(_he collapses from
sheer exhaustion._)--Souffle! Souffle! (_A bucket of souffle is brought
and administered._)
THE ONE HUNDRED MAIDS
(_Wishing not to tire their noble Referendunces, singing in chorus._)
O, sweet Eugenic thought--to know
That our dear Noxus loves us so!
(_They fall back in the ranks._)
(_Enter fifteen thousand Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and
Honorable Anti-White Slavers of the pre-Federated Period_ (A. D.
1870-1927), _in green-and-white kilts and galligaskins, with perukes and
billy-cocks on their heads. They march swiftly forward, an expression of
grim determination--historically correct--on their faces, and pause
before the Musnud. Over their left arms, after the fashion of the
world’s great Anti-White-Slave Leaders and in accordance with historical
descriptions of the same, hang immense mantles of dark green bed-ticking
intended to shield naked fleeing white slaves. Over their shoulders are
carried papier-maché broadaxes of the kind known to have been used by
all Anti-White-Slavers, male and female, in felling the enemy. These
they occasionally brandish as they walk. At their belts hang lanterns,
files, skeleton keys, medicine kits containing concentrated food pills,
digitalis and the like, all intended for the rescue and resuscitation of
overcome white slaves. Their eyelids and mouths are painted a bright
cerise to give a look of extra vigor and force, and as they walk, one
hundred abreast, they peer to right and left in the most searching and
secretive and yet detecting way from beneath their hands, and
occasionally flash their dark lanterns on the surrounding spectators._)
SHISHMASH HASH HASH
(_Leaping up and cracking his heels nine times before descending._) Your
Referendunces! Your Referendunces! We have here the only living
Descendant Sons and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable American
Anti-White Slavers--the organization which in its day gave rise--laid
the foundation, as it were, of our present great and perfect World
Federation, over which at present your Referendunces are so ably
presiding. It claims to be the only existing organization that preserves
in all their purity the customs, manners and instincts of the original
pre-Federated Anti-White-Slavers of seven and eight centuries since. I
beg of your Referendunces--I beg of you!--on this very special
occasion--I know you are tired--Will your Referendunces be pleased to
receive them? (_He runs swiftly around in a ring and falls over three
extended feather-dusters. NOXUS PODUNKUS groans. The Moonshees moan._)
THE ONE HUNDRED ZANYS
(_Dancing on before them and rattling their wind-bags._) The
Anti-White-Slavers! The Anti-White-Slavers! Look! Behold!
THE FIFTY DIZZARDS
(_Beating the Moonshees with feather-clubs and whistling between their
teeth._) Awake! Awake! (_The Moonshees stir feebly and call for souffle.
By the aid of a dozen gallons of ice-water_ NOXUS PODUNKUS _is once more
aroused and now surveys the approaching procession, which marches about
the arena and back to the Musnud._)
NOXUS PODUNKUS
(_Scratching his left ear and surveying the assembled throng._)
What--more? Oh! Well, welcome, noble citizens! Welcome! I see by your
brows that you possess the unconquerable love of Liberty, Virtue, Truth,
Justice, Beauty, etc., so necessary to the happy maintenance of our
present Federated condition. (_He collapses and more souffle is
administered. Recovering._) Stick to it! What supreme comfort it must be
to you and your exceedingly courageous ancestors to know that our very
happy present condition is almost entirely due to them--their noble
deeds of valor performed in order that we might become so--so--(_he
coughs_). What supreme deeds would not you now, I am sure (_they
brandish their battleaxes_) gladly perform were it not that fortunately
all provocation had long since been done away with. (_Loud cheering. All
the Nizys, Zanys, Hoddy-Doddys, etc., walk on their hands._) Night after
night in the wilds of the great cities of those far-off centuries, now
so happily past, did your forefathers fearlessly and tirelessly seek out
the enslavers of resisting and lovely womanhood and battle to the death
with those who would have corrupted our worthy sires--I mean
siresses--Souffle!--(_he imbibes_)--performing astounding and now almost
unbelievable feats of valor, felling the vile and rapacious enslaver to
the plain and chopping him to bits, leaving us, their humble
descendants, little if anything to do save revere and historically
represent the marvels which they then performed. (_Immense and prolonged
cheering. Eight thousand wireless messages are sent forth._) Literature,
by their aid, as we all well know, has at last been completely done away
with. (_Riotous applause._) Profane art in all its forms and all its
seductive wiles has long since ceased. (_The audience shouts for one
hour._) The vile newspapers of ancient days (_innumerable swells of
booing and cat-calling_), wont to chronicle only the private and social
vices of unregenerate man, now, thanks to the unremitting toil of those
who had only the moral regeneration of the world in view, its true
spiritual progress (_prolonged and enduring applause_), chronicle only
the sweet messages of hope and cheer by which we sustain each other in
our happy state--Souffle! Souffle! (_He dips his head in a pannier. The
audience cheers for one hour._) Now we are not troubled with politics,
armies, or any vile evidences of commercial strife and contest. (_More
applause._) Nothing disturbs us in any way! Could we ask more? (_Cries
of “Hear! Hear!”_) As I was saying to those dear creatures who just
left, our beloved Eugenic citizens and citizenesses, we need now only
concern ourselves with the simple arts of peace and pleasure as we here
see manifest in this great assemblage. On you, therefore, more than on
any other group which at this time could come before this august Court
to testify to the Truth, Peace, Virtue, Sequacity and Docility of our
present world-realm, devolves, as lineal descendants of these our great
sires, the sweet task of keeping bright the memory of their great deeds.
I am sure that you, my dears and dearesses, by maintaining so earnest a
stand against all thought of any kind, by persisting in your aversion to
moral heresies of all sorts and indeed learning and science in every
form, and by your persistent and industrious mutilation and destruction
of all profane facts, so long the curse of society (_loud cries of “Down
with all facts!”_), will succeed--I know you will!--in keeping the world
as fresh and pure and innocent as on the day it was made. (_Cries of
“Yes, yes,” and “we will, we will.” Applause for one hour._) Souffle!
Souffle! (_He is fed._)--Cruel, disturbing thought, that one great curse
of humanity in its earlier ages must never be allowed to trouble us
again. (_Immense applause._) And since, by what processes of hardy
non-thinking only our revered ancestors know, profound peace has at last
been reached, I caution you, O my fellow-citizens, let not a single
irritating disturbing fact ever again impinge upon the sweet idealism
and mental slumber which now reigns. Behold our happy Dizzards! (_They
wiggle their stuffed clubs._) Could any of the so-called and boasted
mental processes of former ages have produced them? (_They walk on their
hands._) And our dear Zanys! (_They rattle their wind-bags._) What would
our great peaceful Federation be without them? (_They beat each other
over the head._) Or our graceful Nizys! (_They take up wash-boilers of
souffle and ladle it right and left solemnly._) The gentility and
wholeheartedness of their service! (_They playfully pelt each other with
cones filled with souffle._) Or our kindly Hoddy-Doddys! (_They vault._)
What more could humanity desire in the shape of perfect and helpful men?
(_They leap on each other’s backs and fall gracefully to the floor._)
When I contemplate these, and this great audience (_profound applause
lasting seventeen minutes_), and these our assembled cohorts of Virtue,
Truth, Justice, Mercy (_more applause, lasting one hour_), come here
from all parts of the known world to testify to the great fundamental
truths which have made them so, I--(_At this point the great audience
rises en masse and cheers for one hour, seventeen and one-half minutes
and thirteen seconds. Rival groups of Descendant Sons and Daughters of
Ancient and Honorable Anti-White-Slavers, Anti-Vivisectionists,
Anti-Contraceptionists, Billysundays, Eugenic Sires, Anti-Saloon
Leaguers, Watch and Ward Guards, King’s Daughters, Free and Accepted Boy
Scouts, etc., rush forward and seize upon the cages containing the only
remaining specimens of Gambler, Saloon-keeper, Predatory Financier,
Philosopher, Magdalen, Vivisectionist, Madam, Nietzschean and other
early examples of now nearly or quite extinct miscreants or papier-maché
representations of the same, and haul them before the Musnud amid the
cheering, hee-hawing, cat-calling of the audience. The Zanys, Nizys,
Dizzards, Loobies, Hoddy-Doddys, Gaberlunzies and Fuddys, forgetting
their regular duties, spin, squeal, play at leap-frog, beat each other
with feather-dusters and wind-bags. Various regiments of Descendant Sons
and Daughters of Ancient and Honorable Feminists, Professors of
Christian Economy, Prohibitionists, Socialists, etc., who have not yet
had the privilege of parading and testifying before the Musnud, crowd
the entryways, swarm the aisles and so obstruct the peaceful and orderly
development of the proceedings of the Court that, in view of this and
because ordinarily the proceedings consume from twenty to thirty days
anyhow, so great is the anxiety of all to testify to the magnificent
progress of the world since vice and crime have been done away with_,
NOXUS PODUNKUS, _now thoroughly awake and after due counsel with the
ninety-nine other Moonshees, Savants, Roctor-Proctors, Pundits,
Theorists, Zadkiels, Seers, Oracles, Solons, Nestors, Gamaliels,
Daniels, etc., also disturbed in their slumbers, decides that, all
things considered, and notwithstanding, it were as well if the taking of
testimony were to be discontinued for this day, and to this end, after
various signs, grunts, squeals, motions to the Zanys, Dizzards, Nizys,
Loobies, Hoddy-Doddys, Gaberlunzies, Fuddys, etc., the latter are
brought to their senses and through them the audience calmed._)
(_It was then that_ NOXUS PODUNKUS, _speaking for the Musnud, announced
that the proceedings for this day were hereby ended and that the Court
stood adjourned until the following morning at ten o’clock; after which
SHISHMASH_ HASH HASH, _as Master of Ceremonies, Chairmaster, etc., led
the outgoing throng with a magnificent example of rotary hand-spring
motion. At this point, also, owing to lack of space and by reason of the
fact that enough is as good as a feast, the humble recording Dramatist
quits and the curtain is hereby drawn on this historic scene. For those,
however, who desire a fuller report of the same, it may be found in
Volumes MMCCCIII, MMMMMMMMCCCLLVI, Proceedings of the Federated Court of
Progress [Moline-Emporia-Sedalia Sittings] for the years 3913-’14-’15_,
NOXUS PODUNKUS _presiding_; SHISHMASH HASH HASH, _Secretary and Master
of Ceremonies._)
Curtain.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] J. C. Vogt: “The Nature of Electricity and Magnetism on the Basis
of a Simplified Conception of Substance.”