The Genial Idiot: His Views and Reviews

The Idiot laughed. “I see you’re on,” he said. “Anyhow, it’s good sentiment, whether I wrote it or Biggs. Fact is, in my judgment, what the poet of to-day ought to do is to collect the long green from the present and the laurel from posterity. That’s a fair division. But what do you say to my proposition?”

“Well, it’s certainly – er – cheeky enough,” said the Poet. “Do I understand it? – you want me to father your poems. To tell the truth, until I hear some of them, I can’t promise to be more than an uncle to them.”

“That’s all right,” said the Idiot. “You ought to be cautious, as a matter of protection to your own name. I’ve got some of the goods right here. Here’s a little thing called ‘Summer-tide!’ It shows the whole ‘Now’ principle in a nutshell. Listen to this:

“Now the festive frog is croaking in the mere,
And the canvasback is honking in the bay,
And the summer-girl is smiling full of cheer
On the willieboys that chance along her way.

“Now the skeeter sings his carols to the dawn,
And bewails the early closing of the bar
That prevents the little nips he seeks each morn
On the sea-shore where the fatling boarders are.

“Now the landlord of the pastoral hotel
Spends his mornings, nights, and eke his afternoons,
Scheming plans to get more milk from out the well,
And a hundred novel ways of cooking prunes.

“Now the pumpkin goes a pumpking through the fields,
And the merry visaged cows are chewing cud;
And the profits that the plumber’s business yields
Come a-tumbling to the earth with deadly thud.

“And from all of this we learn the lesson sweet,
The soft message of Dame Nature, grand and clear,
That the winter-time is gone with storm and sleet,
And the soft and jolly summer-tide is here.

How’s that? Pretty fair?”

“Well, I might consent to be a cousin to a poem of that kind. I’ve read worse and written some that are quite as bad. But you know, Mr. Idiot, even so great a masterpiece as that won’t make a book,” said the Poet.

“Of course it won’t,” retorted the Idiot. “That’s only for the summer. Here’s another one on winter. Just listen:

“Now the man who deals in mittens and in tabs
Is a-smiling broadly – aye, from ear to ear —
As he reaches out his hand and fondly grabs
All the shining, golden shekels falling near.

“Now the snow lies on the hill-side and the roof,
And the birdling to the sunny southland flies;
While the frowning summer landlord stands aloof,
And to solemncholy meditation hies.

“Now the tinkling of the sleigh-bells tinge the air,
And the coal-man is as happy as can be;
While the hulking, sulking, grizzly seeks his lair,
And the ice-man’s soul is filled with misery.

“Clad in frost are all the distant mountain-peaks,
And the furnace is as hungry as a boy;
While the plumber, as he gloats upon the leaks,
Is the model that the painter takes for ‘Joy.’

“And from all of this we learn the lesson sweet —
The glad message of Dame Nature, grand and clear:
That the summer-time has gone with all its heat,
And the crisp and frosty winter days are here.

You see, Mr. Poet, that out of that one idea alone – that cataloguing of the things of the four seasons – you can get four poems that are really worth reading,” said the Idiot. “We could call that section ‘The Seasons,’ and make it the first part of the book. In the second part we could do the same thing, only in greater detail, for each one of the months. Just as a sample, take the month of February. We could run something like this in on February:

“Now o’er the pavement comes a hush
As pattering feet wade deep in slush
That every Feb.
Doth flow and ebb.”

“I see,” said the Poet. “It wouldn’t take long to fill up a book with stuff like that.”

“To make the appeal stronger, let me take the month of July, which is now on,” resumed the Idiot. “You may find it even more convincing:

“Now the fly —
The rhubarb-pie —
The lightning in the sky —
Thermometers so spry —
That leap up high —
The roads all dry,
The hoboes nigh,
The town a-fry,
The mad ki-yi
A-snarling by,
The crickets cry —
All tell us that it is July.

Eh?”

“I don’t believe anybody would believe I wrote it, that’s all,” said the Poet, shaking his head dubiously. “They’d find out, sooner or later, that you did it, just as they discovered that Will Carleton wrote ‘Paradise Lost,’ and Dick Davis was the real author of Shakespeare. Why don’t you publish the thing over your own name?”

“Too modest,” said the Idiot. “What do you think of this:

“Now the festive candidate
Goes a-sporting through the State,
And he kisses babes from Quogue to Kalamazoo;
For he really wants to win
Without spending any tin,
And he thinks he has a chance to kiss it through.”

“That’s fair, only I don’t think you’ll find many candidates doing that sort of thing nowadays,” said the Poet. “Most public men I know of would rather spend their money than kiss the babies. That style of campaigning has gone out.”