This Giddy Globe

When in the course of time the Upper Crust becomes too rich and heavy for the popular taste, the Social Pie flops over and the Under Crust becomes the Upper Crust.

These periodic flip-flops of the Social Pie are called Revolutions.

You would think that a Revolving Pie would be a disturbing thing to have in one’s system, but the Giddy Globe doesn’t seem to mind it in the least.

Balanced on an imaginary toe, she continues to pirouette at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, just as if nothing were the matter.

The latest specimen of Acrobatic Pastry is after a Russian recipe.

The Bolshevik Pie has no Upper Crust at all and is declared by the leading Chefs of Europe to be unfit for human consumption, but the proof of the Pie is in the eating, how would you like to try just a —[2 - Take it away, or we won’t read another word!The Reader.]

Oh, very well! We never did care much for pie anyway, not even for breakfast.

CHAPTER VII

THE TEMPERATURE OF THE GLOBE

In spite of incessant and violent exercise, the Giddy Globe (as we have remarked before) is unable to keep comfortably warm all over.

Her Temperature varies from intense cold at her upper and lower extremities to fever heat in the region of her equatorial diaphragm.

Ancient Geographers indicated these variations of temperature by means of Zones.

The Term Zone is derived from the Greek word ζωνη a Belt or Girdle, and a Girdle in the days of the First Geography Book was the principal (if not the only) garment of a well dressed person.

Today, however, the Girdle is no longer accepted as a complete costume.

No modern Costumer would countenance such a “model,” it would be too easy to copy and consequently unprofitable.

Even the “Knee-plus-ultra” of Newport or Palm Beach Society would hesitate to pose for the Sunday Supplement Photographer in a one-piece Bathing Girdle.

You might explore the World of Dress, from the Land of the Midnight Follies to the Uttermost parts of Greenwich Village and find nothing exactly like it.

It is on its way, to be sure, but it will never be fashionable until —

The two extremes of décolleté
Of Ballroom and of Bathing Beach
Here meet in a bewildering way
And mingle all the charms of each.

Why, then, in this up-to-date Geography Book, should we depict the Giddy Globe in an obsolete hoop skirt of imaginary Zones?

In striving to answer the question, we have hit upon a pleasing compromise.

At least it is up-to-date.

A. and E. are the two extremities of the Giddy Globe, which are quite bare.

They correspond to the Frigid Zones.

C. is the Corset, which being hot and uncomfortable corresponds to the Torrid.

D. is – that is to say are —[3 - Pardon us for interrupting – but we thought this was to be a geography book.The Reader.]

CHAPTER VIII

THE AGE OF THE GLOBE

Some people are sensitive about their ages. The Giddy Globe has never told us hers.

Rude men of science, after careful examination, declare she can’t be a day under five billion years old.

Theologians, ever tactful in feminine matters, set her down as a shrinking young thing of barely four thousand summers.

Real delicacy of feeling goes with the bulging tum rather than with the bulging forehead; who ever saw a thin Bishop or a fat man of science!

Happy the man with the bulging Tum,
Who smiles and smiles and is never glum! —
But alas for the man with the bulging brow,
If he wanted to smile, he wouldn’t know how!

If the Giddy Globe asked us to guess her age, we should say, without a moment’s hesitation, “Whatever it is you certainly don’t look it!”

Astronomers may say what they like, a Planet is as old as it looks, especially if it is a Lady-Planet, and we have seen ours when she didn’t look a June day over sixteen! and, not having a bulging forehead, we told her so!

Astronomers think themselves so wise, but what do they know about the sex of the Planets?

With the exception of Mother Earth and old Sol Phœbus, – nothing!

If you asked an Astronomer whether the Pleiad girls were really the daughters of Atlas, or what Jupiter was doing with eight Moons (if they were Moons), he would think you were trifling with him.

But is it not possible that the old Greek tales were the garbled gossip of an age-forgotten science of which we have only the A.B.C.?

If it is Love that makes the world go round (and who can prove that it isn’t?), what makes the other Planets go round?

How about the movements of the Heavenly Bodies?

How about —[4 - This is all very interesting, but don’t you think perhaps it is —The Reader.]

Quite right! Quite right! how we do run on!

CHAPTER IX

THE FACE OF THE GLOBE

There are no good photographs of the Giddy Globe; she refuses to sit.

Imagine attempting to photograph an obese and flighty Spheroid who spends her time pirouetting round in a circle with all her might and main.