The So-called Human Race

SEIZE HIM, SCOUTS!

Sir: I submit for the consideration of the new school of journalism the following, recently perpetrated by an aspiring young journalist: “Information has been received that Mrs. Blank, who was spending a vacation of several weeks in Colorado, was killed in an automobile accident over long distance telephone by her husband.” Calcitrosus.

“THAT’S GOOD.”

Sir: A man and three girls were waiting for the bus. The driver slowed up long enough to call, “Full house!” “Three queens!” responded the waiting cit, and turned disgustedly away. X. T. C.

WHY BANK CLERKS ARE TIRED

Sir: Voice over the telephone: “Please send me two check books.”

B. C.: “Large or small?”

V. o. t. t.: “Well, I don’t write such very large checks, but sometimes they amount to a hundred dollars.” Jane.

“Why not make room for daddy?” queries the editor of the Emporia Gazette, with a break in his voice. Daddy, we hardly need say, is the silently suffering member of the household who hasn’t a large closet all to himself, with rows of, shiny hooks on which to hang his duds.

Ah, yes, why not make room for daddy? It is impossible to contemplate daddy’s pathetic condition without bursting into tears. Votes for women? Huh! Hooks for men!

“NATION-WIDE.”

How anybody can abide
That punk expression, “nation-wide” —

How one can view unhorrified
That vile locution, nation-wide,

I cannot see. I almost died
When first I spotted nation-wide.

On every hand, on every side,
On every page, is nation-wide.

To everything it is applied;
No matter what, it’s nation-wide.

The daily paper’s pet and pride:
They simply dote on nation-wide.

It seems if each with t’other vied
To make the most of nation-wide.

No doubt the proof-room Argus-eyed
Approves the “style” of nation-wide.

My colleagues fall for it, but I’d
Be damned if I’d use nation-wide.

It gets my goat, and more beside,
That phrase atrocious, nation-wide.

Abomination double-dyed,
Away, outrageous “nation-wide”!

Speaking of local color, B. Humphries Brown and Bonnie Blue were wedded in Indianapolis.

Married, in Evansville, Ind., Ellis Shears and Golden Lamb. Something might be added about wool-gathering.

Embarrassed by the riches of modern literature at our elbow, we took refuge in Jane Austen, and re-read “Mansfield Park,” marvelling again at its freshness. They who hold that Mark Twain was not a humorist, or that he was at best an incomplete humorist, have an argument in his lack of appreciation of Jane Austen.

One of the most delightful things about the author of “Mansfield Park” that we have seen lately is an extract from “Personal Aspects of Jane Austen,” by Miss Austen-Leigh. “Each of the novels,” she says, “gives a description, closely interwoven with the story and concerned with its principal characters, of error committed, conviction following, and improvement effected, all of which may be summed up in the word ‘Repentance.’”

Almost as good is Miss Austen-Leigh’s contradiction of the statement that sermons wearied Jane. She quotes the author’s own words: “I am very fond of Sherlock’s Sermons, and prefer them to almost any.” What a lot of amusement she must have had, shooting relatives and friends through the hat!

Was there ever a character more delightfully detestable than Mrs. Norris? Was there ever another character presented, so alive and breathing, in so few pen strokes? Jane Austen had no need of psychoanalysis.

As for William Lyons Phelps’ remark, which a contrib has quoted, that “too much modern fiction is concerned with unpleasant characters whom one would not care to have as friends,” how would you like to spend a week-end with the characters in “The Mayor of Casterbridge”? With the exception of the lady in “Two on a Tower,” and one or two others, Mr. Hardy’s characters are not the sort that one would care to be cast away with; yet will we sit the night out, book in hand, to follow their sordid fortunes.

“What I want to know is,” writes Fritillaria, “whether you think Jane Austen drew Edmund and Fanny for models, or knew them for the unconscionable prigs they are. I am collecting votes.” Well, we think that Jane knew they were prigs, but nevertheless had, like ourself, a warm affection for Fanny. Fanny Price, Elizabeth Bennet, and Anne (we forget her last name) are three of the dearest girls in fiction.

We are reminded by F. B. T. that the last name of the heroine of “Persuasion” was Elliott. Anne is our favorite heroine – except when we think of Clara Middleton.

Space has been reserved for us in the archæological department of the Field Museum for Pre-Dry wheezes, which should be preserved for a curious posterity. We have filed No. 1, which runs:

“First Comedian: ‘Well, what made you get drunk in the first place?’ Second Comedian: ‘I didn’t get drunk in the first place. I got drunk in the last place.’”

Our budding colyumist (who, by the way, has not thanked us for our efforts in his behalf) will want that popular restaurant gag: “Use one lump of sugar and stir like hell. We don’t mind the noise.”

“What,” queries R. W. C., “has become of the little yellow crabs that floated in the o. f. oyster stew?” Junsaypa. We never found out what became of the little gold safety pins that used to come with neckties.

An innovation at the Murdock House in Shawano, Wis., is “Bouillon in cups,” instead of the conventional tin dipper.

By the way, has any candid merchant ever advertised a Good Riddance Sale?

Much has been written about Mr. Balfour in the last twelvemonth; and Mr. Balfour himself has published a book, a copy of which we are awaiting with more or less impatience. Mr. Balfour is not considered a success as a statesman, because he has always looked upon politics merely as a game; and Frank Harris once wrote that if A. B. had had to work for a living he might have risen to original thought – whatever that may imply.

What we have always marveled at is Balfour’s capacity for mental detachment. In the first year of the war he found time to deliver, extempore, the Gifford lectures, and in the next year he published “Theism and Humanism.” It is said, of course, that he had a great gift for getting or allowing other people to do his work in the war council and the admiralty; but that does not entirely explain his brimming mind.

“There is a fine old man,” as one of our readers reported his Irish gardener as saying of A. B. “Did you know Mr. Balfour?” he was asked. “Did I know him?” was the reply. “Didn’t I help rotten-egg him in Manchester twinty-five years ago!”

Col. Fanny Butcher relates that the average reader who patronizes the New York public library prefers Conan Doyle’s detective stories to any others. Quite naturally. There is more artistry in Poe, and the tales about the Frenchman, Arsène Lupin, are ten times more ingenious than Doyle’s; but Doyle has infused the adventures of Sherlock Holmes with the undefinable something known as romance, and that has preserved them. The great majority of detective stories are merely ingenious.

Col. Butcher says she uses “The Crock of Gold” to test the minds of people. A friend of ours employs “Zuleika Dobson” for the same purpose. What literary acid do you apply?

Our compliments to Mrs. Borah, who possesses a needed sense of humor. “If,” she is reported as saying to her husband, “if it were not for the pleasures of life you might enjoy it.”

A librarian confides to us that she was visited by a young lady who wished to see a large map of France. She was writing a paper on the battlefields of France for a culture club, and she just couldn’t find Flanders’ Fields and No Man’s Land on any of the maps in her books.