Ideals
THERE lie my Ideals, bruised and broken on the battlefield of experience. All of them — there is not one left — choked and withered by the poisonous gases of Reality.
See them — they are funny, truly.
Faith in mankind; faith in God — friendship — woman — and the rest. The silly show!
Yet somehow, I feel there must be one that has escaped — one that I do not comprehend. How else could my heart sing with the poppies nodding in the sunlight as I go about my daily tasks?
Tom Sleeper
Last Season's Broadway Successes
THE season closed and Broadway is preparing for its next year's musical successes. Is it clever advertisement or is there nothing else to be said about these musical comedies? But vainly did I scan the newspaper reports and reviews of "music critics" in our daily papers, to find out what these shows all are about. Thousands of dollars of costumes, wonderful lighting effects, marvelous scenery, beautiful girls, a chorus "imported" from some foreign country noted for the beauty of its women — all this under the heading of musical comedy. Where is the comedy and where is the music?
Reading these newspaper reports of the opening nights, I am very much reminded of my only trip to Coney Island, in those good old days of about ten years ago; of the professor in front of a gorgeous monumental building proclaiming "Here is the world, look at the world, the whole world just as it is! The world with its beauty and its ugliness. With its romances and its tragedies, with its happiness and its misery! Here is the world, come and look at it, don't miss it — it's only twenty-five cents!" And I paid my twenty-five cents and seated myself comfortably in a plush-covered opera chair among hundreds of others who paid their quarters. The curtain rose upon a scene which was a masterpiece of stage painting. A huge table was in the middle of the stage, covered with black diamond-embroidered velvet. A gentleman in immaculate dress elaborated in half an hour's speech the assertions of the professor outside of the show-house. Garlands of good looking girls whose dresses had not climbed quite high enough, and not descended quite low enough, were an interesting background back of the table. Suddenly the house was darkened. The diamonds on the black velvet cover sparkled in the brilliant spotlight. The music stopped playing. Slowly and carefully the table was uncovered. There lay the world before us — unquestionably the world with all its tragedies and all its romances. The World, the dally paper, you could have bought for a penny anywhere. Of course, we were stung. But we liked to be stung. And we sent our friends to be stung, too.
The makeup might be different, but the show and the [music] are the least things considered by our theatrical management when producing the comedies of our new seasons. To look for a new plot in the comedy or for a new motif in the music would be fruitless. But our public is so accommodating, they know they are stung. They are happy because they are stung, and therefore, they will send their friends. And the musical comedy was a howling success of last season of Broadway.
The operette is designed to solve the tenseness imposed upon us by the routine of the day. But it really is: an overture of ''a night out," the prelude to all the happenings hereafter.
It isn't healthy. It is foreign to the lives of most of us, it is too tense in itself to afford us relaxation. It is an overdose of a stimulant taken mostly by the wrong kind of people at the wrong time in wrong places. Therefore, the musical comedy on Broadway is not a popular institution of the masses. It is not, and never can be, an important part in the lives of people. The American people are healthy and morbidness in all its phases is hated as well as an empty pocketbook.
Some day we will have a distinctly "American show." And until that time our showhouses will be costly curios and not popular institutions.
G.B.
Jingo I, Emperor of Monkeydom
AMONG the monkeys was one named Jingo, who was displeased with every kind of work. While the others were working for their daily bread in the sweat of their brows, he was lounging around lazily. And finally he came to the conclusion that he was better than his fellow monkeys, because he was not following the plough on hot days and because his hands were not hard and horny from toil. It seemed to him that he had been chosen by Nature to obtain his food for nothing and to be master over all others. And to confirm this opinion he placed a crown upon his head.
A few monkeys who thought his laziness super-fashionable kept him company and loafed with him on working days. Jingo lauded them for this, and one day he decided to make them princes and counts and barons, and he arranged a special ceremony to solemnly make friendly loafers members of his order.
This was the origin of kingdoms and aristocracies among monkeys under Jingo the First. They permitted their nails to grow long. They wriggled their tails in a most peculiar fashion and they curled their belly hair with curling irons. Now these distinctions would have been very nice and pleasant if the working monkeys would only have paid attention to them, but danger was imminent and it seemed as if they would soon have to give up their doings or starve.
In this embarrassment the laziest among them all, monkey Bimms, who later on called himself Fidelis, invented an ingenious plan which enabled them to fill their paunches gratuitously as long as they lived, and to pass their lives in abundance of everything they desired. He said that they would have to invent a god, to be placed supposedly above the monkey-world, and that they would have to declare themselves the special envoys and darlings of this god, and that the people would have to be taught that only the greatest devotion to themselves could make monkeys blessed, and that god's darlings had to be fed as long as they lived, with the best and most nutritious foods; that they had a right to every tenth cocoanut and that they must not work under any circumstances, as this would prevent them from praying and from ruling.
Bimms, or Fidelis the First, undertook hereafter to be a teacher of the people; he knew that monkeys could be made dumbfounded by strange appearances and therefore he assumed a holy-like air; cut his hair and shaved it off. Later he went around shedding many tears and sighing deeply, and he spread broadcast the story that he was commissioned by the mysterious god to preach contrition among his fellow monkeys and to educate them to be believing creatures. He painted with glowing colors the terrible fate of such who would not believe him.
The poor monkeys, who were always busy and had no time to think about such things, were terrified by the words and tears of Bimms-Fidelis. And because they hoped to lead a more beautiful life after their death, they were more than willing to make it pleasant for the darlings of god during their lifetime.
Everybody who consented to give the tenth cocoanut and otherwise to help god's darlings to fill their paunches with good things, was blessed by Bimms-Fidelis with specially prepared words. They were publicly lauded and an amazingly happy time promised them after their death. And so it came to pass that soon many monkeys took the oath of everlasting loyalty to Jingo and Bimms.
Of course there were still some left who resisted and who would not believe, but the number of believers had become so large that the doubters could be treated in a peculiarly dreadful way. They kept their tails on burning coals until they believed in the new god. They racked their limbs in torture chambers; they hung them; they cut off their heads, burned them and quartered them, until finally religion became the common property of the monkeys.
And now there started a wonderful life for Jingo the First and his nobility and also especially for Bimms-Fidelis and his followers. They were laying around on silk pillows, had their flies fanned off and their vermin removed.
They were not at all thankful for the gifts brought to them by the working people but they were very severe and very hard on their supporters in order to sustain their tyrannies.
Whenever they were suspicious that diligence and care were slacking down, Bimms-Fidelis let his God lighten and thunder; let him hail and rain stones, and he transformed every natural event into a punishment of the offended deity. He also smothered every desire of learning and declared stupidity a divine institution.
In such a way, he, as well as Jingo the First, increased his claim from year to year. And the poor working people now had for their worst worry, the task of how to satisfy the demands of the elected of god. Still harder was it for the progeny. From childhood they had been reared in piety and reverence before the mighty monkeys who ruled. Their origin had been forgotten. Everybody had grown up in stupidity and therefore the fear of the mysterious power increased. The sons of Jingo became more aggressive and desirous of everything they could get hold of. So did the disciples of the ingenious Bimms and the progeny of the aristocracy.
They now themselves believed in all the idolatries of Fidelis; they believed in their own exclusiveness and in both they found justification to claim more and more.
They are still increasing their claims from day to day somewhere in the Empire of Monkeydom.
After the German of "Simplicissimus" in Simplicissimus, by Guido Bruno.
Balloons — by Clara Tice
Flasks and Flagons
By Francis S. Saltus
Chateau Margaux
THERE is a power within the succulent grape
That made thee, stronger than all human power.
It baffles death in its exulting hour,
And leaves its victim fortune to escape.
Thy cheering drops can magically drape
Atrocious thoughts of doom with bloom and flower,
Turning to laughing calm care's torment sour,
And flooding dreams with many a gentle shape.
Ecstatic hope and resurrection lie
In thy consoling beauty, and whene'er
Pale mortals sip thee bringing soothing peace,
I see a blue and orange-scented sky
A warm beach blest by God's untainted air,
Circling the snowy parapets of Nice!
Chartreuse Vert
HOW strange that thy enrapturing warmth should come
From the chill cloister of the prayerful monk,
To cheer the desolate heart in misery sunk,
And warm the lips that sorrow has made dumb!
Thou bring'st the merry twitter of birds that hum,
The soul's sweet exodus of song, when shrunk
Expands again, when, all thy sweetness drunk,
Illumes the blood grown impotent and numb.
And when I see thee, I most fondly dream
Thou must have been the genius and the slave
That led Aladdin in the legend old
Down thro' dim passages to goals extreme,
And in the arcana of a hidden cave
Have shown him marvelous treasuries of gold!
Hatred Discarded
By Victor Meric
SCENE I. — In the Council Chamber
A UNION DEPUTY: — Gentlemen, I shall go on with my proofs! The syndicalists are incompetent, ignorant beings, lunatics! They do not know a thing about Socialism. They claim to represent the working class when in reality three-fourths of them have long ceased to be workers. They practice Sabotage which is a monstrosity. They incite workers to strike, which is an infamy. They declare themselves unpatriotic, which is a crime. We wish to have nothing in common with those people. (Lively applause from the heart of the assembly.)
SECOND DEPUTY: —To be sure, I hold the same views as my colleague. (Good! Good! from the left.) I will go even further. By their criminal inciting, by their inadmissible underhand dealings, the revolutionists, the anarchists, the syndicalists this abominable gang become sport for the bourgeois and are working against the Social revolution which we want legal and pacific. No more strikes, gentlemen, no more futile disturbances. We loudly repudiate those faithless brothers. We no longer want to side with them. Better still, we are decided to stand against them at every opportunity. (The extreme left gives the speaker an ovation.)
THE VOICE OF THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY (From the depths of a cell): — Now, then! Are you all mad? What ails you suddenly? How dare you indulge in such criticism before your opponents? Do you not see that notwithstanding the divergences of method and of tactics you are all aiming toward the same goal? Come now! Let us have union, let us have peace! All of you must unite if you wish to avoid making yourselves inevitably a laughing stock. The revolutionary syndicalists have their bad points, but they also have their good ones. They teach the workingmen organization on the economic basis and they train them to rely entirely upon themselves, through violent methods. Instead of attacking them, help them. It will be better, so . . . enough! No more grudges. No more hatred! All unite for the Revolution!
FIRST DEPUTY: — Who is this intruder?
SECOND DEPUTY: — He is a poor lunatic, a character of Blangui's and Pavashol's type who goes on preaching the discarding of hatreds and manages to keep in prison the whole year round.
THE MOB: — He annoys us! Down with him! Spit on him! Down with him!
SCENE II. — At the Federation of Labor
THE SECRETARY OF SYNDICALISM: — Comrades, I wish to proceed with my demonstration. The elected Socialists are incompetent; they are ignorant beings, lunatics. They don't know the first thing about the interests of the proletarians. They claim to represent the interests of Socialism, when in reality they are perfect bourgeois. They make use of the ballot, which is ridiculous; they invent laws which is hateful; sometimes they cast in a vote for the Government and prove thereby their utter lack of responsibility. We most highly desire to have nothing in common with these people.
SECOND SECRETARY: — To be sure, I hold the same views as my comrade (Bravo! Bravo!) I go even further. By their insane caution, by their guilty compromises the united ones, the elected as well as the militant, the whole nameless gang, becomes sport for the bourgeois and are working against the Social revolution, which we will cause to take place as soon as we become the strongest. No more ballot, citizens! No more deputies, no more candidates! We loudly repudiate these so-called brothers, who have broken faith. We do not want to be classed with them any longer.
(The audience is in a frenzy).
THE VOICE OF THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY (From the depths of a cell): — What ails you suddenly? How dare you indulge in such criticism just when your enemies are watching all your dissensions? Do you not see that notwithstanding the divergences of method and of tactics you are all aiming toward the same goal? Come now! Let us have union! Let us have peace! All of you must unite if you wish to avoid making yourselves, inevitably a laughing stock. The socialist members of parliament have their bad points, but they also have their good ones. They harass the bourgeois and extort from them reforms, concessions, by which you profit. Instead of attacking them, help them. It will be better so. No more grudges! No more hatred! All unite for the Revolution.
FIRST SECRETARY: — Who is this intruder?
SECOND SECRETARY: — A poor fanatic of Christ and Jaure's type, who goes on preaching the discardmg of hatred, and manages to keep in prison the whole year round.
THE MOB: — Remove him! Down with him! Hiss him! Drown him!
SCENE III. — Cast Him Aside!
THE MOB: — Bravo! Good! Hurrah for So-and-So! Long live Somebody! No more hatred! Let us throw down our arms! Hurrah! Hurrah!
A SECRETARY OF SYNDICALISM: — Brothers! We all must unite!
A UNION DEPUTY: — Unite, brothers!
A SYNDICALIST: — Brother Socialist shake!
A SOCIALIST: — Let us embrace, brother anarchist!
THE MOB: — Hurrah! Hurrah! Let us unite. Let us discard our hatred. Let us face our common foe!
A VOICE: — There is the enemy! Just look at the scoundrel, he scurvy fellow who caused us so much harm. Down with this bandit.
(The man without a country enters. His beard and his hair are gray. He is bound with fetters.)
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY: — Brothers . . . Brothers, listen to me . . .!
THE MOB: — Down with him! Death to him!
THE UNIONIST: — He criticized our methods.
A SYNDICALIST: — He attacked our theories.
THE MOB: — Down with him! The bandit! The wretch! The maniac! Hang him! Kill him! Tear him to pieces!
Commotion. They rush upon the man without a country. They drag him by the hair. They cut off his head and hold it up on a bayonet. Shouts of joy. Socialists, liberals. syndicalists, united, stamp on his body. Hatred is discarded.
CURTAIN
(Translated for Bruno's Weekly by Renee de Lacoste)
FIRST HOBO — "Yes, there is whiskey which makes you happy and there is whiskey which makes you sad."
SECOND HOBO — "Sure thing, but you give me the dough and every whiskey makes me happy."
Patchin Place
IT was the afternoon of a gaudy holiday. My tiny street was silent save for the thin cries of a little group of children playing in the far end. All my neighbors, possessed of new raiment or new patriotism, were abroad for the day. I was alone save for the far prattle of the children. My lithe, white-bodied little friend, ruby-tipped between my fingers, burned low; reverie hung about me. And I was appreciative of the peace and quiet of it all. My work did not attract me. I sat, idly dreaming, at the open window. Suddenly, somewhat down the street, I heard sweet, gay music. A violin, touched by a practiced artist's hand, singing of old days in far lands. My eyes closed neath its arabesque witchery, and my soul went out across boundless seas into new worlds of beauty and light and joy. Swift, fresh winds caught me up in their fragrant arms and carried me on and on through myriads of earths and planets into a never-never place of sheer delight. I was a child again, full of naive wonder at my pleasure. I was a lover again, in the first full charm of tender thought and feeling. I was a player again in the world of paint and canvas. I sang as of old, the answering chorus of the whispering melody. I danced with keen happiness. I swam in opal seas beneath a crystal sky of summer blue. The song spun on, and on, and on into the wild aisles of eternity, and did not die. Oh, happy vision! When the music faded, I looked out of my window. A brief distance away he stood, a ragged, crippled, mendicant with a tarnished fiddle. Children danced around him.
James Waldo Fawcett
In the Subway
A RUSH and a crush resound
Forth with a bound
Leaps the sturdy steed.
A whirr and a halt . . .
They are bound.
A rush and a crush, they part
Whirr again, halt again —
It is "dear heart."
Charles S. Sonnenschein
Military Honour
FREDERICK WILLIAM, father of Frederick styled the Great, relates Thiebault, having struck an officer on parade, the latter stopped his horse, and drawing one of his pistols, said: "Sire, you have dishonored me, and I must have satisfaction;" at the same time he fired the pistol over the king's head, exclaiming: "That is for you." Then drawing the other, and aiming it at his heart, said: "This is for me; and shot himself dead on the spot. The king never struck an officer afterward.
Replated Platitudes
The height of wisdom is to know the depth of your ignorance.
Its brightest scholars are always satisfied with the briefest course in the school of experience.
A bachelor girl, whatever her career or renown, is as true to Nature's design as a barren apple tree.
This Bacon-Shakespeare squabble seems to be just a case of "Much Ado About Nothing" — much for Bacon to do, if he had Bill handy, and easy enough for Bill anyway so long as he had bacon enough; so there's really "Nothing much" to make any "Ado" about.
Your friend is he who flees you not when your world is full of terrors and your soul is full of fears.
The main trouble with consistency is: it's as common as common sense.
Julius Doerner
On the Sober Side of the Bar
THE stairway and the narrow halls are lined with men and women talking in strange tongues and undoubtedly descendants of that indestructible race which has been engaged during the last two thousand years in accumulating all the silver pieces in existence. In a room with many benches, the ideal corner of the money-changers, as mentioned in the New Testament, seems to have come to life again.
A greasy fat man, whose features swam in the superfluous fat of his cheeks and of his three chins, sat in the chair on a rostrum intended for a justice-tender to dispense justice to man.
And there he sat sleeping. Every once in a while he would jerk himself up and look with his little pig's eyes contemptuously at some witness in the witness box or at some Caiaphas, or he would listen to the whisper of his helpers and nod his head, or lean his fingers lazily against the fountain pen someone offered him, and he would sign his name to a document, perhaps a scrap of paper that would wreck a man's life and collect rent for the landlord. And all the time complainants complained, and defendants defended and witnesses took oaths, and then a stenographer wrote it all down stupidly in his white little book, and the air was filled with betrayal and with drudgery and with slavery. The helper would knock with his hammer and remind the money-changers that they were in the House of Justice. Like a monster was he sitting there, that judge; dozing, bored, silent, without interest, seemingly blank and destitute of any human feelings; not betraying the slightest attention to anybody or anything; dozing, fat, with a paunch like a faun, hands stained with their deeds, eyes with empty looks which didn't dare to meet the eyes of the defendant. [He] is sitting there; honored, earning his daily bread.
And such bread!
No wonder he has a paunch and three chins hanging down and sagging eyes, dozing — dozing — until he meets his judge.
He will not meet him in Money-Changers Dorado in an earthly House of Justice.
What a dreadful judgment will be issued on this judge's Judgment day!
Cat's Paw
In Our Village
FRANK HARRIS is undoubtedly the busiest man on the Square. While his recently finished two volumes of "Oscar Wilde and his Confessions" are just about to see the light of the world, he is engaging himself immediately on writing a new book; one that is American and very up-to-date. It deals with the Mexican problem on the American border line. But it is the problem of one individual, such as has to be solved by the individual himself. There are rumors that "The Saturday Review," his famous London paper, noted all over the English-speaking world for the important part it secured for itself in the history of English letters of the nineties, will be revived by him with new vigor in New York. Goodness knows that we are in sore need of an ably edited critical review, which deals with life, art and letters of our day, untainted by faction politics and uninfluenced by the troubles of other nations; in short of an American paper which reflects our own times and our own contemporaries without benevolent supervision from across the water.
The Fifth Avenue Coach Company is using Washington Square, the entire area from Fifth Avenue down to Thompson Street, including the children's playgrounds back of the fountain, as a terminal station and car park. I don't know if their franchise grants them the right to rope off our park into sections and assemble there hundreds of prospective fares in waiting line, until they get a chance to occupy one of the twenty-four seats on top of each bus. Thirty-five thousand children of Greenwich Village have as playground only Washington Square, and it doesn't seem fair to deprive them, especially on Sundays and holidays, of the few hours outdoor play granted them by our city administration.
Mrs. Thompson's shop on Thompson Street, right around the corner of the Garret, will not close its doors for the summer, but will afford the opportunity to the many tourists and strangers who visit the Village to see the quaint and artistic things Mrs. Thompson assembles on the walls and the shelves of her little store.
Heloise Haynes, she of the "Wardrobe," left last week [text missing] wrote her letters from prison (Little Review, Chicago) she voiced her experiences of a fortnight in prison whenever she had a chance orally or in writing and her magazine is devoted to her new cause entirely. Dr. Ben Reitman, her lieutenant and advance agent, shares the tribulations of his mentor in the seclusion of his prison cell. He was more unfortunate, as a penalty of two months was imposed upon him.
A List of Angling Book-Plates
Daniel B. Fearing compiled a checking list of Angling Book-Plates, the very first one ever attempted. "Angling Ex Libris," he explains in his introduction "should exhibit one or several of the following: An angler, or a fisherman. Rod, or rod case. Line, leader, or tin for leaders. Float. Hook, or hooks. Flies, Fly-hook. Bait. Bait-box, or can. Creel. Landing-net. Gaff-hook. Walton's Angler. An angling quotation. A Flask, or a jug."
The Pagan
A new magazine, edited by Joseph Kling, and a good one. The May and June issues are on our desk and they contain translations of a comedy by Arthur Schnitzler, and a novelette by Sologub. The editorial comments are quite feasible and in reach of everybody's mentality. Get a sample copy; it is worthwhile to see this individual effort of a group of enthusiasts who chose with taste the contents of these two numbers.
The Storosh
By Otto Ischyk
"BROTHER" said Vlastmil Gerastimov, the storosh, to Luka Lukashevitch "my aunt Vera Nicoliavna is sick, very sick. I doubt if she will live very much longer. Today might be the last chance I have to see her. Take my place as watchman tonight. God will bless you for it and here is something to keep up your courage during the long night watch. It is good stuff. It will just burn your tongue."
"Go, in God's name" replied the farmer, taking the whiskey bottle, the lantern and the heavy fur-lined watchman's coat. "Try to be back again tomorrow. You will have a pleasant journey. The night is clear. I will just go home for a moment to tell my wife that I'll be storosh tonight. God be with you!"
The farmer disappears into his house and the storosh mounts the troika. He "gees up" the horses and starts them on their journey.
The air is quiet and cold. The light dips out in the far west. The nightly wayfarers of the heavens are shining brightly. — Muffled in his fur coat, armed with lantern and stick, Luka Lukashevitch emerges from his home. He looks around in all directions just to make sure that Nature is in order and then he consults for quite a while the bottle of the storosh. A last look at his home and he starts upon his rounds. [Remainder of issue is missing]
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