Delphi complete works of.., p.235
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 235
I wish I could remember
The house where I was born
And the little window where perhaps
The sun peeped in at morn.
But father can’t remember
And mother can’t recall
Where they lived in that December ——
If it was a house at all.
It may have been a boarding-house
Or family hotel,
A flat or else a tenement.
It’s very hard to tell.
There is only one thing certain from my questioning as yet,
Wherever I was born, it was a matter of regret.
That, I think, reproduces more or less the spirit of the age. If some one would just put it into really good up-to-date poetry — without any rhyme in it, and with no marks of feet in it, and without putting it into lines — it might go into any present-day anthology.
But let me, in my own halting and imperfect way, try another one. There used to be — either for recitation or for singing — a very pathetic poem about a little girl begging her father to “come home.” The opening stanza ran: —
Father, dear father, come home with me now;
The clock in the steeple strikes one.
You promised, dear father, that you would come home
As soon as your day’s work was done.
The scene, of course, was laid on the other side of the Eighteenth Amendment. The picture that went with the song showed, from the outside, a little tavern, or saloon, with curtained windows and a warm red light behind them. Out in the snow was the girl, singing. And father was in behind the red curtains. And he wouldn’t come out! That was the plot. Father’s idea was that he would stay right where he was — that it had Home beaten four ways.
Now all of that is changed. The little lighted tavern is gone. Father stays home, and the children of to-day have got to have the poem recast, so as to keep as much of the pathos as may be, but with the scene reversed. Here it is, incomplete, perhaps, but suggestive.
FATHER, DEAR FATHER, GO OUT
Oh, father, dear father, why won’t you go out?
Why sit here and spoil all the fun?
We took it for granted you’d beat it down town
As soon as your dinner was done.
With you in the parlor, the boys are so glum,
No games and no laughter about.
Oh, father, you put the whole house on the bum,
Dear father, please, father, go out.
In some cases our old once favorite poems are based on the existence of institutions that are passing away and that are scarcely known to the children of to-day. A case in point is Longfellow’s Village Blacksmith. In this the poet tells us that under the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands and adds that the children love to look in at the door and catch the sparks by the hatful.
All this, I fear, must be altered from top to bottom. There is no smithy now, and no horses to be shod and no sparks, and many children don’t ever wear hats. Even the old-fashioned sing-song rhyme gets tiresome to a modern ear. The whole poem must be recast to suit the times. I should propose putting it into what is called free verse, something as follows:
THE MAIN STREET GARAGE
FREE AIR
On the corner of the main street stands the principal garage.
The garage man is a man of singular muscular development.
Children coming home from school like to watch him punch the gasoline.
On Sunday he goes to church, whenever any of the cars of the congregation break down.
In this way he not only earns a night’s repose, but even now and then he can take a trip to New York, and go without repose for a whole night.
And with this I leave the topic for other pens and the idea for other minds. I am quite sure that if some one in one of the English departments of the colleges would take up this work, there might be a lot in it.
Illustrations I Can Do Without SOME GENTLE SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CONTEMPORARY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES
HAVE YOU EVER noticed, my dear reader — but of course you have; you notice everything — how illustrations in the picture magazines always run to certain types? Somebody starts a particular line of picture and somebody else copies it, and so it goes on till it becomes a sort of type picture. Then the subscribers begin to look for it regularly and the editor feels that he must have it.
Here is a case in point, taken from the English illustrated weeklies, the high-class press that is put together “by gentlemen for gentlemen.”
Every week in every paper of this class you will see a photograph of a lady in a tweed suit sitting on a camp-stool, and beside her a gentleman in a tweed suit standing up and leaning on a stick. There are probably a lot of dogs around and the picture carries some such legend as the following:
With the Yardsborough Beagles: Lady Vera de
Verest and Mr. Robinson
Why it is always these two, I don’t know. You would think that Lord Vere de Verest ought to get in sometimes; and even Mrs. Robinson might have a look-in. But apparently not. Wherever they are, it is always Lady Vera de Verest and Mr. Robinson. That combination seems to have a sort of “class” to it.
And they always turn up in different places, according to the season, and the place always has a touch of the incomprehensible about it. For example, you see them in the same attitude with three or four dead partridges, or crows, lying in front of them and the legend:
With the Guns at Dumfoolish Castle:
Lady Vera de Verest and Mr. Robinson.
I’ve seen them depicted not only with the Beagles at Yardborough and with the guns at Dumfoolish, but with the pigeon-traps at Monte Carlo and with the Spitz in Spitzbergen.
I imagine that they must write letters such as:
My dear Lady Vera de Verest:
What do you say to a run over to Spain so as to get photographed with me and the bulls of Madrid? If you are on, bring your camp-stool and meet me there.
MR. ROBINSON.
Or else, something of this sort:
Dear Mr. Robinson:
What do you say to our being photographed “with the snakes at Darjeeling”? If we go out to India, we could arrange our schedules to meet and be photographed on the way at least three times— “with the looters on the Riviera” and “with the plagues of Egypt.” So we should not miss a single week. Do come.
VERA.
I suppose that here too, as in all such cases, there is the usual tragic background of those left behind. I can imagine Lord Vere de Verest, the dignified gentleman whose home is thus made a mockery, walking across from De Vere Castle to the cottage where Mrs. Robinson lives, an open letter in his hand.
“Where are they now?” she queries gently, as he holds out the letter with a sob.
“With the snakes in Darjeeling,” he answers, as kindly as he can.
“And where do they appear next?” she murmurs, a note of pain in her voice in spite of herself.
“They are to be with the Hoodoos of Madagascar,” he groans.
“Edward,” she says, addressing him by his Christian name for the first time in fifty years and laying her hand on his coat sleeve, “don’t you think, dear, that we might do a little of this kind of thing ourselves? If the editors of the Stretch, and the Prattler, and the Outstander want pictures of this sort, let us see what we can do. There is a kind of little farmyard behind the cottage and I have a camera. Come out with me.”
And if the week after that the illustrated press carried a picture entitled “Lord Vere de Verest and Mrs. Robinson looking at a pigsty,” it would be at least as interesting as The Beagles and The Yaks and it might stop a lot of trouble.
Another form of magazine illustration that I can do without, or without which I can do, is the face, head, and shoulders of a man done in rather smudgy ink. It has written under it, “Colonel Robinson, the New Governor of the Virgin Islands,” or “Pilsudski, Dictator of Poland,” or perhaps “Executed last week at Sing Sing.” It doesn’t matter what is under it; it really is always the same picture.
Hitherto I used to wonder how this picture got into the magazines. Just by chance a few days ago in visiting the staff of a periodical, I found the explanation. I happened in the corridor of the building to get into conversation with the very man from whose face all the photographs are taken.
“You are quite right,” he said to me; “they are all the same picture. It saves such a lot of time and trouble. I am just going out now to get photographed as the ‘New Mikado of Japan’ and then the same picture will appear on another page as ‘Lloyd George, Reappointed Leader of the British Liberals,’ and on the back as ‘Mrs. Annie Besant, the Venerable Theosophist.’ ”
“Is it possible?” I said.
“Quite so. And by the way, how did you like that one of me last week called ‘The New Mayor of Miami.’ I thought it was a peach. And there was a dandy of me called ‘Yuan Chung Chow, Leader of the Cantonese Rebels’ and the same picture called ‘Admiral Ferguson, Who Will Fight Yuan Chung Chow — —’ ”
“But stop,” I said, “doesn’t the public ever — —”
“Nonsense!” said the man. “Why, the other day there were two pictures of me side by side — they just looked really the same. One was called ‘The Oldest Father-in-Law in Europe, Jean Jacques Dubois,’ and the other (used to illustrate an article on hold-ups) was labeled ‘Youngest Crook That Ever Stole a Hundred Thousand.’ People looked at the magazine and said what a kind face the old father-in-law had, and they looked on the other page and said that you could see it was a crook.
“Listen,” he continued, “you take this week’s magazine, and cover up the names and see if you distinguish which is the one called ‘Venerable Scientist Speaks’ and the one called ‘Will Serve Ten Years.’ Try to distinguish ‘Lady Chatelaine Entertains the Poor’ from ‘Arctic Explorer Returns Home’; try to separate out ‘Queen Mary Welcomes the Duke of York’ from ‘Boisterous Scene in a Viennese Beer Garden.’ You can’t. All the pictures in the magazine,” he went on with an excitement that was almost violent, “are just me. I’m Queen Mary, I’m Yuan Chung Chow, I’m — —”
And just at that moment a man dressed in a sort of uniform stepped up to us in the corridor and said:
“Excuse me, sir. I had lost track of this gentleman. He’s under my charge. I hope he’s not been disturbing you.”
The man himself as he was led away was still saying, “I’m Queen Mary, I’m Thomas Edison, I’m Royal Birthday, I’m Admiral Ferguson.”
Our Summer Pets AS PRESENTED BY OUR ENTHUSIASTIC NATURE WRITERS
I
THE HOUSE FLY
The house fly (fuscus domesticus) is at his very best during the months of August and September. It is then that his coat is at its glossiest and that his beautiful back plate, or caparace, shines with its highest luster. His lovely eyes also take on at this season (the love season of the fly) their deepest color, while his soft vibrant note is tuned to the voice of nature itself.
At this time of year the fly-collector, or even the amateur, should have no difficulty in finding one or more perfect specimens of this magnificent multiped.
“Alone among the odiferous quadrumana or cephalopods,” writes an eminent buggist, “the fly seems capable of thriving wherever man can live and takes on with ease the environment of our civilization.”
Indeed, it appears that the house fly is found all over North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the nature student needs therefore no further apparatus for his study than to buy a house. A suitable house having been selected, he may put in one, two, or more flies with entire certainty of a good result.
Flies are not difficult to rear and feed and with a little care they will thrive well and even increase. A pan of milk set out overnight, or the remains of a tin of salmon set on a plate with a little marmalade, is as much as any fly asks or needs when in good health.
It is perhaps not generally known that the fly can be tamed. “During the past summer,” writes Mr. Summernut, one of the keenest of our nature students, “I succeeded, after several efforts, in taming a fly.
“When we became better acquainted he would light on the table beside me and nibble at the crumbs near my plate. Once while venturing too near the rim of my tumbler he fell into the milk. At other times he would actually alight on my shoulder and rub his cheek against mine.
“My house fly was at his friendliest during the drowsy hour of the morning just before the time came for my getting out of bed. One heard a gentle buzzing and there was the merry little fellow peeping over the edge of the coverlet, his big eyes sparkling with fun. He seemed to say ‘Peek-a-boo — time to get up!’ No use to wave him away.
“Back he came again with the same friendly buzz as if inviting me to hop out of bed and take a run on the lawn. The only thing to do was to take a towel with a knotted end and swat him over the head with it. This would deter the little fellow and I would then see him fly across to the window pane and sit rubbing his head with his hind leg as if discouraged.”
II
THE POTATO BUG
The potato bug (buggo Colorado) does best in a rich, sandy soil. It can be brought to its greatest natural perfection by planting within its easy reach a crop of potatoes either in rows or hills.
“It was my good fortune last summer,” says Professor Allgone, the famous author of “Parisites and Paris Green,” “to come into possession of a splendid pair of potato bugs, male and female.
“Both bugs were set out in the garden in a spot suitably chosen near a potato plant.
“To my great delight on visiting the garden on the third day, I found that the two young housekeepers had laid a rich nestful of eggs carefully set on the under side of a potato leaf. The joy of the parents reached its maximum when a few days later the eggs hatched into a group of tiny little buglets.
“Indeed, there is no telling to what height the ecstasy of the whole family might have gone had they not accidentally stumbled on some Paris Green carelessly left within their reach.”
III
THE MOSQUITO
With the exception of the house fly, the mosquito is perhaps the most widely disseminated of our domesticated insects. He is to be found almost anywhere on verandas, on upper and lower balconies, on front and back steps; but he is seen at his best when tucked away behind the little white bed curtains that are specially provided for him.
It is here that he can most successfully be brought to a hand-to-hand conflict, which is his delight.
A mosquito, as seen under a microscope, is, to the naturalist, an object of equal delight. His four pair of eyes with double refracting lenses from which the light glitters in all directions are equaled only by the great sweep of his gossamer wings and the beautiful articulation of his sixteen legs.
Most striking of all is his powerful bill, armed on each side with teeth, like a double crosscut saw, with which he bores through the cranium of his enemy. The mosquito knows no half measures. He is out for blood. Hence comes his high personal courage which enables him to attack single-handed and unsupported an opponent of twenty thousand times his own weight.
Odds are nothing to him. He rushes into battle singing as he goes, selects the stoutest of his enemies, and seizes him in a death grip in the fattest part of his neck. The British bull-dog and the American eagle are cowards beside the mosquito.
Protection against the assaults of the mosquito has always presented a serious problem to the settlers and campers in our summer wildernesses. But by the trained naturalist, or nature lover, the difficulty is easily overcome.
The naturalist before setting out on his study smears himself with ham fat and oil of citronella, over which he spreads a thin layer of beeswax and asafetida. He then sprays his clothes with coal oil and drapes himself from the head down in a long white net. Thus prepared the naturalist need fear nothing outside of Bengal.
It is a pity to think that the mosquito, like the house fly, is threatened with extinction. There are said to be only a few billion million left. Even these are going — falling victims to their own high courage in their fierce assaults against our civilization like the Crusaders dashing against the Saracens.
But no doubt the efforts of the new Mosquito Preservation Society, one of the latest of our animal philanthropy efforts, will induce the government to step in before it becomes too late. A suitable reservation of land as a Mosquito Park may preserve for our descendants a few thousand million specimens of what was once the dominant animal of North America.
IV
THE SKUNK
The skunk, who is a high favorite, very high, with the nature lover, is a short cylindrical animal with a leg at each corner.
The skunk is an object of great beauty. Its magnificent fur coat, dark black with two lengthwise stripes of white, is perhaps unexcelled among the fur-bearing or odoriferous animals. Why, then, in spite of the beauty of the skunk, do we not like him? We all know, but we don’t say.
The skunk is, by nature, a quiet, peace-loving, tame, and affectionate animal. He asks nothing more than to be near us. He does not bite, he cannot scratch, he makes no noise and only asks to be friends and to forget the past.
Why, then, do we not take him into our friendship?
The nature student who wishes to get into close contact with a skunk, and to see him at short range (his range is about nine feet and a half), must visit him in his own fastnesses in the northern wilds.
“I had the good luck last summer,” writes Mr. Sleepout, the distinguished nature student who spent seven weeks in the Adirondacks with no other food than a combination suit and a bow and arrow, “to meet a skunk face to face. He was a splendid fellow easily eighteen inches long, with a beautifully arching back and sweep of tail. I had full time to admire the dainty way in which his ears joined his head and his head ran into his neck and his neck ended in his body.
