Delphi complete works of.., p.639
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 639
In a Pullman car one winter night a passenger said to the porter, “7 want you to put me off at Buffalo at three o’clock tomorrow morning. Don’t mind if it is still stormy and snowing, and don’t mind if I try to stay in bed, just put me off; if need be, throw me off.” Next morning, when the train was long past Buffalo, the passenger said angrily to the porter, “Why didn’t you put me off at Buffalo?” The porter stood a minute in openmouthed amazement. “If I didn’t put you off this morning at three o’clock, who was that gentleman who fought so hard when I threw him out?”
But now see to what dimensions that story would be reproduced in the modern “tabloid” form of humor.
Pullman Passenger: Porter, I told you to put me off at Buffalo at 3 A. M. — to sling me off if you had to. Why didn’t you do it?
Porter: I did!
On this principle is based a lot of the brilliant work of the new tribe of humorists known as columnists, some samples of whose methods are appended below. Here belong, too, the aphorisms and the political wisecracks of that kindly soul Will Rogers, over whose memory any writer on humor may well pause for a moment of affectionate recognition.
The best of the American humorous and satirical journals, such as Life and the New Yorker and Vanity Fair, still keep something of the older traditions, but even they have greatly speeded the tempo of comic art. In point of comic drawing and illustration, a phase of humor with which this book is not immediately concerned, they and their fellow journals almost everywhere in America have, for good or ill, left the older methods and models far behind.
The extracts appended to the longer selections in the ensuing chapter are not chosen as necessarily superior to the work of other pens and other pages; they are inserted rather as being illustrative and typical of the mood and trend of this very minute. True estimation and comparison in such an immediate foreground is not possible: the seeing eye is too near. Yet it may well be that through a vast alternative in mode and form we can still trace the distinctive outline of American Humor, resting still on that characteristic of environment and circumstance that made it American.
* * * * *
The three selections which follow here are typical examples of magazine satire and humor of the present hour. The first is from Life, a journal of so long and honorable a record that it has established itself as a sort of institution in the United States and Canada. No reading room is complete without it. Among writers there are many of us, now old men, who can look back to our first appearance in print in Life as one of the high spots of reminiscence.
THE GANGSTER WHO WOULDN’T TALK
WELL, ya certainly got a nice coat of tan, Killer.
That’s what YOU say, not me.
Where’d ya go on your vacation?
Who wantsa know?
Why, I do. You know, justa friendly question, Killer. You know, just among us muggs.
I ain’t talking.
Sure, O. K., Killer. I just wondered what kinda time you had, that’s all.
Well, it ain’t worrying me, is it? Why should it worry YOU?
It ain’t worrying me, Killer. I was just wondering, that’s all.
Well, go on wondering.
I suppose you had a great time?
Yea, maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. A smart guy like you ought to know the answer to all them questions.
I suppose you slept under blankets?
Suppose I did. Then what?
Oh, nothing. Only it’s the usual thing to ask, ain’t it? I mean, guys go away on their vacations and write back “Am Having Fine Time. Slept Last Night Under Blankets.”
What guys?
What guys what?
What guys write like that?
Lots of guys write like that.
All right, wise guy. Just name one. Just name ONE guy what writes like that.
It’s kind of hard to do right off, Killer. But I mean, everybody does.
So you can’t do it, eh?
Gosh, put away your rod, Killer. I ain’t done nothing. Name ONE guy.
How about Mike the Pipe? He wrote to me last year: “X marks my room.”
Yea, and what happened to HIM?
He got knocked off.
So who’s the smart guy, me or him?
You are, Killer. You see, the only reason I asked was I seen Tony the Rat and he said he seen you at Atlantic City with a couple of frills.
It’s a lie. I got six guys to prove it.
So you won’t say a single word about your vacation? You can’t get nothing out of me.
And you won’t come around in a week or a month and start to tell me ALL about it?
I ain’t no punk.
Well, then, Killer, put ’er there. I wanta shake hands. The world could use a couple of hundred million guys just like you.
I’m not commenting.
Doug Welch.
A VANITY FAIR SATIRE
The extract that follows is taken from the pages of Vanity Fair, ajournai to which the compiler of this present work lies under a permanent debt of gratitude. Under the able editorship of Mr. Frank Crowninshield, Vanity Fair has made itself a unique place in America and abroad. A recent incident in connection with one of its cartoons would seem to imply that Vanity Fair is always on the breakfast table of the Mikado of Japan. No doubt it numbers also among its readers the Negus of Abyssinia and the Begum of Bhutan.
The following clever and not unkindly satire is produced by a Vanity Fair author writing under a nom-de-plume. It is a blend of the matter of a book by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., entitled Farewell to Fifth Avenue, with the manner of another book called Forty-two Years in the White House.
WANDERING BOY. — My father, Brigadier General Cornelius Vanderbilt, did not approve of my writing a book about the Vanderbilt family. He said so very often to his wife, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, my mother. (Both of my parents were Vanderbilts, my mother by marriage.) My mother would always worry about me when I was away somewhere writing a book. “Where is my wandering boy tonight,” she would ask, “and how can we help him to find his way home again?”
“Just light a scandal in the window,” my father would suggest bitterly.
Six SEVENTY SEVEN. — Our house on Fifth Avenue was naturally the center of the social and financial life of New York. Frequent visitors were Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon and Andrew Rockefeller. The bewhiskered George F. Baker and the crimson nosed J. P. Morgan would drop in now and then to ask my advice about some problem of international banking. By sixteen I had lunched and dined with every crowned head in Europe, and I was only too glad to lend them the benefit of my wide experience. Andrew Carnegie was especially kind to my sister and myself, and often gave us libraries.
George F. Baker had a fat gold watch on a chain, and J. P. Morgan carried a handkerchief in the breast-pocket of his coat. Andrew Mellon had a moustache. From my intimate association with these men I was able to learn many other little-known but fascinating facts, such as the fact that Theodore Roosevelt wore glasses with a long black ribbon and showed his teeth when he smiled. Roosevelt often used to send for me to come down to the White House and lend him advice, but I felt it was more his place to come to Six Seventy Seven.
FIFTH VERSUS PARK. — Society in New York is divided into two sets, the Fifth Avenue set and the Park Avenue set. On Saturday nights the boys from the Fifth Avenue set would meet the Park Avenue boys somewhere on East 56th Street and pepper them with cobblestones and bricks until they retreated back to the other side of Madison Avenue again. In return, the Park Avenue set would sometimes storm the Union Club or the New York Yacht Club, but we would lean out of the upper windows and drop paper-bags filled with water on them until they went away. Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, my grandmother, used to explain to me that the Park Avenue set lived over the railroad tracks.
WINNING THE WAR. — My grandmother, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, objected to my going to war. “It really seems too bad, just when we have a nice war started and everybody has bought his or her uniform and we have all these charity Bazaars and Liberty Balls arranged,” she said, “for you to enlist and end the whole social season!” Unfortunately Theodore Roosevelt appealed to me, and I had no choice. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get into it,’ Neil,” said the old Colonel, “because Pershing and Wood and the other generals have written me that they need you to win the war. They want you to go over there and get behind the troops.” So I went over to France, and got behind the troops, pretty far behind, in fact, and sure enough, five years later, the war was over, America winning.
HERE AND THERE. — Society was never the same after the War. We were restless. Before the War we would rent Buckingham Palace from its tenants for the summer — my father, Cornelius Vanderbilt, disliked hotels — or else we would remain sequestered on our yacht at Kiel or at Cowes. Now all was different. Summers we spent in Newport or Europe, winters in New York, Virginia or Florida.
We had several flattering offers from California and Asia, but our family really couldn’t be everywhere.
ADDENDUM: SOCIAL LISTS. — Contrary to popular opinion, no attention whatsoever is paid by the leaders of Society to the names decorating the pages of the numerous social registers. When a social leader prepares to give an elaborate party, she (or he) recognizes the existence of just TWO lists. One, known as “The Backbone of American Society,” includes seventy-five names. The other list contains some hundred-and-fifty names of people on the fringe of Society who didn’t quite make the first list, but who are allowed to drop around after dinner. It is located just below The Backbone of American Society, where the first list sits down.
My grandmother, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, had no use for either list, of course, and used to make up her own register of guests who might attend a function at the Vanderbilt mansion. After numerous weedings and prunings, the final list would emerge as follows:
Mr and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Mr and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II Mr and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III Any other Mr or Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilts up to ten. A dinner at Six Seventy Seven consequently came to be known as “The Vanderbilt Convention.”
AN AMUSING INCIDENT. — Should the brother of the former President of the Republic of Bolivia be seated on the right of the hostess and the cousin (by marriage) of the grandson of the late Ethiopian Minister be seated on her left, or vice versa?
Should the impoverished scion of a decadent Russian nobility precede the son of a chain-store grocer who happens to possess several cool millions and a desire to marry the hostess’s daughter, and, if so, how rapidly?
Should the butler decant the wine before serving the guests, or wait till after dinner and decant the guests?
These were but a few of the daily social problems that wracked the household at Six Seventy Seven, and often a nice point in “savoir faire” would arise, such as the problem of seating a visiting pair of Siamese twins on either side of the host. I recall one amusing incident when a foreign nobleman, Mr. X., was invited to dinner, and informed that he was to sit on the right hand of my grandmother, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt. Unfortunately Mr. X. did not understand English idioms any too well, and as a result my grandmother had to eat her entire meal with her left hand. Her right arm was numb to the shoulder before the dinner was over.
PROGRESS. — My great-grandmother, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, could never get used to modern inventions like dial telephones. She was greatly perturbed, for example, when the telephone company informed her that “Vanderbilt” was now “Vanderbilt-5”. “There is only one Vanderbilt,” retorted my great-grandmother crisply, as she ordered her phone taken out.
The remaining contemporary magazine extract is taken from the New Yorker, a publication more youthful than the others, but second to none in its brilliance and originality. As has been said above, it shows, along with all the art of the immediate hour, a sort of hurry and eagerness for effect, a condensation of matter that at times leaves the older generation breathless. But that’s what they ought to be anyway.
HOW TO TELL A MAJOR POET FROM A MINOR POET
AMONG THE THOUSANDS of letters which I received two years ago from people thanking me for my article “How to Drive the New Ford” were several containing the request that I “tell them how to distinguish a major poet from a minor poet.” It is for these people that I have prepared the following article, knowing that only through one’s ability to distinguish a major poet from a minor poet may one hope to improve one’s appreciation of, or contempt for, poetry itself.
Take the first ten poets that come into your head — the list might run something like this: Robert Frost, Arthur Guiterman, Edgar Lee Masters, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Stephen Vincent Benêt, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Lorraine Fay, Berton Braley, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Can you tell, quickly and easily, which are major and which minor? Or suppose you were a hostess and a poet were to arrive unexpectedly at your party, could you introduce him properly: “This is Mr. Lutbeck, the major poet,” or “This is Mr. Schenk, the minor poet”? More likely you would have to say merely: “This is Mr. Masefield, the poet” — an embarrassing situation for both poet and hostess alike.
All poetry falls into two classes: serious verse and light verse. Serious verse is verse written by a major poet; light verse is verse written by a minor poet. To distinguish the one from the other, one must have a sensitive ear and a lively imagination. Broadly speaking, a major poet may be told from a minor poet in two ways: (i) by the character of the verse, (2) by the character of the poet. (Note: it is not always advisable to go into the character of the poet.)
As to the verse itself, let me state a few elementary rules. Any poem starting with “And when” is a serious poem written by a major poet. To illustrate — here are the first two lines of a serious poem easily distinguished by the “And when:”
And when, in earth’s forgotten moment, I
Unbound the cord to which the soul was bound...
Any poem, on the other hand, ending with “And how” comes under the head of light verse, written by a minor poet. Following are the last two lines of a “light” poem, instantly identifiable by the terminal phrase:
Placing his lips against her brow
He kissed her eyelids shut. And how.
All poems of the latter type are what I call “light by degrees” — that is, they bear evidences of having once been serious, but the last line has been altered. The above couplet, for example, was unquestionably part of a serious poem which the poet wrote in 1916 while at Dartmouth and originally ended:
Placing his lips against her brow
He kissed her eyelids shut enow.
It took fourteen years of knocking around the world before he saw how the last line could be revised to make the poem suitable for publication.
While the subject matter of a poem does not always enable the reader to classify it, he can often pick up a strong clue. Suppose, for instance, you were to run across a poem beginning:
When I went down to the corner grocer He asked would I like a bottle of Welch’s grapejuice And I said, “No, Sir.”
You will know that it is a minor poem because it deals with a trademarked product. If the poem continues in this vein:
“Then how would you like a package of Jello,
A can of Del Monte peaches, some Grape Nuts,
And a box of Rinso —
Or don’t you thin’ so?”
you may be reasonably sure not only that the verse is “light” verse but that the poet has established some good contacts and is getting along nicely.
And now we come to the use of the word “rue” as a noun. All poems containing the word “rue” as a noun are serious. This word, rhyming as it does with “you,”
“true,”
“parvenu,”
“emu,”
“cock-a-doodle-doo,” and thousands of other words, and occupying as it does a distinguished place among nouns whose meaning is just a shade unclear to most people — this word, I say, is the sort without which a major poet could not struggle along. It is the hallmark of serious verse. No minor poet dares use it, because his very minority carries with it the obligation to be a little more explicit. There are times when he would like to use “rue,” as, for instance, when he is composing a poem in the A. E. Housman manner:
When drums were heard in Pelham,
The soldier’s eyes were blue,
But I came back through Scarsdale,
And oh the...
Here the poet would like to get in the word “rue” because it has the right sound, but he doesn’t dare.
So much for the character of the verse. Here are a few general rules about the poets themselves. All poets who, when reading from their own works, experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not. All women poets, dead or alive, who smoke cigars are major. All poets who have sold a sonnet for one hundred and twenty-five dollars to a magazine with a paid circulation of four hundred thousand are major. A sonnet is composed of fourteen lines; thus the payment in this case is eight dollars and ninety-three cents a line, which constitutes a poet’s majority. (It also indicates that the editor has probably been swept off his feet.)
All poets whose work appears in “The Conning Tower” of the Herald Tribune are minor, because the Herald Tribune is printed on uncoated stock — which is offensive to major poets. All poets named Edna St. Vincent Millay are major.
All poets who submit their manuscripts through an agent are major. These manuscripts are instantly recognized as serious verse. They come enclosed in a manila folder accompanied by a letter from the agent:
DEAR MR. — : Here is a new group of Miss McGroin’s poems, called “Seven Poems.” We think they are the most important she has done yet, and hope you will like them as much as we do.
