Kitabı oku: «The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI», sayfa 7
SO WAGS THE WORLD
BY ANNE WARNER
(With apologies to Samuel Pepys, Esquire)
February first
My birthday and I exceedingly merry thereat having in divers friends and much good wine beside two pasties and more of all than we could eat and drink had we been doubled. Afterwards to the play-house and a very good play and hence to a supper the which most hot and comforting with a butt of brandy and divers cocktails and they being very full did make great sport and joke me that I had never taken a wife to which replied neatly saying that for my part in my twenties did feel myself too young and in my thirties did never chance upon one comely and to my taste at which great applause and pretty to see me bow to right and left although in mortal fear lest something give way, I being grown heavier of late and the quality of cloth suffering from the New York Custom House. The applause being over did continue my speech and say that in my forties had had little time to think of aught but my own personal affairs, but that now being come to my fifties was well disposed to share them and they did all drink to that and smash their glasses with right good cheer prophesying my marriage and drinking long life to Her and me and Lord but it did like me to hear speak of Her the which brought tears to mine eyes, considering that they did speak of my wife, and so did weep freely and they with me. My mind then a blank but home in some shape and the maid did get me to my room and what a head this morning! Misliketh me much to bethink me how I did comport myself, but a man is fifty but once.
To mine office where did buy and sell as usual.
February third
Comes H. Nevil in a glass coach to take me to drive and did talk much of his niece, she being fresh from France and of a good skin and fair voice. Was of a great joy to ride in a glass coach and pleasant to look constantly out backward, but great rattling and do think my modest brougham sufficeth me well, but H. Nevil very disdainful of the brougham and saith a man is known by the company he keepeth, the which strange in mine eyes we being alone together in the coach but did go with him to a horse dealer's.
To mine office as usual and there did buy and sell.
February eighth
To dine with H. Nevil and his wife and she a monstrous pleasant lady and the dinner good only the wine poor and my vest too tight which vastly misliked me, I being loth to grow stout and yet all at odds with my belts, the which trying me sadly for I do pay my tailor as many do not. And the niece a striking fine girl modest and not raising her eyes the which much to my taste and drinking only lambs-wool and at cards knowing not tierce from deuce. H. Nevil making great ado over my new coach did have it out with pride and we to the Country Club for a late supper, the which well-cooked but my vest much tighter and so home and to bed.
Railway stocks risen two points.
February twentieth
Did take a box at the Play and ask H. Nevil, his wife and niece and a supper afterwards and pretty to see how miss did refuse mine eyes and hardly speak two words, the which greatly to my admiration and after supper did lead her to the coach and press her hand with curious effect to mine own hair, the which strange and prickly and home and much thinking on the merry talk at my birthday before sleep.
Stocks falling somewhat.
March nineteenth
Much agitated and all trembling and of a cold sweat. The Lord have mercy and me all unwitting until in some strange way do find myself today betrothed the which I do heartily pray to be for the good of all concerned, although expensive and worse to come.
No heart for stocks, but the same arising.
April sixteenth
Do find the being betrothed more to my taste than anticipated and tell H. Nevil he shall be remembered with pointers when the market turns again. We to the park to drive each afternoon and many admiring of her beauty, she desiring often to drive but I firm in refusing for I will be master in my own house.
Comes one Lasselle and makes a great tale of a mine and I with no time for him, but do set the office boy to look him up in Bradstreet.
These be busy days with a corner on parsnips.
May tenth
The business of being director in Lasselle's mine ended this day and to a great dinner that he giveth in my honor and my portrait on all the cards the which pleaseth me mightily and I all complimented and congratulationed and sly hints on my approaching marriage to the which I all smiles for Lord the thing being done one must be of good courage.
Quotations low, beshrew them.
June seventh (the Mountains)
Married this day and to do in a turmoil wheat being all a-rage and me forced to go home to dress before noon. Did scarce know where I was with Extras being cried outside the church window and H. Nevil giving the bride away and on the wrong side of the market by my advice. The bride hystericky in the carriage and at the station wept so that I was fair beside myself. Did bethink me to kiss her in the train, but small comfort to either. What will become of my affairs I know not, this place being all without stock reports and I half mad and with naught to pass the time.
Comes my wife as I write and will have the key to her largest trunk the same it doth appear is lost, the which on discovery she layeth at my door and weepeth afresh. Did strive to cheer her but with a heavy heart.
August tenth
This do be the hottest summer in many years and lest I forget to set it down more mad dogs than can well be handled. My wife very hystericky and forever in a smock and declareth she would be dead and married life a delusion, the which opinion I take small issue with having my hands full of business and Lasselle forever at my heels with our affair of the mine not to speak of H. Nevil which waileth continually over how he was caught short in the month of June. Beshrew me if I repent not of June on mine own behalf but am determined to live properly and so have despatched a messenger to my cousin Sarah Badminton asking that she come to keep mine house.
August twentieth
Comes Sarah Badminton this day and Lord but a plain woman, being flat like unto a board from her heels up unto her head, but curiously shaped in and out in front. Still she do seem a worthy jade and good at heart and ever attentive when I will to converse and sitteth with me of a breakfast my wife being ever asleep till ten.
Last night to the Play where comes Lasselle and makes very merry and telleth jokes the which of great amusement to my wife while I find no mirth therein. Later to supper at the coffee house and my wife exceedingly witty and me all of a wonder at the change in her in public and on reflection do find it passing strange that one ugly like Mistress Badminton will effort her to be gracious at home while one so handsome as my wife sleeps ever.
To my office where did buy and sell as usual.
September sixteenth
My wife not well and strangely indisposed towards me yawning unduly and complaining that life is dull, yet gay enough for others and of a great joy over riding horseback with Lasselle. Last night did chide her in bed for upwards of an hour and misliked me greatly when I had done to find that she slept for some while before. Will have the doctor to her for there be surely something amiss in a woman who is not happy with me.
To my office and H. Nevil all excitement over his margins.
October twenty-ninth
Returned this day from a trip to the Coast and find my wife no better although the doctor hath been with her each day. She saith the doctor adviseth quiet until spring. Comes Mrs. Badminton her face all awry and will that I go with her to Carlsbad and my affairs so many as never was and never any lover of the sea. That which causeth me great vexation that I have a wife and say flatly to Mrs. Badminton to ask the doctor if he can not take her to Carlsbad any money being wiser than to travel with oats where they be now and chicken feed going up to beat the band, at which the good woman raiseth her hands aloft and maketh such demonstration that I clean out of patience and basted her with the fire shovel the same being not courteous but sadly necessary to all appearance.
November sixth
My wife most nervous and there being no peace with Her did discuss the same with Lasselle to-day and although unmarried yet did sympathize much and advise for me with a right good will telling me of a place in southern France where he hath been and the same beyond all else for the nerves only lonely but that not so bad since he proposeth going there this winter himself and can see after my wife somewhat the which greatly to my relief and so home and did discourse thereon with Mistress Badminton the which drew a long face and plain to see was dead against the plan the which putting me in a fine temper with what a woman hath for brains.
Wheat rising and A. B. & C. going down comes H. Nevil short to borrow the which crowneth my fury his niece being so far from making me happy and he being the cause of all. But did indorse two notes for him and so home and to bed with a bad grace and glad that my wife has betaken herself to another room.
December ninth
From the dock and my wife do be gone and now we may look for some peace the which sad enough needed.
December tenth
Comes H. Nevil all distraught to say that it is about at the clubs that my wife will have a divorce and marry the doctor, on the which hearing I much annoyed and summon Mrs. Badminton who denyeth the doctor but asserteth Lasselle whereupon we in a great taking and much brandy and soda but at last reflection and do decide not to sue but to pity Lasselle for of a verity she be forever out of temper and flounceth when questioned.
To mine office and D. & E. going up comes H. Nevil to borrow again the gall of which doth take me greatly.
January seventeenth
Am all of a taking for that the papers in my wife's divorce do be filed into me this day and great to do when I learn that the cause she declareth is Sarah Badminton a woman as little comely as never was and mine own cousin. Verily the ways of a wife be past understanding.
April eleventh
Free this day and being free comes Mrs. Badminton weeping and declareth she be ruined if I marry her not next the which doth so overcome me that ere I have time to rally she hath kissed me and called me hers.
To my office with a heavy heart having no assurance of how this second marriage will turn out and little hope but seeing H. Nevil with a long face did refuse to give him any inside information the which led to his going under about noon to my great joy for it was he who did get me in this marrying habit.
February first
My birthday and Lord what eating and drinking the which being good beyond compare my wife staying in the pantry to keep the whole in trim and all my friends discoursing on my joy the which is truly great she being so plain that a man will never look at her and so loving that she adoreth me come smiles come frowns.
But that which doth astonish me much is that H. Nevil telleth me that she that was once my wife is of exceeding content with Lasselle a piece of news which I can scarce credit comparing him with myself.
But so wags the world.
THE PAINTERMINE 3
BY KENYON COX
Its innocence deserves no jibe—
Pity the creature, do not mock it.
'Tis type of all the artist tribe;
Its trousers haven't any pocket!
THE ADVERTISER
BY EUGENE FIELD
I am an advertiser great!
In letters bold
The praises of my wares I sound,
Prosperity is my estate;
The people come,
The people go
In one continuous,
Surging flow.
They buy my goods and come again
And I'm the happiest of men;
And this the reason I relate,
I'm an advertiser great!
There is a shop across the way
Where ne'er is heard a human tread,
Where trade is paralyzed and dead,
With ne'er a customer a day.
The people come,
The people go,
But never there.
They do not know
There's such a shop beneath the skies,
Because he does not advertise!
While I with pleasure contemplate
That I'm an advertiser great.
The secret of my fortune lies
In one small fact, which I may state,
Too many tradesmen learn too late,
If I have goods, I advertise.
Then people come
And people go
In constant streams,
For people know
That he who has good wares to sell
Will surely advertise them well;
And proudly I reiterate,
I am an advertiser great!
THE FAMOUS MULLIGAN BALL
BY FRANK L. STANTON
Did ever you hear of the Mulligan ball—the Mulligan ball so fine,
Where we formed in ranks, and danced on planks, and swung 'em along the line?
Where the first Four Hundred of the town moved at the music's call?
There was never a ball in the world at all—like the famous Mulligan ball!
Town was a bit of a village then, and never a house or shed
From street to street and beat to beat was higher than Mulligan's head!
And never a theater troup came round to 'liven us, spring or fall,
And so Mulligan's wife she says, says she: "Plaze God, I'll give a ball!"
And she did—God rest her, and save her, too! (I'm liftin' to her my hat!)
And never a ball at all, at all, was half as fine as that!
Never no invitations sent—nothin' like that at all;
But the whole Four Hundred combed their hair and went to the Mulligan ball.
And "Take yer places!" says Mulligan, "an' dance till you shake the wall!"
And I led Mrs. Mulligan off as the lady that gave the ball;
And we whirled around till we shook the ground, with never a stop at all;
And I kicked the heels from my boots—please God—at the famous Mulligan ball.
Mulligan jumped till he hit the roof, and the head of him went clean through it!
The shingles fell on the floor pell-mell! Says Mulligan: "Faith, I knew it!"
But we kept right on when the roof was gone, with never a break at all;
We danced away till the break o' day at the famous Mulligan ball.
But the best of things must pass away like the flowers that fade and fall,
And it's fifty years, as the records say, since we danced at Mulligan's ball;
And the new Four Hundred never dance like the Mulligans danced—at all,
And I'm longing still, though my hair is gray, for a ball like Mulligan's ball!
And I drift in dreams to the old-time town, and I hear the fiddle sing;
And Mulligan sashays up and down till the rafters rock and ring!
Suppose, if I had a woman's eye, maybe a tear would fall
For the old-time fellows who took the prize at the famous Mulligan ball!
THE GENIAL IDIOT DISCUSSES THE MUSIC CURE
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
"Good morning, Doctor," said the Idiot as Capsule, M.D., entered the dining-room. "I am mighty glad you've come. I've wanted for a long time to ask you about this music cure that everybody is talking about and get you if possible to write me out a list of musical nostrums for every day use. I noticed last night before going to bed that my medicine chest was about run out. There's nothing but one quinine pill and a soda-mint drop in it, and if there's anything in the music cure I don't think I'll have it filled again. I prefer Wagner to squills, and compared to the delights of Mozart, Hayden and Offenbach those of paregoric are nit."
"Still rambling, eh?" vouchsafed the Doctor. "You ought to submit your tongue to some scientific student of dynamics. I am inclined to think, from my own observation of its ways, that it contains the germ of perpetual motion."
"I will consider your suggestion," replied the Idiot. "Meanwhile, let us consult harmoniously together on the original point. Is there anything in this music cure, and is it true that our Medical Schools are hereafter to have conservatories attached to them in which aspiring young M.D.'s are to be taught the materia musica in addition to the materia medica?"
"I had heard of no such idiotic proposition," returned the Doctor. "And as for the music cure I don't know anything about it. Haven't heard everybody talking about it, and doubt the existence of any such thing outside of that mysterious realm which is bounded by the four corners of your own bright particular cerebellum. What do you mean by the music cure?"
"Why, the papers have been full of it lately," explained the Idiot. "The claim is made that in music lies the panacea for all human ills. It may not be able to perform a surgical operation like that which is required for the removal of a leg, and I don't believe even Wagner ever composed a measure that could be counted on successfully to eliminate one's vermiform appendix from its chief sphere of usefulness, but for other things, like measles, mumps, the snuffles, or indigestion, it is said to be wonderfully efficacious; What I wanted to find out from you was just what composers were best for which specific troubles."
"You'll have to go to somebody else for the information," said the Doctor. "I never heard of the theory and, as I said before, I don't believe anybody else has, barring your own sweet self."
"I have seen a reference to it somewhere," put in Mr. Whitechoker, coming to the Idiot's rescue. "As I recall the matter, some lady had been cured of a nervous affection by a scientific application of some musical poultice or other, and the general expectation seems to be that some day we shall find in music a cure for all our human ills, as the Idiot suggests."
"Thank you, Mr. Whitechoker," said the Idiot gratefully. "I saw that same item and several others besides, and I have only told the truth when I say that a large number of people are considering the possibilities of music as a substitute for drugs. I am surprised that Doctor Capsule has neither heard nor thought about it, for I should think it would prove to be a pleasant and profitable field for speculation. Even I who am only a dabbler in medicine, and know no more about it than the effects of certain remedies upon my own symptoms, have noticed that music of a certain sort is a sure emollient for nervous conditions."
"For example?" said the Doctor. "Of course we don't doubt your word, but when a man makes a statement based upon personal observation it is profitable to ask him what his precise experience has been merely for the purpose of adding to our own knowledge."
"Well," said the Idiot, "the first instance that I can recall is that of a Wagner Opera and its effects upon me. For a number of years I suffered a great deal from insomnia. I could not get two hours of consecutive sleep and the effect of my sufferings was to make me nervous and irritable. Suddenly somebody presented me with a couple of tickets for a performance of Parsifal and I went. It began at five o'clock in the afternoon. For twenty minutes all went serenely and then the music began to work. I fell into a deep and refreshing slumber. The intermission came, and still I slept on. Everybody else went home, dressed for the evening part of the performance, had their dinner, and returned. Still I slept and continued so to do until midnight when one of the gentlemanly ushers came and waked me up and told me that the performance was over. I rubbed my eyes and looked about me. It was true, the great auditorium was empty, and was gradually darkening. I put on my hat and walked out refreshed, having slept from five twenty until twelve, or six hours and forty minutes, straight. That was one instance. Two weeks later I went again, this time to hear Die Goetherdammerung. The results were the same, only the effect was instantaneous. The curtain had hardly risen before I retired to the little ante-room of the box our party occupied and dozed off into a fathomless sleep. I didn't wake up this time until nine o'clock the next day, the rest of the party having gone off without awakening me, as a sort of joke. Clearly Wagner, according to my way of thinking, then deserves to rank among the most effective narcotics known to modern science. I have tried all sorts of other things—sulfonal, trionel, bromide powders, and all the rest and not one of them produced anything like the soporific results that two doses of Wagner brought about in one instant, and best of all there was no reaction. No splitting headache or shaky hand the next day, but just the calm, quiet, contented feeling that goes with the sense of having got completely rested up."
"You run a dreadful risk, however," said the Doctor, with a sarcastic smile. "The Wagner habit is a terrible thing to acquire, Mr. Idiot."
"That may be," said the Idiot. "Worse than the sulfonal habit by a great deal I am told, but I am in no danger of becoming a victim to it while it costs from five to seven dollars a dose. In addition to this experience I have also the testimony of a friend of mine who was cured of a frightful attack of the colic by Sullivan's Lost Chord played on a Cornet. He had spent the day down at Asbury Park and had eaten not wisely but too copiously. Among other things that he turned loose in his inner man were two plates of Lobster Salade, a glass of fresh cider and a saucerful of pistache ice-cream. He was a painter by profession and the color scheme he thus introduced into his digestive apparatus was too much for his artistic soul. He was not fitted by temperament to assimilate anything quite so strenuously chromatic as that, and as a consequence shortly after he had retired to his studio for the night the conflicting tints began to get in their deadly work and within two hours he was completely doubled up. The pain he suffered was awful. Agony was bliss alongside of the pangs that now afflicted him and all the palliatives and pain killers known to man were tried without avail, and then, just as he was about to give himself up for lost, an amateur cornetist who occupied a studio on the floor above began to play the Lost Chord. A counter-pain set in immediately. At the second bar of the Lost Chord the awful pain that was gradually gnawing away at his vitals seemed to lose its poignancy in the face of the greater suffering, and physical relief was instant. As the musician proceeded the internal disorder yielded gradually to the external and finally passed away entirely, leaving him so far from prostrated that by one a.m. he was out of bed and actually girding himself with a shotgun and an Indian Club to go upstairs for a physical encounter with the cornetist."
"And you reason from this that Sullivan's Lost Chord is a cure for Cholera morbus, eh?" sneered the Doctor.
"It would seem so," said the Idiot. "While the music continued my friend was a well man ready to go out and fight like a warrior, but when the cornetist stopped—the colic returned and he had to fight it out in the old way. In these episodes in my own experience I find ample justification for my belief and that of others that some day the music cure for human ailments will be recognized and developed to the full. Families going off to the country for the summer instead of taking a medicine-chest along with them will go provided with a music-box with cylinders for mumps, measles, summer complaint, whooping-cough, chicken-pox, chills and fever and all the other ills the flesh is heir to. Scientific experiment will demonstrate before long what composition will cure specific ills. If a baby has whooping-cough, an anxious mother, instead of ringing up the Doctor, will go to the piano and give the child a dose of Hiawatha. If a small boy goes swimming and catches a cold in his head and is down with a fever, his nurse, an expert on the accordeon, can bring him back to health again with three bars of Under the Bamboo Tree after each meal. Instead of dosing kids with cod liver oil when they need a tonic, they will be set to work at a mechanical piano and braced up on Narcissus. There'll Be a Hot Time In The Old Town To-Night will become an effective remedy for a sudden chill. People suffering from sleeplessness can dose themselves back to normal conditions again with Wagner the way I did. Tchaikowski, to be well Tshaken before taken, will be an effective remedy for a torpid liver, and the man or woman who suffers from lassitude will doubtless find in the lively airs of our two-step composers an efficient tonic to bring their vitality up to a high standard of activity. Nothing in it? Why, Doctor, there's more in it that's in sight to-day that is promising and suggestive of great things in the future than there was of the principle of gravitation in the rude act of that historic pippin that left the parent tree and swatted Sir Isaac Newton on the nose."
"And the Drug Stores will be driven out of business, I presume," said the Doctor.
"No," said the Idiot. "They will substitute music for drugs, that is all. Every man who can afford it will have his own medical phonograph or music-box, and the drug stores will sell cylinders and records for them instead of quinine, carbonate of soda, squills, paregoric and other nasty tasting things they have now. This alone will serve to popularize sickness and instead of being driven out of business their trade will pick up."
"And the Doctor? And the Doctor's gig and all the appurtenances of his profession—what becomes of them?" demanded the Doctor.
"We'll have to have the Doctor just the same to prescribe for us, only he will have to be a musician, but the gig—I'm afraid that will have to go," said the Idiot.
"And why, pray?" asked the Doctor. "Because there are no more drugs must the physician walk?"
"Not at all," said the Idiot. "But he'd be better equipped if he drove about in a piano-organ, or if he preferred an auto on a steam calliope."
