The Philistine: a periodical of protest (Vol. III, No. 3)

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The Roycroft Quarterly:

Being a Goodly collection of Literary Curiosities obtained from Sources not easily accessible to the average Book-Lover. Offered to the Discerning every three months for 25c. per number or one dollar per year.

Contents for May:

I. Glints of Wit and Wisdom: Being replies from sundry Great Men who missed a Good Thing.

II. Some Historical Documents by W. Irving Way, Phillip Hale and Livy S. Richard.

III. As to Stephen Crane. E. H. A preachment by an admiring friend.

IV. Seven poems by Stephen Crane.

1—The Chatter of a Death Demon.
2—A Lantern Song.
3—A Slant of Sun on Dull Brown Walls.
4—I have heard the Sunset Song of the Birches.
5—What Says the Sea?
6—To the Maiden the Sea was Blue Meadow.
7—Fast Rode the Knight.

V. A Great Mistake. Stephen Crane. Recording the venial sin of a mortal under sore temptation.

VI. A Prologue. Stephen Crane.

One, two, three—five men that call themselves my friends, all wishful to borrow money! Statilius, you will please to make a note of these five gentlemen, and give orders that on no account are they to pass my vestibule again. The settlement of society under our Prince has done much to stamp out the dangerous classes, but we have not yet got rid of[66] the borrowers. I think it a little hard that after I have neglected my estate for half my life to expel roguery by the front door that it should creep in at the back.

Did you inquire, Statilius, why my cook served white sauce with quails last night? Very well; I have made it a rule to deal with my people in person: send for him. It is not possible to maintain a household well regulated, unless the servants come personally into touch with the master.

Plato, you served me last night a dish which, had any of my friends been present, would have shamed me forever. As it was, my dinner was ruined. It is incompetence such as yours whose ill effects Rome has struggled these eight lustrums to efface. You will be sold in the market tomorrow. Go.

You see now, Statilius, the wisdom of my rule to permit no freedman in my household: all my servants are my own property. You will buy me the best cook in Rome in three hours. What, sir? You are a free man, and I employed you only to work at my pedigree and my library? True: I am satisfied with you. But understand that if I bid you litter my horses you will do it, or I sell you up tomorrow. Now, sir, the best cook in Rome is Iulus Antonius’s Dama: buy him. Antonius is a rich man? Very true, but I think we need not be afraid of that. We[67] can tempt him, I imagine, Statilius. At any price whatever: do you understand? And not a penny more than he will sell at: understand that also. If he is stubborn, hint at my influence with the Prince; that will be sufficient. Go.

Iulus knows that he is whispered against, and he looks to me to prop him up. I shall not do so. Again and again I have urged on Octavian the necessity of putting these malcontents out of the way. His father’s son cannot but be a danger to a settled State, however soundly disposed himself. It appears to me that Octavian is losing his aptitude for politics, and Agrippa exercises the worst possible influence upon him. This stupid, expensive system of banishment: it should never have had my voice had I remained in politics.

Thucydides, I have told you once already I am not to be disturbed in meditation. The poet Horace is in attendance? Horatius, I think you mean; avoid these vulgarisms, Thucydides. Bid Horatius wait. Indeed, I doubt not whether Octavian had at any time any real grasp of the principles of government. I was deceived by the facility with which he lent himself to my views. He is a man incapable of understanding any system between militarism and license. Of the finer arts of statecraft I am afraid he knows very little. How often have I explained to[68] that man how the law of treason might be developed into an infallible engine of sound government! Yes: I was wise to leave politics, though Octavian is ungrateful to his Mentor. Well, I will see Horatius. He, at least, with all his faults, is a faithful soul. A man I have made.

Good-day, Horatius. I hope you are well and keeping sober. Have you brought the work I commissioned? Very well; let me see it. There has been a very great improvement in your manner of writing, Horatius, since I took you up: the large P’s are very much bolder than they were. But what is this? This is not the Epistle Dedicatory I ordered. That comes second? Ah! yes, here it is; you should have given it to me first.

Quite right: “grandsire kings” is very good. It is not, of course, literally correct, but one may, in poetry, fairly write the particular term “grandsire” for the general “ancestor”—

“Proud delight.” Now I think I shall correct that to “dear delight.” I think the alliteration is well worth securing, and you may allow yourself a familiarity in literature, Horatius, where all men are equal, which, as I have no doubt you felt in writing, would be highly unbecoming in society. “Proud delight”[69] does you credit as a man, my good Horatius; as a poet I permit—nay, I invite you to write “dear.”

Yes, very happy. A very good ode, Horatius. You have distinctly added to your reputation. I am very glad to note that you disavow that most dangerous tendency, which I am sorry to see is growing among some of my poets, to defer to the popular judgment. Even poor Virgil is tainted by it in this last epic, as he calls it, published in one of those measly magazinelets. I am afraid Virgil is coming to think more of the so-called glories of Rome than of his truest friends. Such defection on your part, I warn you candidly, I should feel very deeply. Now what is this other? I hope none of that Epicurean stuff which is such a handicap, if I may so phrase it, upon your best powers for good....

I think you might have found a fitter name than Postumus; but it is very passable. I suppose you have[70] verified all these mythological allusions in the Greek; it is not your industry I need ever distrust.

Yes, the tone of the work is quite good.... And then—really Horatius, you are too annoying—then you must spoil all again in the last stanza. I have warned you a thousand times against that, Horatius. Listen, sir, to what you say here—

Now, understand once and for all, Horatius, that I will not have such pernicious and disloyal trash as this put out to pollute the State. You say you meant nothing impious? Well, then I will ask you, Horatius, who is Chief Pontiff? The prince; so I had thought. And then you say you had no intention of disloyalty? In that case I will merely answer that you have expressed yourself very badly. You will agree, I suppose—even you who were out with Brutus, when I understand you threw away your shield—that what we must all work for in Rome, is a settled social order? And I suppose that you are not incapable[71] of perceiving that this is impossible without the maintenance of religion? And perhaps you may have heard that His Highness is supreme head of our religion? And then, do you tell me, sir, that you did not see that this last stanza—this Pontiff’s ambition, or whatever it is—is pernicious in the highest degree? Now this is what I shall do. I shall make you, Horatius, write an ode of fourteen stanzas in praise of His Highness as Chief Pontiff. Take your tablets and write down the heads of the poem, as I dictate them.

I beg your pardon: I think I was asking you to take down the heads of the ode. What! I? You say that I gave you the subjects of this one? Very possibly, though I do not remember: with the ode as a whole I am very well satisfied. You say I gave the hint of the Pontiff? Very true; I recollect it quite well, but it was not to be used, or wasted, in the spirit in which you have used it here. Perhaps, however, you meant it to refer to the Pontiffs of the old regime, whose unworthy excesses I may have doubtless mentioned to you at some time? I could wish, Horatius, that your execution were on a level with your intention: you lay yourself open to a great deal of misconstruction. I think we must substitute “late” for “while.”

What is that you are sputtering about Minucius? I told you to glance at Minucius? Well, in one respect you are quite right. I do not remember that I ever spoke of him to you, but the extravagance of Minucius not only makes him a man impossible to be seen abroad with, but constitutes a great scandal on the pontificate. And I tell you, sir, I tell you that that man’s insolence to his betters is more than any well-ordered State could endure. He has got the Prince’s ear, and presumes upon it. Yes, you may jab at Minucius whenever you can, and as hard as you can. I am very glad I suggested that, and you have taken up the hint very cleverly. Sit down, my good Horatius; you must be tired of standing, and we men of letters are all equal, whatever our social position. I will read you a chapter of my own history that I threw off last night. You will remember, of course, what happened while I was Urban Prefect.

Amongst them there was one colossal form, on which the sun poured with its full radiance.

This was the form of a man grinding at a mill-stone; the majestic, symmetrical, supple form of a man who was also a god.

In his naked limbs there was a supreme power; in his glance there was a divine command; his head was lifted as though no yoke could ever lie on that proud neck; his foot seemed to spurn the earth as[74] though no mortal tie had ever bound him to the sod that human steps bestrode: yet at the corn-mill he laboured, grinding wheat like the patient blinded oxen that toiled beside him.

The hand which awoke the music of the spheres had been blood stained with murder; the beauty which had the light and lustre of the sun had been darkened with passion and with crime; the will which no other on earth or in heaven could withstand had been bent under the chastisement of Zeus.

He whose glances had made the black and barren slopes of Delos to laugh with fruitfulness and gladness—he whose prophetic sight beheld all things past, present, and to come, the fate of all unborn races, the doom of all unspent ages—he, the Far-Striking King, laboured here beneath the curse of crime, greatest of all the gods, and yet a slave.

With dance and song the Delian maidens still hailed the divinity of Leto’s son.

The waves of the pure Ionian air still rang forever with the name of Delphinios.

At Pytho and at Clarus, in Lycia and in Phodis,[75] his oracles still breathed forth upon their fiat terror or hope into the lives of men; and still in all the virgin forests of the world the wild beasts honored him wheresoever they wandered; and the lion and the bear came at his bidding from the deserts to bend their necks and their wills of fire meekly to bear his yoke in Thessaly.

Yet he labored here at the corn-mill of Admetus; and watching him at his bondage stood the slender, slight, wing-footed Hermes, with a slow, mocking smile upon his knavish lips, and a jeering scorn in his keen eyes, even as though he cried:

“O brother, who would be greater than I! For what hast thou bartered to me the golden rod of thy wealth and thy dominion over the flocks and the herds? For seven chords strung on a shell—for a melody not even thine own! For a lyre outshone by my syrinx hast thou sold all thine empire to me. Will human ears give heed to thy song now thy sceptre has passed to my hands? Immortal music only is left thee, and the vision foreseeing the future. O god! O hero! O fool! what shall these profit thee now?”

Thus to the artist by whom they had been begotten the dim white shapes of the deities sometimes speak. Thus he sees them, thus he hears, whilst the pale and watery sunlight lights up the form of[76] the toiler in Pherae. For even as it was with the divinity of Delos, so is it likewise with the genius of a man, which, being born of a god, yet is bound as a slave to the grind-stone. Since even as Hermes mocked the Lord of the Unerring Bow, so is genius mocked of the world, when it has bartered the herds, and the grain, and the rod that metes wealth, for the seven chords that no ear, dully mortal, can hear.

He can bend great thoughts to take the shapes that he choose, as the chained god in Pherae bound the strong kings of the desert and forest to carry his yoke; yet, like the god, he likewise stands fettered to the mill to grind for bread.

“Hello! Knickerbockers,” cried the man on foot; “do you call that the gait for a scorcher? Why, it aint more’n a pair uv bars.”

“Little boy, yourself! Didn’t you know it was five dollars fine for ridin’ on the sidewalk?”

“Is it? All right? I’ll pay when I come back;” and the man on a bicycle, encountering a level piece of road, put an end to further conversation by a sudden spurt.

But the cyclometer was not to make a steady advance that evening. A surface crossing lay ahead, blocked by a belated freight train. The engineer knew his business and meddled continually with the throttle. After going about two car-lengths in one direction, the train would stop, remember something[78] left behind, and back up. That is the way to keep a crowd pacific. Give them plenty to hope for and they forget to fight.

The wheelman rode in slow circles for a while, but finding the slush and snow too deep for this exercise, was forced to a humiliating dismount.

“Misder!” shouted a dirty urchin with a cold, “did yer know yer ’adn’d god no lighd? Fibe dollars fine an’ the cop’s in the deepo.”

“Young man,” lisped a willy boy, “I thought those things weah called in, you know.”

“How long are they going to keep us waiting here in the cold?” muttered a querulous old gentleman. “It’s against the law, and the company ought to be prosecuted.”

“The present company?” ventured a bashful young man, who was dressed as if going somewhere.

The man with a bicycle snapped his bell uneasily. He was in a hurry, of course; if you live much on a wheel, hurry becomes chronic, engendered perhaps[79] by the accustomed sense of rapid motion; but, like many of his class, he had that fellow feeling for petty law breakers, which comes by taking chances against city ordinances.

The fellow at the valve was taking his chances too, with excellent success. The patience of an American crowd approaches the miraculous. Fifty engagements were being broken and ten times as many toes were freezing, all because one railroader was too lazy to draw a coupling-pin. Yet so long as the cars continued to move, no one felt called upon to interfere.

“How many minutes may a crossing legally be blocked?” demanded the querulous old gentleman, pulling out his watch.

“S’posin’ that train on the down track ud move up just as this un was movin’ away, which ud you have ’rested then?”

The querulous old gentleman looked at the newsboy reprovingly, but said nothing.

The newsboy smiled approvingly upon his mot, during a silence that might be felt. It was a relief when the wind picked up the tones of a brass band, playing in front of the theatre, and wafted them in that direction.

“Sub ud oughd to pud runners on thad bike, see?” volunteered the dirty urchin with a cold.

Here the bashful young man who was dressed as if going somewhere, separated himself, and cried:

The bashful young man took up the thread of his private life where it had broken off, and wished he had separated himself further.

A touch on the sleeve aroused the man with a bicycle. There stood the man on foot.

“Hello! Knickerbockers. Horse tied, eh? Thought I’d ketch up to you. Where is your century run? Didn’t I say that there was no scorchin’ gait?”

The man with a bicycle said something that commenced with “damn,” and then, seeing a pale frightened-looking girl near by, wished he hadn’t. In the forgetfulness of his remorse he smirched the newsboy with his machine.

“You most certainly want to get done hittin’ me with that there last year’s safety,” began the latter, speaking loud enough to be heard by all—but his philippic was cut short by the arrival of train orders, and the clearing of the road. The man with a bicycle did a handsome pedal mount and spun skillfully through the surging mob, catching cries of “See that burning safety!” “Gimmie a ride, boss?” and the like, from those left behind. But the man on a wheel continued to ride.

’Tis an odd old world, this of ours that is round like an orange, and slightly flattened at the poles. It drives not well, and it hath but moderate fondness[83] for gall. Why, then, seek to drive it? Why harass it with the hurtful attrition of gall-dippen pens? For in truth, its small love for gall is yet greater than its use therefor. It needs not that we should make it smart. ’Tis smart enough, and clever enough, already, towering the hearts of the angels, and affording a spectacle for the little fishes. Application of gall will not help it. Rightly used, a little may ease thy own jaundice, but in thy ink it erodes the pen that uses it.

Are we vexed at the follies of the round old world? Is our taste offended by the unripe things written and painted and sung by those who are not perfect as we are? We ought to consider the words of the gentle stoic: “For it is natural that these things should be done by such persons. It is a matter of necessity, and if a man will not have it so he will not allow the fig-tree to have juice.”

To what end do we Philistines write? Is it not because we are seeking after the truth? Is it not for the expression of that which to us seems beautiful and helpful and desirable to be in the world?

And for what, let us suppose, do the armies of the aliens put pen to paper? Is it not for the same end? And if they see not purely, do we then hope to clarify their vision with gall? Rather we ought not to thwart them in the pursuit of that which seems to[84] them excellent and worthy of effort. It is unphilosophic, and in contravention to the scientific spirit, to deny others the right which we claim for ourselves. We ought rather to do the thing which to us seems lovely, and let that protest, for us, against unloveliness, by its life and realty—the only effectual protest this world has ever known. Already there is too much of strife, too much of denial in the world. Nature argues the questioning life in the affirmative, for well she knows, the ancient wise one, that denial is deadly. “I believe” is the password into the secret places of good.

The single vision, that sees truest, the simple heart, that loves it; the direct thought that sends it forth to bless—the world needs these more than that we should camp upon its trail with gall in our ink and our pens tipped with bitterness.

Gall can never fill a vacuum. “If you don’t want a boy to do that,” said a wise teacher (putting thumb to nose), “teach him something prettier.”

This, then, must we do for this hulking schoolboy world of ours; the half-grown, growing world, that knows enough to recognize that gall is neither good nor beautiful, yet sees not that the thing it does is, as well, unlovely.

Let us strive to look out on life with open vision and simple soul, seeing that it is fair; that no plant[85] cometh forth to face the winter’s blight, but when the winter is over then green, tender things of beauty push upwards to meet the sunshine—first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. Then cometh the insect, with his drop of gall, and ugliness and excrescence follow.

That which gives heat and light and blessing; that which generates force, and yields beauty in the burning wood that cheers our hearth, is the warm brightness of the sun’s rays that, in the process of liberating oxygen into the outer air, were stored up in the growing tree. If these had not been actually caught and incorporated in the wood by Nature’s subtle chemistry, do you think the fire would warm us, sitting by it?

And that in our literature, and in our art, that shall make them real, and able to offer coming ages anything in the warmth and light of this, must be what we shall manage to incorporate with their growth of the pure and wholesome, the life-making forces of our time. Negation is not life. Disease is not power. Abnormality is not truth. These are forces that make for death; and life, in its scientific ultimate, is the sum-total of the forces that resist death. So, I say again, that work of ours which is to carry life forward, which is to warm and light the ages, must be what we can perpetuate of the life-giving,[86] growing elements of this one. Let there be gall enough in thy ink. To what purpose? Gall is not a promoter of growth. It is a result of hurt, and where it touches it leaves even a bad thing worse than it found it.

Now it came to pass in the still night watches, when my body was asleep, that my soul dreamed a dream.

And I became aware of the presence of an Angel, and he touched mine ears, saying, “When thou hearest a sound, a great sound, as of many mighty waters rushing headlong, listen, and fear nothing.”

Then, verily, did burst on my hearing a mighty noise, a most discordant frush, and I stretched out my hand to the Angel, who said, “Fear not! Now tell me what thou hearest.”

After pondering a long time I turned me to the Angel and said, “This discordant sound is that of many and diverse petitions, of which some are directed to the Eternal but more to the Spirit of Evil. I further perceive that well-nigh each and every voice thinks its own tone the right and the only[87] right tone, and some few voices there be which desire all the others destroyed. Yet, I hear faintly a few that are as pure and sweet as the voices of the morning stars when they sing together.”

And the Angel said, “These are all the voices of the religions, the sects, the churches, and the individual hearts, upon your planet. They are many in number. They are wondrously many in number. Yet, the understanding of your little heart is darkened: none of these petitions are directed to the Spirit of Evil, though only God and we know the heart of man, and the love of only God is great enough to forgive your many strange desires. Those few and sweet voices—ah! those few sweet voices redeem—redeem the world!”

As I listened again to the strange murmur I wept, and cried saying, “Would that these voices were as one!”

And the Angel answered and said, “They will be when in that state you call ‘Heaven.’”

Then did my soul face eagerly the face of the Angel and say to him, “They will verily attain Heaven, then—all these many jangling voices?”

Bending on me a wondering look he answered, “They will. All who strive for Right and Light shall be happy. Worship they not all as truly and deeply as they know? Strive they not all to love—to[88] be unselfish, although some half-heartedly? From the north and the south, from the east and the west shall they be gathered, and there shall carilloux harmonious ascend to The Eternal, as from one sweet and glorified tongue.”

“God is very patient. He is Love, and his ways are past finding out,” murmured the Angel.

Again he touched mine ears, saying, “Have you learned? Go, return to earth, and live in the spirit of Love. Love, and judge not. Love, and be very charitable, for you yourself jar on Heaven’s peace.”

So far as I know the Society for Psychic Research has not yet taken up the subject of these men who are without beginning of days or end of time. Yet[89] surely it is a most vital theme. These beings who were never born and cannot die form a tribe that obeys no natural edict—they are a law unto themselves. They appear and disappear, like Clangingharp, to reappear again. Like vagrant comets, their orbit cannot be determined.

They are visible only under peculiar and extraordinary conditions. They materialize at will and disappear without explanation. After a lecture I have seen one of them rush forward and greet the speaker with a glow that must have gladdened the orator’s heart for months. In fact, your son of Melchizedek is an orator himself and therefore knows the orator’s need for a fervent word of appreciation after his “effort.”

Once at a Methodist love feast, when there was a lull in the program and the minister asked “And is there not just one more who is willing to add a word of testimony?” I felt a slight cold feeling go over me and knew at once that the Unknown was rising to his feet behind. I heard him clear his throat and begin with “My friends, I have been thinking while sitting here,” in a low, musical voice—a voice all a-tremble with fervor. He spoke for fully fifteen minutes—spoke with ease, and to the point. At first there was a craning of necks and whispered questions as to who he was; but this was soon lost[90] in admiration. After the service he shook hands with many, then disappeared, none knew where.

This mysterious being often helps to carry in the piano, and in crowded street cars he has been known to supply the necessary nickle when ladies could not find their pockets. When old gentlemen fall in a fit on the street, he is on hand. Should a woman faint in church, he gently carries her out. He opens the windows in cars, and looks after the ventilator at all times, and at barbecues and outdoor public meetings he calls up the stranger to the feast, introducing shy countrymen to others still more shy, thus thawing the social ice and making all secure.

When church debts are to be raised he sometimes arises in his seat and subscribes a large amount. At mass meetings where volunteers are called for to pass the hat he always responds. He greets you cordially on the railway train, shaking hands as he passes; asks after the wife and babies and shames you into smirking idiocy because you cannot call him by name, and as he departs he waves his hand and charges you thus: “Take care yourself, old man!”

He is always large, usually stout, and the true type has a dun colored chin whisker. At least he should have.

He carries a glow of good nature that warms like wine; he is never cast down, nor is his heart dismayed.[91] At country funerals he often appears, consoles the friends, takes care of the flowers, and arranges the chairs in a column circle against the wall. At the churchyard he walks with uncovered head by the side of the clergyman, fetches the reins from the nearest team to lower the coffin, and handles the shovel with an unction that savors of joy.

Surely, the Sons of Melchizedek, although not Philistines, are Peculiar Persons.

He—(Who has lately been presented with a book of Familiar Quotations) “Yes, indeed: his head is as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa.”

The most biting bit of irony that passes as a current coin is that reference to Boston as a city of culture—or it would be, were it not for the insight shown in Paragraphs.

There were two Ballestiers. The good one, beloved of the gods (and men), died young; but the one that resides near Brattleboro will probably live to be a hundred. Rudyard benefitted the man and as a sure result got his enmity. He is just literary enough in his instincts to read his brother-in-law’s books for gibes and jeers at himself. He imagines that every villain in the Kipling books is a black attempt to paint a Beatty Ballestier portrait: not knowing that[92] an author (like Diety) creates in his own image. So the Ballestier reads and rages and cuts hickory clubs and lies in wait for Mowgli, who dares not venture out of sight of the bungalow except after dark. Has Rudyard Kipling written the best he ever will? is a question that the bad Ballestier proposes to answer by sending the soul of Kipling to join that of Tomlinson. Some folks are saying “Good hunting to you, Kaa Ballestier,” but Kipling in the meantime has had the rogue elephant put under bonds to keep the peace, this as preliminary to the killing, should the rogue continue to fool around the ’rickshaw.

In the story of “Kate Carnegie,” now running in The Bookman, Ian Maclaren uses the exclamation “Dod!” about three times to a page. This is understood to be a little advertising scheme suggested by Mr. MacArthur. Your Scot is a very thrifty person.

Mr. Percival Pollard who fights in the Commissariat, and once received a red badge, by being bumbasted with a pie (although he swears ’twas a tart) is uttering rank heresy in the New York Journal concerning Stephen Crane. The statement is made that Crane is only a producer of “Bloomingdale symbolistic hash.” But now behold Mr. Pollard has discovered Nankivell “King of Colorists[93] and Past Master of all living Draughtsmen”—bless my soul! when up pops a writer in the Art Amateur and declares that the only fit man to illustrate The Black Riders is this same Nankivell.

They do say that ’Enery James has resolved to write a novel with an incident. Gosh!

Is it true that a folio periodical issued in Philadelphia is to have a serial story entitled, “People Who Have Bored Me,” and that the first chapters will be written by Mr. Howells, with comments on Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Dumas, Shakespeare, Moses, Phidias, the critics of the daily papers and Henry Clay?

“Algernon wondered vaguely if he had done right in leaving the handkerchief where she had dropped it, on the center table. If only it had been the arm chair, now, what a different complexion it would have put upon this dilemma—if it was a dilemma—no, hardly a dilemma, rather a quandary, or even a question. And she—did she, too, brood upon the handkerchief? Did she justify herself in dropping it, in the way she did? He arose, wearily. ‘I dunno,’ he said, defiantly, yet hopelessly, and sat down.”—Advance sheets from H. James.

That the Stage has fallen into a very bad way none dispute, and under present conditions I cannot do[94] better than to commend this ordinance, passed in London in 1642, to the earnest consideration of His Honor, the Mayor, and the Honorable Common Council of the City of New York:

Whereas the Acts of Stage-Plays, Interludes and Common Plays, Condemned by Ancient Heathens, and much less to be tolerated amongst Professors of the Christian Religion, is the occasion of many and sundry great vices and disorders, tending to the high provocation of God’s wrath and displeasure, and to the disturbance of the peace:

Therefore, for the better suppression of the said Stage-Plays, Interludes, and Common Plays, It is Ordered and Ordained by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled, and by Authority of the same, That all Stage-Players, and Players of Interludes, and common Plays, are hereby declared to be Rogues, and punishable, within the Statutes of the thirty-ninth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the seventh year of the Reign of King James, and liable unto the pains and penalties therein contained, and proscribed against according to the said Statutes.

And it is further Ordered and Ordained by the Authority aforesaid, That the Lord Mayor, Justices of the peace, and Sheriffs of the City of London and Westminster, and of the Counties of Middlesex and Surrey, or any two or more of them, shall, and may, and are hereby, Authorized and required to pull down and demolish, or cause or procure to be pulled down and demolished all Stage Galleries, Seats, and Boxes, erected or used, or which shall be[95] erected and used for the acting or playing, or seeing acted or played, such Stage-Plays, Interludes, and Plays aforesaid, within the said City of London and Libertis thereof, and other places within their respective jurisdictions; and all such common Players, and Actors of such Plays and Interludes, or any one of them, or by Oath of two Witnesses shall be proved before them to have acted or played such Plays and Interludes as aforesaid at any time thereafter, by their Warrant or Warrants under their hands and seals, to cause to be apprehended, and openly and publicly given forty lashes on the bare back, during the time of the said Market, and also to cause such Offenders to enter into Recognizance with two sufficient Sureties never to act or play any Plays or Interludes any more, and shall return in the said Recognizance, or Recognizances, into the Sizes or Sessions to be then next holden for the said Counties and Cities respectively. And in case any such person or persons so convicted of the said offense, shall after again offend in the same kind, that then the said person or persons offending, shall be and is hereby declared to be, and be taken as an Incorrigible Rogue, and shall be punished and dealt with as an Incorrigible Rogue ought to be. And it is hereby further Ordered and Ordained, That all and every sum and sums of Money gathered, Collected, and taken by any person or persons, of such persons as shall come to see, and be Spectators of the said Stage-Plays, and Interludes, shall be forfeited and paid unto the Church-Wardens of the Church of the Parish.

The presciences of the Seventeenth Century often held morning conversazioni, receiving their callers[96] in bed. Like cyclones, fashions have a spiral movement; and now the good old custom of the presciences has returned, and like the cyclone, manifests itself in the West: a Chicago woman giving a weekly “Thursday Morning.” The bed on which the hostess languishes is a Louis the Fourteen Times—a gigantic four poster, with curtains partially drawn. When each caller is announced a thin blue-veined hand is held out from behind the curtains, and visions of a snowy lace-trimmed, Marchale Field night gown swim before his eyes as the thin hand is reverently kissed. The room is dimly lighted, the air is heavy with strange mysterious perfumes and all the conversation is held in undertone. It may not be amiss to state also that the coverlet of the bed is a very modern crazy quilt that has been duly certified to by a commission de lunatico enquirendo.

Certainly the people of Boston are a generous folk: in their walk and conversation they even add an R to “banana,” and spell “law” with four letters when three suffice—for hoi polloi.

The pink tea for Authors was a pretty failure. A Fictionist standing behind a teacup with a pink tidy on his chest and pink bows on his legs is a depressive sight, everywhere but in Philadelphia. But while five o’clock tea does not work, eleven o’clock beer is a roaring success.

Little Journeys

SERIES FOR 1896

Little Journeys to the Homes of American Authors.

The papers below specified were, with the exception of that contributed by the editor, Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a book entitled Homes of American Authors. It is now nearly half a century since this series (which won for itself at the time a very noteworthy prestige) was brought before the public; and the present publishers feel that no apology is needed in presenting to a new generation of American readers papers of such distinctive biographical interest and literary value.

No. 1,	Emerson, by Geo. W. Curtis.
” 2,	Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland.
” 3,	Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard.
” 4,	Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs.
” 5,	Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant.
” 6,	Walt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard.
” 7,	Hawthorne, by Geo. Wm. Curtis.
” 8,	Audubon, by Parke Godwin.
” 9,	Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman.
” 10,	Longfellow, by Geo. Wm. Curtis.
” 11,	Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard.
” 12,	Bancroft, by Geo. W. Greene.

The above papers will form the series of Little Journeys for the year 1896.

They will be issued monthly, beginning January, 1896, in the same general style as the series of 1895, at 50 cents a year, and single copies will be sold for 5 cents, postage paid.

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS,
NEW YORK AND LONDON

The ROYCROFT Printing Shop has in preparation GLYNNE’S WIFE, a story in verse by Mrs. Julia Ditto Young.

Mrs. Young is a Poet who has written much but published little. This, her latest and believed by her friends to be her best work, is the product of a mind and heart singularly gifted by Nature, and ripened by a long apprenticeship to Art. As a specimen of the pure “lyric cry,” illustrating the melody possible in the English tongue, the volume seems to stand alone among all books written by modern versifiers. The delicacy of touch, the faultless rhythm, the splendid vocabulary and the gentle tho’ sure insight into the human heart, make a combination of qualities very, very seldom seen. The author knows, and knowing blames not: a sustained sympathy being the keynote of it all.

The publishers have endeavored to give the story a typographical setting in keeping with the richness of the lines. Five hundred and ninety copies are being printed on smooth Holland hand-made paper, and twenty-five on Tokio Vellum. The copies on Holland paper will be bound in boards covered with antique watered silk; the Vellum copies are bound in like manner save that each will bear on the cover a special water-color design done by the hand of the author.

The price of the five hundred and ninety copies is two dollars each; the Vellum copies five dollars each. Every copy will be numbered and signed by Mrs. Young. Orders are now being recorded and will be delivered on September 1st, numbered in the order received.

THE ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP,
East Aurora, New York.

Quarterly. Illustrated.

“If Europe be the home of Art, America can at least lay claim to the most artistically compiled publication devoted to the subject that we know of. This is Modern Art.”—Galignani Messenger (Paris).

“The most artistic of American art periodicals. A work of art itself.”—Chicago Tribune.

Fifty Cents a Number. Two Dollars a Year.
Single Copies (back numbers) 50 Cents in Stamps.
Illustrated Sample Page Free.

Arthur W. Dow has designed a new poster for Modern Art. It is exquisite in its quiet harmony and purely decorative character, with breadth and simplicity in line and mass, and shows the capacity of pure landscape for decorative purposes.—The Boston Herald.

Price, 25 Cents in Stamps,
Sent Free to New Subscribers to Modern Art.

L. Prang & Company, Publishers.
286 ROXBURY STREET, BOSTON.

We make a specialty of Dekel Edge Papers and carry the largest stock and best variety in the country. Fine Hand-made Papers in great variety. Exclusive Western Agents for L. L. Brown Paper Company’s Hand-mades.

GEO. H. TAYLOR & CO.,
207-209 Monroe Street,
Chicago, Ill.

Have you seen the Roycroft Quarterly? The May issue is a “Stephen Crane Number.” 25c. a copy or one dollar a year.

The Roycroft Printing Shop,
East Aurora,
New York.

THE ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP at this time desires to announce a sister book to the Song of Songs: which is Solomon’s. It is the Journal of Koheleth: being a Reprint of the Book of Ecclesiastes with an Essay by Mr. Elbert Hubbard. The same Romanesque types are used that served so faithfully and well in the Songs, but the initials, colophon and rubricated borders are special designs. After seven hundred and twelve copies were printed the types were distributed and the title page, colophon and borders destroyed.

IN PREPARATION of the text Mr. Hubbard has had the scholarly assistance of his friend, Dr. Frederic W. Sanders, of Columbia University. The worthy pressman has also been helpfully counseled by several Eminent Bibliophiles.

Bound in buckram and antique boards. The seven hundred copies that are printed on Holland hand-made paper are offered at two dollars each, but the twelve copies on Japan Vellum at five dollars are all sold. Every book will be numbered and signed by Mr. Hubbard.

The Roycroft Printing Shop,
East Aurora, N. Y.

Miserere,	Hiram Dryer McCaskey.
An Hour with Maecenas,	G. W. Stevens.
Sunrise Over the City,	William James Baker.
The Captives,	Ouida.
If Love Were All,	Edith Neil.
The Man on a Bicycle,	Harvey Lewis Wickham.
The Steward,	C. P. N.
Let There Be Gall Enough in Thy Ink,	Adeline Knapp.
The Worshippers,	Charles P. Nettleton.
Side Talks with the Philistines.
Conducted by the East Aurora School of Philosophy.

THE PHILISTINE.

CONTENTS FOR AUGUST.

THE PHILISTINE.

MISERERE.

AN HOUR WITH MAECENAS.

SUNRISE OVER THE CITY.

THE CAPTIVES.

“IF LOVE WERE ALL.”
(PRISONER OF ZENDA.)

THE MAN ON A BICYCLE.

THE STEWARD.
A BALLAD OF DEATH.

LET THERE BE GALL ENOUGH IN THY INK.—Twelfth Night.

THE WORSHIPPERS.

SIDE TALKS WITH THE PHILISTINES: BEING SOUL EASEMENT AND WISDOM INCIDENTALLY.

THE RIDE.

THE PHILISTINE.

CONTENTS FOR AUGUST.

THE PHILISTINE.

MISERERE.

AN HOUR WITH MAECENAS.

SUNRISE OVER THE CITY.

THE CAPTIVES.

“IF LOVE WERE ALL.” (PRISONER OF ZENDA.)

THE MAN ON A BICYCLE.

THE STEWARD. A BALLAD OF DEATH.

LET THERE BE GALL ENOUGH IN THY INK.—Twelfth Night.

THE WORSHIPPERS.

SIDE TALKS WITH THE PHILISTINES: BEING SOUL EASEMENT AND WISDOM INCIDENTALLY.

THE RIDE.

“IF LOVE WERE ALL.”
(PRISONER OF ZENDA.)

THE STEWARD.
A BALLAD OF DEATH.