VOL. XXXI., No. 6

The Gentle Art of Gossip

Mr. W. D. Howells recently declared that reading has become for many people a craze, even a vice, rather than an intellectual gain. They read too much, too fast, too promiscuously, and they think and talk too little. Such reading replaces undesirably even gossip, which may be, and often is, a bad thing, but ought to be, and can be, a good one.

"Good fiction," Mr. Howells asserts, "is only an exquisite distillation of human facts, which biography and history more and less attractively. embody; and all three are gossip depersonalized by remoteness of time or place." He adds that there is no reason why our own spoken gossip might not be such as to produce the effect of "all that is charming and edifying in these forms of literature."

The Youth's Companion finds here the suggestion of a new fine art.

Here is the opportunity for a new fine art! Since we do, naturally, talk about our neighbors, why not study how to do so fitly and finely, rather than intrusively and pettily? No manual of gossipry is yet published, but when "The Perfect Gossip" does issue from the press, it will contain some advice quite easy to anticipate. Its first page will forbid prying, depreciation, malice and mockery. It will recommend the cultivation of charity. and a sense of humor, the study of character, and of graceful and unexaggerated expression. Criticism it may tolerate as a wholesome social influence, but criticism will itself be criticized and discredited at the least suspicion of haste or harsh

ness.

Good and graceful acts, noble, charming or odd characters graphically portrayed, will be acclaimed among graduates in the Gentle Art; wise interpretation, generous excuse, delicate appreciation will enrich their conversation. Light and worthless reading about imaginary people will have given place to bright and worthy talking about real ones.

The New York Tribune, a nfluence Beyond the Pale newspaper of irreproachable dignity and undoubted veracity, recently printed

DEC., 1901

in the same edition two highly suggestive despatches. One from Goshen, N. Y., described how three bears, a mother and two cubs, dropped down a bank into a camp of New York hunters; the other from Bangor, Me., told about a magnificent buck, with the usual fine spread of antlers, which made its appearance in the business section of that celebrated city. To the hasty reader these items may awaken but passing interest, but to the philosophic observer, they start a rich train of thought.

Such a philosopher is found on the editorial staff of the Rochester Post-Express. He reads thus the significance of the occurrences we have mentioned:

Popularity is one thing that few men have the will power to avoid when they see it headed straight for them. It is even said that now and then a man is heard of who willingly seeks it. Sometimes he finds it. One of the great advantages of popularity is the influence which it carries in its train. That is probably why nothing is so popular as popularity. Authors, however, are an exception to the general rule. This is especially true of those writers whose works are produced by certain highly competitive publishing firms. They remain modestly in the background while the breathless public learns that 1,000,000 copies of their forthcoming books have been disposed of before publication. They do not even allow their portraits to be inserted in the front part of magazines. A glance at any periodical of the day will show how retiring they are in this particular. It must be gratifying, thus to be sought out by countless myriads of discerning readers; but how immeasurably superior must an author feel when the influence of his works spreads beyond the pale of human kind. This is possible, of course, to but comparatively few; and these are restricted to a class.

Take the case of the bears. Has the reader heard of Wahb. the Grizzly Terror of the Rockies? As several hundred thousand copies of that justly popular book have been scattered from the press, the probability of familiarity is strong. Never has ursine hero been more closely described. The au

thor admits he passed the better part of a day in a garbage heap to become thoroughly acquainted with Wahb. Does not a plausible reason for the peculiar conduct of these Goshen bears at once spring full armed from the imagination? Some hunter may have left a copy of the tale lying around loose in a deserted camp. Bears are very intelligent animals, we are beginning to learn. But, alas! "the poor bears'" curiosity to glean more of the habits of that creature called man, so cunningly suggested in the story of Wahb, resulted in disaster. The despatch says that two of them were prosaically killed off, while the third, a cub, escaped, its sweet young life embittered. But the great point shines out clearly: the spirit was there. Now, for the buck. Its actions were even more deliberate than the bear. Says the despatch in part:

"Bangor, Me., Nov. 10.- -A buck deer of large size, with a fine set of antlers, dashed through the business section of this city yesterday. At 1.30 o'clock the police near the City Hall heard a loud crash as of breaking glass, and made a hasty search of the locality, supposing that burglars were at work. They found that some animal had leaped upon the roof of a greenhouse in Columbia street, directly in the rear of the City Hall police station, and crashed through the glass, making a large hole.

"The deer passed so close to one policeman that the officer could have reached out and touched him, and nearly knocked another officer off his feet."

There it is, plain as a book-poster on a fence, for him who writes to read. The poor deer! The policeman, it will be observed, never tried to shoot at it. They may have also been swayed by respect for their fellow men. At any rate they never even drew their pistols. They understood the buck's motives. Can anyone doubt what they were? Charming, innocent creature, he was trying to find the Bangor Free Circulating Library.

Thus we see that even the dumb animals which we hardly knew until willing workers succeeded in getting the entree to the most exclusive sets, are beginning to appreciate the value of those volumes which are affording so much information to us human beings. It's a poor animal story which won't work both ways.

unlaurelled. Mr. Alfred Austin's celebration of the return of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York strikes the journalistic press as funny. The Baltimore American admits that

in his latest effusion Mr. Austin runs the whole gamut of emotion, from joy to sorrow, and then takes a tangent through the sciences. For instance, he assures the royal travelers that:

Now with happy pride your father smiles,
Your mother weeps.

Having disposed of the emotional feature of the poem, he dips at once into ornithology, and tells the Duke and Duchess:

You went and came as swallows homeward draw, Now it hath winged its way to winter's green; But never swallow or wandering sea bird saw What you have seen.

The mere fact that he refers to swallows as "it" should not militate against the laureate. Perhaps he had so many other text books to search that he mislaid his grammar. Next he dips into horology and astronomy:

Over the unchanging sea eight changeful moons Have moved from shield to sickle, seed

sheaves;

And twice a hundred dawns, a hundred noons, A hundred eves

Waned to their slumber in the starlit night.

to

The gentle reader who has never seen eight changeful moons going from seed to sheaves should pause and reflect that when a man combines agriculture, astronomy and poetry he is bound to lapse to some extent. Albeit Alfred missed his count on the moons and eves; they should coincide with the number of dawns if the verses are to be accepted as authentic. Further on he assures his royal audience:

You sailed from us to them, from them to us,
Love at the prow and Wisdom at the helm,
August ambassadors, who strengthen thus
Her rule and realm.

Not a word about seasickness. which goes to show that the gentle heart of the poet has not been altogether hardened by the arduous duties of being a laureate. There are but twelve stanzas of the ode, yet these few samples will indicate that the Duke and Duchess were made to understand that they did not need to leave their happy homes However, in order to encounter strange things. it might have been worse. Mr. Kipling would have insisted upon tabulating the rivets in their cruiser and the angles and arcs of their course had he been laureate.

The Good Old Times

Of the days that were, the
Buffalo Herald muses:

Humanity is made up of curious things. One of these is a tendency to regard with wishful eyes the days that are past. The man envies the schoolboy the very whippings that stung his back 40 years before; also, he grows to believe that in those days things were somehow better than they are now. Apples were sweeter and the air was fresher; even the girls were better looking, although time has merely improved those still remaining.

And all this is nostalgia of the heart, a longing for what can never return, since it has passed. It is not a weakness, for it merely mellows the heart and sweetens life, which has grown bitter and badly crusted. It is the usual cry of "the good old times" which one hears every day, and neither rank, money, poverty, nor health has the slightest influence upon

But though "the good old times" have departed and will never return, still sober common sense realizes that those same old times contained many discomforts that are lacking now. The ever prosaic present is gifted with luxuries that were then undreamed of, and its ordinary necessities along numerous lines would then have been thought marvelous.

it; for it probably originated when the first man and his wife regretted the flowers of youth that they had left in the Garden of Eden.

For in "the good old times" one's back froze frightfully while the blazing logs slowly roasted the face. In place of the swift, certain trains of traveling luxury, the stage coach bumped heavily along or balked suddenly, depositing its awakened load where chance dictated. Candles flickered dismally in place of electric lights, and the darkened streets were disastrous highways to those inclined to rcam after dark.

"The good old times," had many points that are to be remembered with regret, but none the less certain improvements have occurred since then, and the list is growing. Even the most ardent longers after the days departed would be apt to regret speedily their return.