Project Gutenberg's The Fly Leaf, No. 3, Vol. 1, February 1896, by Various

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Title: The Fly Leaf, No. 3, Vol. 1, February 1896

Author: Various

Editor: Walter Blackburn Harte

Release Date: June 22, 2020 [EBook #62452]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Fly Leaf is distinctive among all the Bibelots.—Footlights, Philadelphia.

The Fly Leaf

A Pamphlet Periodical of
the New—the New Man,
New Woman, New Ideas,
Whimsies and Things.

---

Conducted by Walter Blackburn Harte.

---

With Picture Notes by
H. Marmaduke Russell.

Published Monthly by the Fly Leaf Publishing Co.,
Boston, Mass. Subscription One Dollar a Year.
Single Copies 10 Cents. February, 1896. Number Three.

The Critics agree in saying The Fly Leaf fills a field of its own.

The Fly Leaf is distinctive among all the Bibelots.—Footlights, Philadelphia.

It is a delightfully keen little swashbuckler.—The Echo, Chicago.

The latest of the Bibelots. In my opinion it is the only one of the lot, including the “Chap-Book,” “Philistine,” etc., which knows what it is driving at. The editor of the “Chap-Book” toddles along, following or attempting to follow, the twists and turns of the public taste—at least that is what he wrote in a Note not long ago—and the editor of the “Philistine” curses and swears, and devastates the atmosphere, trying his best to kill everything. “The Fly Leaf” at once impressed me that Mr. Harte knows what he wants, and seriously intends to have it. I hope he will.—The North American, Philadelphia.

It will pay any one who wishes to keep up with the literary procession to peruse this sprightly little periodical.—The Examiner, San Francisco, Cal.

That bright little bundle of anecdote, comment, essay, poetry and fiction, “The Fly Leaf,” of Boston, comes out in particularly good style. It gives rich promise of many good things to come.—The Commercial Advertiser, New York.

Number two of Walter Blackburn Harte’s dainty monthly “The Fly Leaf,” is out, and filled with the spirit of youth and beauty in literature, and zealous with culture, taste and faith toward higher ideals, it is going about doing good.

Mr. Harte is strong, brilliant and brave as an essayist of the movement, and is making friends everywhere. The poetry and prose is all of high merit.—The Boston Globe.

The thing I like about Mr. Harte is his splendid spirit of Americanism, his optimistic belief in native literature and native writers; his hatred of all things bordering on toadyism or servile flattery of foreign gods to the exclusion of home talent. This is the key-note of The Fly Leaf, and Mr. Harte will be apt to say some trenchant, candid and always interesting things in its pages.—The Union and Advertiser, Rochester, N. Y.

These are a few criticisms of the first two numbers, selected from a great heap of enthusiastic notices. The Fly Leaf is promoting a Campaign for the Young Man in Literature. All the young men and women in America are discussing its unique and original literature, and spreading its fame.

No. 3. February, 1896. Vol. 1.

TOLSTOI.

IBSEN.

SUCCESS.

EUMENIDES.

We may take it that the old story of the Tower of Babel symbolizes the failure of the human mind to transcend the limits of natural knowledge. It is some old poet’s picture of the aspiring race lifting its bold head to steal God’s secrets from Heaven, stricken down into the dust, whence it came and to which it must return, foiled and despairing. But the babble of a million futile, unprovable human speculations continues to sway and mock generation after generation of men, wrapt in the ironies of the world of sense and necessity. So all human thought runs in cycles, and the latest heir of all the ages but gains the wisdom of increased doubt.

Our age raises its Babel of philosophies and creeds, as did the civilizations that have gone before, and left us but the fantasy of great and moving names. So our most cherished realities, for which we all suffer so much, and for which so many heretics suffer the rack and martyrdom, fade away into the gibes and bogies of tradition. Ah, how sad is the fantasy of names our freed tongues troll over so lightly! Let established wisdom learn tolerance in this levity of today’s knowledge. For those who hold to[3] any idea or ideal, know the days of martyrdom are not yet over. The old Hebrew picture is as true of today as when first written. We, too, shall pass away into the fantasy of history. We, too, shall leave but the grinning skulls and bare bones of once vital but finally unbelievable religions and philosophies—precious, priceless scraps of rubbish and litter in the catacombs of decayed and buried cities.

But the times show a certain change in spirit. Our Babel of today does not assail God’s security, for our babble builders do not seek to play the prophet or the sage so much as to play the clown successfully. The seer who gives us words of fire and folly in his futile attempt to cleave body and soul with the sword of thought, at least contrives to show us that life here can be sweet and beautiful and grand. Those whose fearful content with the life of sense and show drags us all to the level of our necessities, make life even more of an irony; for they deny the intellect and spirit their right of unfettered freedom in the domain of thought. And when thought is fettered with the appetites, life, indeed, becomes a very slavery. And half our writers are in servitude to the Egyptians. Only a few thinkers lie sullen and idle in the sun—profitless vagabonds, who can only work by whim and inspiration.

[4]At this end of the century our Babel lacks the genuine inspiration of ancient prophecy and poetry. It is taken for granted, seemingly, that as we cannot reach God, it is not worth while to rise in thought above the mere show of life, and so all the mystery of man is swept out of our literature and philosophy. We are deafened with a million small noises of small, soulless, unreal persons. The old stirring voices that thrilled us with the clamor and sternness of life, are, for the most part, silenced or muffled, because those who grow fat on the partial enlightenment of the masses, will not allow any sort of literature to prosper which, in the words of the Areopagitica, contains “views or sentiments at all above the level of the vulgar superstition.” The literature that sprang from the marrow of the intellect, the core of the heart and life, is out of fashion, is a drug in the market. This is a day in which mere noise and notoriety completely ousts and worsts any real thought in every joust of letters. In fact, literature is read less as letters, in the old sense, than as autobiography of scandalous and notorious people. Only the sensational in literature can attract attention. There are lots of good books published every year, but they steal quietly into the world, and no one knows about them. They[5] burden the bookseller’s shelves for awhile, and their only chance of circulation is finally that some whimsical crank may pick them out of the “remainder” boxes, when their one brief season of undisturbed respectability on the shelves is over.

It is with the idea of partially remedying this state of affairs, in which the odds are so uneven, that I venture to offer a few suggestions on the advisability of adopting an old and picturesque institution from a totally different Trade, and adapting it to the needs of contemporary Literature. This is the explanation of the caption of this paper, which may be a little perplexing to some unsophisticated readers. I propose to borrow the main features of the old clothing Fair, which is held among the Hebrews every Sunday morning in Petticoat Lane, London,—one of the most picturesque Babels in the world.

This would even up matters a little. I do not propose any reform, and I should not dare to mention any of the remarkable modern instances of success in literature by persons who produce much fiction which is not literature. They are sufficiently glaring to advertise themselves among book lovers. But I do want to lead a forlorn hope to re-establish some sort of social and moral, if not intellectual, equilibrium between poor handicapped brains and overwhelming[6] brass. At the present moment the calling of literature is the caravan or the refuge of the charlatan, the demagogue, the weakminded, the social fop, the hysterical and the notorious. My aim in this modest proposal is simply to remove a few obsolete superstitions and traditions of literary dignity that, once swept away, will leave all competitors for fame on the same footing. Perhaps we may then hope to see the few writers who are marred with a simple equipment of inspiration and talent enjoy some sort of equality with those who bring to the conquest of literature the overwhelming advantages of sex, brass, social authority and money.

Let us first touch upon certain aspects of criticism and publicity in the Literary Show. It will then be perfectly clear to the most prejudiced reader—and I expect prejudice in this wicked world—that my suggestion of a Sunday Fair for Literature is the most feasible and dignified expedient that can now be adopted, if any of us are to continue the struggle for some literary achievement and standard and some genuine thought in our modern Babel.

It has always been a question in the mind of the present writer whether most men, that is, sane men, do not actually know, in their own hearts, just about what they stand for absolutely in life, or whether saints and rogues, wise and[7] unwise, we are all deluded about ourselves. Heine, who wrote with so much charm about himself, and could scarcely have found a more interesting subject, was of the opinion that one cannot tell the truth about one’s self; and, since the greater portion of mankind is of this opinion, autobiography is the most irresistible form of literature.

But it is unfortunate there is not more division of opinion on the subject, because, while this view may add to the interest of autobiography, it weakens its weight and authority; and there are good reasons for supposing that one of the necessary “short cuts” of contemporary literature of the near future will be the brief critical autobiography.

There is not a mother’s son of us in the whole scribbling guild, great or small, puffed or starved, can get his fill of praise; for there are too many of us scribbling in these latter years, and that man is fortunate who is famous for a whole season. There are but few who can reasonably hope for a life in the memory of mankind as long as Mumm’s champagne. It may be there are but few of us deserve it. Such scraps of comfort as occasionally fall to our lot are almost invariably disappointing, for our friends are perversely addicted to flattering us in good, round, general terms, which save thought[8] and lack positiveness, or else they appreciate us for the very qualities it is perfectly evident we do not possess in the least degree. But this is the inevitable result of the production of literature by lightning-like machinery working day and night.

All these sugared things which authors crave can only be supplied by other writers who, aside from the necessity of earning a livelihood, are plagued with private personal ambitions of their own; and if there is any sort of drudgery more tedious than the reviewing of other people’s literature, I should like to know what it is. Those who have to earn precarious bread by the pen, somehow or other, are so busy reviewing and scribbling on topical matters that they have absolutely no time for reading, and so very few writers out of the great multitude receive more than a few perfunctory words of praise or indifferent comment, and are then straightway forgotten. With the ever increasing tide of books, literary criticism tends to become more and more a mere matter of description and catalogueing, and as this is obviously inadequate to satisfy all the demands of those who would live in the public eye, we have latterly seen the development of that interesting personage, the psychological interviewer.

Even this does not meet the exigencies of an[9] overcrowded market. The psychological interviewer is only occupied with those whose names will help to sell his wares. The secret charm of the psychological interview, when it is at all well done, is that it enables an author to supplement the necessarily perfunctory reviewing of the day with his own keener critical insight into the less obvious excellent qualities of his work. This done with a fine conscientious egotism and some show of candor, carries as much weight with liberal and unprejudiced minds as rare and subtle criticism. In fact, it is autobiography, which the interviewer breaks up into more or less dramatic dialogue.

There are still thousands of us who are so obscure and unfortunate as to be untroubled by the interviewers, and, to make matters worse, are often tabooed by the critics. But since the calling of letters is no more restricted to the “deserving” and the “good” than any other, these also desire that publicity which helps to solve the problem of bread and butter. And so I predict that the pressure of competition in the Literary Show, and the exigencies of critical writing, often colored, if not inspired, by counting-house interests, will soon bring into current literature what I have here termed the critical autobiography. In this way we may get much good literature, for the dullest man is at[10] his best when writing about himself. A man can then be perfectly independent, and still be heralded in print as one of the potent forces and geniuses of his day. The plan has some advantages over log-rolling, which sometimes involves unavoidable and ludicrous derogatory offices, that embarrass one’s reputation as a wit and a critic of discernment.

It is also really time that the writers of books learned to take something of the same vulgar view of them which those who make their living in dealing in them do, and that is to regard them when finally out of the brain and put into material shape merely as merchandise. It is this looking upon them as “children” that has made the poets the spoil of cunning men, and kept them daft and poor.

The writer’s problem is to reach his fellows, his generation. He is not, under modern conditions, concerned with posterity any more than the lawyer or the merchant. As for that, probably few books of this era will be known by name a hundred years hence; but every man should have a fair chance of getting a hearing in his own generation. As things are at present constituted, a thousand obstacles are placed in the way by other writers in the holy name of morality, style, literary ideals, and every other ingenious trick one writer can devise as a critic[11] and literary tipstaff to keep others from dimming the effulgence of his golden beams. But, pouf! all this anxiety is unnecessary. At least one-half of our contemporary literature, though it is “boomed” and bought at impressive figures, is only passable journalism, and, perhaps, will be thrown aside and forgotten as unreliable data when the journals of today (such as not being printed on wood pulp paper may perchance survive) are treasured as the mirror of our semi-barbaric times.

We are fairly deluged now with cheap Brummagem “literature.” And so I think my Modest Proposal will appeal to all fair minded persons. Let us have an open market in literature, and let the best peddler win. The game of literature as carried on today, is, with a few glorious exceptions, a purely commercial speculation, an enterprise in trade; and there is no need to confuse the issues with a lot of babble about “literary ideals,” and all the rest of it. That is but an artful trick to embarrass rivals in trade. The howl about morality is another old trick, but one—thanks to the beauties of human nature—which only helps to swell the sales of a rival. Literature is now produced to meet the demands of different markets, on the same principle that governs the manufacture of other luxuries and commodities. What is the use of waiting for[12] your rival in trade to announce your excellencies to the world? Human nature works the same in all trades. Ambition preys upon and harasses ambition. Only the cynics of Grub Street, who have no hopes and no ambitions, can be just and impartial critics, and they are in the pinch of necessity. Log-rolling, too, is an imperfect art; some fellows’ logs are so heavy!

Let it once be understood that there is no ideal aim or dignity in the literary market of our day other than to find quick buyers and win the bubble reputation, and why should any man hesitate to use the methods of ordinary commerce to advance his own interests? It is a matter of common sense.

I suggest in all seriousness this idea of a literary Petticoat-Lane Sunday Fair as the best way to develop a national literature in America. And let every man be his own critic, prophet and publisher. It could be held somewhere off the Bowery—a picturesque and appropriate place.

The critical autobiographies on the market would be genuine human documents and great fun. A collection of them would give our epoch everlasting fame. With every man peddling his own wares, like the chapmen of old, the law of the survival of the fittest would probably operate as effectively, and more convincingly, than under existing conditions.

Walter Blackburn Harte.

The rain splashed in his face, soaked through his garments, ran down his back and trickled through his wide sleeves in an almost vindictive manner. But he shambled on indifferently, slowly and heavily, apparently totally unconscious of physical discomfort. Looking into that bald face one could not penetrate its placidity, and even the eyes seemed expressionless. The small, well-shaped hands did not look as if they were accustomed to manual labor; nevertheless his clothing consisted of the ordinary blue blouse and pantaloons of a working Chinaman, and it was a very dilapidated Yankee hat around which he had wound his queue. The peculiar means by which he prevented the last mentioned part of his costume from being blown off by the wind and rain attracted some little attention from the passers-by; but to jocose remarks and amused smiles he paid no heed.

Ah Lin was proceeding to a gambling resort, and his thoughts were not with the scenes and faces about him.

When he reached his destination, he slipped a key from out of his sleeve and admitted himself into a large low room furnished with a long table, a couch and some wooden chairs. Two men sat on the couch, and about a dozen were[15] grouped around the table—all Chinamen. There was but one small window in the place, and the day being dull, the gloom of the room seemed to be made palpable and visible by the light of two oil lamps. On the window ledge was a pipe, a small lamp and a tiny porcelain cup full of jellified opium.

One of the Chinamen arose, took the pipe, dipped a pin into the opium, turned it around until a quantity of the sticky drug adhered to it, then inserted it into the pipe, held the pipe over the flame of the lamp, and drew two or three long breaths. Here was peace and a foretaste of oblivion—a vapor was seen to exhale out of his mouth and nose.

Ah Lin walked up to the smoker, and the two held a short confab.

“Well,” said Ah Lin at length, “I have fifty cents left; with twenty-five cents I can draw a lot, and with the balance I will see if I can win half a dollar on a red cord stick.”

“All right,” returned the smoker, “and I’ll do the same; but first let us worship the tiger.”

In a corner of the room on a small table stood a wooden image of a tiger with wings grasping an immense cash between its paws.

Ah Lin and Hom Lock lighted some sticks of incense and bowed themselves before the image—the Chinaman’s gambling god.

[16]Some one of those who were at the head of the centre table called to Ah Lin, and tried to prevail upon him to stake some money in a game which was played by means of a round board with a hole in the centre through which a slender stick was passed and fastened underneath to a larger board. The top piece of wood was designed to be moved around like a wheel; it was marked off into many parts upon which cabalistic figures were painted. Ah Lin had no inclination to spin the wheel, and turned to another man who sat near holding three sticks in his hand. Those three sticks were three lots; three ends projected outwards; three ends were grasped and hidden by the man’s hand, hanging down from which was a red tassel or string professedly attached to one of the sticks. The sport consisted in guessing which stick had the red string.

Ah Lin ventured twenty-five cents on one of the lots or sticks, but lost. The head gambler pocketed the twenty-five cents and Ah Lin moved silently away. If he had won he would have received his quarter back with another quarter added.

At the other end of the table was a deep earthen vessel, and around it were grouped the major part of the men in the room. One man was tying up small bundles containing sums of[17] money from one cent up to twenty-five dollars. Each package was marked with a sign word. When his task was completed, the man cast all the bundles into the vessel, and in a loud voice announced that all who wished could cast lots and for twenty-five cents have the chance of making twenty-five dollars.

A number, including Ah Lin, paid twenty-five cents and marked their names on a list of signs. Then the vessel and its contents were shaken up. All in turn were then invited to take at hazard from its portentous belly, the parcel for which they had staked. As he opened his, Ah Lin’s face turned grey; it contained but one cent.

“What have you got?” asked Hom Lock, in an excited whisper, leaning over Ah Lin’s shoulder. “Just one cent, eh? Well, I have the twenty-five dollars—the Tiger favors me—he’s a great God.”

There was a crash; the lamps were knocked down and extinguished. Ah Lin had leapt across the table and was dragging the Gambling God around the room, striking it repeatedly with a stick.

“It’s a great God, isn’t it,” he yelled. “See how it likes to be insulted. Oh, it’s a big God.”

“It’s a great God,” shouted Hom Lock; there was a knife in his hand; he pressed close to Ah Lin.

[18]Ah Lin saw the knife, and something slipped from his sleeve and two knives gleamed—then disappeared.

Some one struck a light. The owner of the place picked up the fallen God and placed it on the table. It calmly looked down upon two dead men.

Sui Seen Far.

Two others, both men, had nodded silent assent when Wooler made the declaration, lightly, that the pleasures of memory must surely pall before the pleasures of forgetting.

And presently, when the ladies had gone into the drawing-room, these three men found themselves looking one another over with that calm scrutiny in which one wonders who the deuce the other man is. As a matter of fact, however, these three, John Wooler, Andrew Insgate and Tom Farlough, knew one another fairly well. Each was merely trying to gauge the other’s sincerity.

“She objected, of course,” Wooler went on, as if there had been no interruption at all, “but then, I expected nothing else. A woman would always rather remember than forget.” He sipped thoughtfully at his port. “With us—it is different.”

At the other end of the table a group of portly, elderly gentlemen were regaling one another with anecdotal alletria.

“Do we really mean it?” asked Wooler, “or do we take the appearance of the thought for sake of its unorthodoxy?”

“For my part,” said Farlough, fingering his cravat, “I would give much of my life if I could forget some of it.”

[20]Insgate held his wine glass to the light and gazed at the rich tint of red within. “Leopardi was right,” he said, “no man would live his life over again. But—I would begin anew tomorrow if I could wipe out all the yesterday.”

The other men had left the head of the table and joined the ladies in the drawing-room. The butler moved about silently for a few moments and then left these three alone with their wine, and their thoughts.

Wooler spoke again. “We are all able to, h’m, take a little for granted. Our reasons scarcely matter much.” The others nodded. “The only consideration is that we wish to—forget. Why shouldn’t we try, we three? We are not bound in any way. Neither wives nor debts stare us in the face. We have both time and money. Why not try?”

“Why not?” repeated Insgate.

“Gentlemen,” said Farlough, smiling, “I would represent the minority were I to do else than agree with you. Why not?”

“Very well. From now on, then, we attempt forgetting. Each in his own way. From time to time we report progress or regress.”

“Each in his own way! Are there so many ways to forgetfulness? I can only think of two: work and drink.”

“Ah, but there is Woman!”

[21]“True, there is Woman. Strictly speaking, I considered her included in—however, that is but a quibble! Personally, I have no preference. I will take what you gentlemen leave.” It was Wooler who said this.

“Would you put us upon our consciences? No; let Dame Chance take a hand in dealing. We write the names—so!—and we each draw—so! Mine is work.” That was Farlough’s luck.

Insgate’s slip said “Drink.”

“For me,” said Wooler, “the Woman.” He lifted his glass, laughing quietly. “I wonder who she is. Well, we shall see.”

“Where shall we meet again?”

“And when?”

“A year from today. In the garden of the Belle-Alliance Theatre in Berlin. Travel is a necessary obligato.”

Somewhat solemnly, though with cheerful gestures, they pledged one another in a silently emptied glass of port.

And then they sauntered into the drawing-room.

A year later, Farlough strolled into the Belle-Alliance Theatre. He looked healthier and stronger; the tired look had left his eyes. He looked over the theatre lovingly. It had not changed much. Never very gay, but always cosy.

[22]They were presenting Lortzing’s ever delightful “Zar und Zimmerman,” and, while it was by no means an adequate performance, it was decidedly a pleasant one.

When the curtain had come down after the first act, Farlough strolled out into the garden. The place was brilliant with its hundreds of crystal-clasped lights overhanging the graveled walks. A throng of Berliners went chattering about. Only a very occasional Englishman or American came into evidence.

In the small open air theatre a comedian was giving a lively imitation of Sarah Bernhardt.

But nowhere was there a sign of either of those two gentlemen, John Wooler and Andrew Insgate.

Farlough turned his steps toward the box office. He made an inquiry.

The official bowed politely. He handed him two letters. He bowed again and muttered mechanically, “Gehorsamster Diener!” He was from Vienna.

Putting the letters into his pocket after a quick scrutiny of the writing upon each envelope, Farlough returned to the theatre.

When the last notes had joined the echoes, he had himself driven over to the Hotel D’Angleterre. There he opened the envelopes and read the two letters.

[23]The one from Insgate was dated at London. “At this moment,” went the screed, “I am remembering the matter of our meeting in Berlin. This is due to unexpected and inexplicable sobriety. As I may not remember again, I write now. You see, I shall not be there myself. I have managed to forget nearly all things. I began by trying the liquors of all civilization. They have succeeded in destroying my memory—except in such brief lapses as this is. And these are very rare now. By the time my money and my constitution are gone, I am sure my memory will be gone also. But as I am a sinner in agony, I swear that God in all his wisdom and wrath never invented so cruel a torment as this that I have wrought for myself. I pray that you two may not have succeeded so well.”

Farlough looked at the cold ink mutely. He pictured once again the scene at that dinner a year ago: Insgate’s nervous, aristocratic face; Wooler’s smiling cynicism.

He opened the latter’s missive. This man wrote from San Francisco. “Absent, John Wooler! Because of a woman. You see, I went the gamut of the sex. But never succeeded in forgetting until this one came into my life. When I am with her I forget everything else; when I am away from her, I remember with tenfold distinctness. So I have found heaven,[24] and live in hell. For she happens to be another man’s wife.”

Farlough tore up the two letters slowly and burned the pieces of paper one by one at the candle by his side.

“And so,” he thought, looking straight out in front of him, “they have found the way and I have not. And yet, I have won while they have lost. For my work is such a pleasure to me that the past has been atoned for long ago, and none of my memories are tainted by regrets. I am all in my work, and in it I find the ecstasy of atonement.”

And then this man who had failed to find the way of forgetfulness, sought out a railway time table to see how soon he could start back to his workshop.

Percival Pollard.

Undoubtedly one of the greatest influences of the modern world is the stage, and one of the problems of modern art is to raise the tone of the stage. This must of course be done through gaining the sympathy of the acting profession in intellectual dramatic work. The question arises in my mind, is this possible? What is the average intellectual calibre of actors and actresses? I have a suspicion that, as a class, they[25] are imitative, and but too often destitute of real intellectual interests. There are a few notable exceptions—Henry Irving, Beerbohm Tree, Jefferson, Edward S. Willard, Mounet-Sully, Richard Mansfield, James A. Herne and others. But the ordinary actor and actress, even the successful and talented ones, so far as I could ever discover, are too completely absorbed in the narrow world of play-acting, press criticisms, dresses and the jealousies and cliques of the profession, to have any leisure or inclination for an interest in the larger and freer intellectual world outside, to which men in all other callings have access as the refuge from their occupation.

I confess I never knew any actor or actress who was addicted to reading—except the newspapers for the criticisms. But I have heard that Francis Wilson is not only a bookman but a bibliomaniac, and I have longed to ask him whether he included among his spoils the first editions of American authors. I have a notion that even the despised bibelots of today will be treasures tomorrow.

It would be interesting to know if some of our leading ladies and gentlemen in the dramatic profession really spend much of their time in gaining that intimate acquaintance with life through literature which would certainly so greatly help their interpretation of character in[26] the drama. It is almost impossible for us, who have not free access to the green room, to tell. It is a pity the average writer is so little in touch and contact with this mimic life that gives him so much instruction in his art and observation of life. But from the quality of the literature provided in our contemporary “Footlights,” of Philadelphia, it begins to look as if the theatrical profession is sharing with every other class in modern society in the increasing interest in printer’s ink. “Footlights” is, however, interesting to all who love the theatre, as well as to the profession, and it is not altogether restricted to the affairs and doings of the footlights. It contains especially good criticism of current literature, written in a vein of independence and vigor, which is another sign that, with the recruiting of the younger men in journalism and literature, criticism will again assume its proper importance and character in America.

Jonathan Penn.

There are lots of things I should like to say in this place about some of my esteemed contemporaries, but, though not by any means diffident in the expression of my critical opinions, I daren’t unburden my deepest thoughts about the performances of some villains I have in mind. It is not that all the things I think are not strictly within the bounds of severe veracity, but truth is so unpopular in this world,—and especially in the literary world.

Ex-President Harrison has given damning evidence against himself. He has publicly declared himself an utterly impossible person for re-nomination by writing platitudes to the order of “The Ladies Home Journal” genius. We can enjoy a president who goes off “at half-cock” on some questions, and we can respect one who goes fishing while the whole country is anxious about a great national policy, but a president who writes for “The Ladies Home Journal” is beyond our sense of humor or pathos. That is the unforgivable sin—to make one’s self supremely ridiculous.

Alfred Austin, the new poet laureate, is reported to be sitting up night after night, reading his predecessor in the office, carefully, critically straining and comparing the text with his[29] own. He is striving to discover in what this “doosid” difference consists.

It really does strike a person of some sense of humor, and some tenderness for all human creatures, that at this moment the late Earl of Dunraven and the newly appointed poet laureate are the two most pathetic figures in the English-speaking world.

A notable departure in good bookmaking is Percival Pollard’s “Cape of Storms,” a novel in paper covers, with a cover design in colors by Will H. Bradley, and a title page by John Sloan, which is printed in a limited edition and sold at a popular price. This is a new thing in America. Perhaps, however, we are going to adopt the French fashion of paper covered literature. It will give all our authors a wider circulation. Pollard’s story is good, racy reading, which means clever writing.

What modern love has lost in sentimentality and romance it has gained in companionship, depth of feeling and intimacy. The latest phase of courtship is this: When a young man is in love he no longer sends his heart’s delight a silly sentimental poem, he sends her a symbolical Poster. Posters hold some hint of the vagaries and fantasies of the human heart, as sentimental poetry does not.

The triumph of modern love is that both sexes are now allowed to be human, and so the[30] old disparity between carnal humanity and cold and frigid divinity, has been abridged. The Poster has helped in the promotion of art feeling in the community. It is also an educational factor in the problem of establishing an equality of common sense between the sexes, that shall not destroy the witchery of woman and the eternal attraction of the sexes.

A lady journalist, who has a decided taste for the belle-lettres, and considerable faculty of her own in the art of making life picturesque, has just apprised me of a very novel scheme of hers in the way of book making.

She once had, as is the custom of so many ladies, an ordinary and inoffensive autograph album. Asking a certain Impressionistic poet for his autograph one day, she received her book back with a few lines, in which the poet thanked Heaven he had had a birthday, so that he had looked upon her beauty and lived, in the deeper sense than mere living. This date disappeared from the album.

But the incident gave my quick-witted young lady an idea. She bought a dainty book of manuscript leaves bound in Russia leather. It is now worth its price in gold, for she has, by flattery and cajolery, and the fine art of being beautiful, got it filled with sketches from the pens of some of the leading authors of the day. And the character of the volume is more unique[31] since the theme of all these fine wits is the same. The sketches are all prose pastels, inspired by the young lady’s own personality.

After reading Ian Maclaren’s “Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush,” I feel like following the precedent of the illustrious Horace Greeley and giving some advice to ambitious wayfarers. The Drumtochty folk are so uniformly generous, self sacrificing, unselfish, humane and philanthropic, that I should advise all young men of unsettled prospects not to turn their gaze westward, but to cross the seas and settle in Drumtochty. Intellectual enterprises of the most ambitious and revolutionary character, I observe, are practically encouraged and prosper there as in no other place on earth that I ever heard of. Are you a young and poor boy consumed with a desire to fit yourself for a scholar’s life and easy fortunes? Then start for Drumtochty without further ado. The blameless farmer folk there have only to be approached by the Dominie and they will immediately start you in life and pay all your expenses to a professorial chair. Are you literary? There never was such another community with the same keen scent for true imagination and poetry. Oh, it is an ideal hamlet, truly, for the intellectuals! There are more philanthropists huddled together there in one small parish than in the rest of Great Britain and the whole United States. I think[32] even the Fly Leaf would bring in great returns in such a community.

An old lady in a hill-top town in New Hampshire has written to her local newspaper warning the youth against my corrupting influence and machinations—and so I am evidently in imminent nearness to the popularity that attends all corrupters of morals.

This good lady does not charge me with any actual breaches of morality, but she detects an irreverence in my temperament and mind that might lead me to the commission of all the crimes that moral folk find so much joy in contemplating. There is, she avers, a flippancy in my view of some established things that might lead to any perversion of youth. She is sure I am immoral and should be suppressed, although she can discover no more heinous offence in me than a certain callousness in regard to the feelings of witless respectables and old fogies. She objects to the use of that term of opprobrium, and considers it indecent.

If it could only be proved so—why, hooray! If this rumor of our immorality can only be carried far and wide enough, it is clear our fortunes are made. This is the secret of success in contemporary literature. All the novelists of the day are worrying out this problem: How to present some new phase of morality that shall contain the broadest suggestions of immorality.

The Leading Critical Literary Journal of London, in a long review of “Meditations in Motley,” by Walter Blackburn Harte, says, among other things:

“When any book of good criticism comes it should be welcomed and made known for the benefit of the persons who care for such works. The book under notice is one of these. It is, so far as I know, the first from the author’s pen; but his writings are well known, and those who read his present book will, with some eagerness, await its successor. For it is a book in which wit and bright, if often satirical, humor are made the vehicle for no flimsy affectations, but for genuine thought. Mr. Ruskin has affirmed that the virtue of originality is not newness, but genuineness.

“In this true sense Mr. Harte’s book is original. Here is his own thought on several topics, pleasantly displayed, and no mere echo or second-hand production of the ideas of others. If Mr. Harte continues to act up to this sentiment, [a long quotation from the book under consideration] as he does in the present book, he may not achieve the triumph of twentieth editions, but he will be a power for good—as every true man of letters is, and must be in the world. If it were practicable I should be much disposed to let the author recommend himself by giving copious quotations from these essays. At his best—that is, in his most characteristic and seemingly unconscious passages—he reminds one of Montaigne: the charming inconsequence, the egotism free from arrogance.”

Price in Handsome Cloth, $1.25.

For sale by all Booksellers, or sent Postpaid on receipt of
Price by the Publishers,

The Arena Publishing Co.,
Copley Square, Boston, Mass.

Talk and write of the waste of society and the waste of health and the waste of luxury and poverty. But they never remark upon the equally disastrous and wanton

WASTE OF WIT

Which has for so long been the result of old-fogyism and timorous commercialism in periodical Literature. If Statistics could be compiled of the fine wits and humorists and writers of individual talents and power whose brains and productions are spoiled or altogether suppressed under the old regime of the Popular Literature for the weak minded they would be appalling. There is a ruthless waste of good wit in America, in behalf of good dullness.

The Fly Leaf aims to stem this tide of wasted wit. There are ever so many clever writers in America, though they are seldom heard of. These Younger Spirits are the backbone of The Fly Leaf, which will present the Best and most Individual Literature of the Day—as much as can be squeezed into a Bibelot.

It is not quantity but quality we seek to provide. The Fly Leaf interests all cultivated independent minds, which can recognize “a good thing” at sight. It appeals to Thoughtful and Bookish People, and it will never pander to the Mob that buys its Literature by weight.

Every issue is the most amusing and Unexpected little Bundle of Surprises. It is the only Periodical in America that has Wit to waste. Others have more Cash but no Wit.

THE FLY LEAF,
269 St. Botolph Street, Boston, Mass.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fly Leaf, No. 3, Vol. 1, February
1896, by Various

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