MUSIC HINT.
Sir: P. A. Scholes, in his “Listener’s Guide to Music,” revives two good laughs—thus: “A fugue is a piece in which the voices one by one come in and the people one by one go out.” Also he quotes from Sam’l Butler’s Note Books: “I pleased Jones by saying that the hautbois was a clarinet with a cold in its head, and the bassoon the same with a cold in its chest.” The cor anglais suffers slightly from both symptoms. Some ambitious composer, by judicious use of the more diseased instruments, could achieve the most rheumy musical effects, particularly if, à la Scriabin, he should have the atmosphere of the concert hall heavily charged with eucalyptus. E. Pontifex.
“I will now sing for you,” announced a contralto to a woman’s club meeting in the Copley-Plaza, “a composition by one of Boston’s noted composers, Mr. Chadwick. ‘He loves me.’” And of course everybody thought George wrote it for her.
[p 167]
]“Grand opera is, above all others, the high-brow form of entertainment.”—Chicago Journal.
Yes. In comparison, a concert of chamber music appears trifling and almost vulgar.
At a reception in San Francisco, Mrs. Wandazetta Fuller-Biers sang and Mrs. Mabel Boone-Sooey read. Cannot they be signed for an entertainment in the Academy?
We simply cannot understand why Dorothy Pound, pianist, and Isabelle Bellows, singer, of the American Conservatory, do not hitch up for a concert tour.
Richard Strauss has been defined as a musician who was once a genius. Now comes another felicitous definition—“Unitarian: a Retired Christian.”
Dr. Hyslop, the psychical research man, says that the spirit world is full of cranks. These, we take it, are not on the spirit level.
The present physical training instructor in the Waterloo, Ia., Y. W. C. A. is Miss Armstrong. Paradoxically, the position was formerly held by Miss Goodenough. These things appear to interest many readers.
[p 168]
]THE HUNTING OF THE PACIFIST SNARK.
(With Mr. Ford as the Bellman.)
“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
“Just the place for a Snark, I declare!”
And he anchored the Flivver a mile up the river,
And landed his crew with care.
He had bought a large map representing the moon,
Which he spread with a runcible hand;
And the crew, you could see, were as pleased as could be
With a map they could all understand.
“Now, listen, my friends, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wherever you go,
The warranted pacifist Snarks.
The first is the taste, which is something like guff,
Tho’ with gammon ’twill also compare;
The next is the sound, which is simple enough—
It resembles escaping hot air.
The third is the shape, which is somewhat absurd,
And this you will understand
When I tell you it looks like the African bird
That buries its head in the sand.
The fourth is a want of the humorous sense,
Of which it has hardly a hint.
And last, but not least, this marvelous beast
Is a glutton for getting in print.
[p 169]
]Now, Pacifist Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet I deem it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums——” The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For Jane Addams had fainted away.
Concerning his reference to “Demosthenes’ lantern,” the distinguished culprit, Rupert Hughes, writes us that of course he meant Isosceles’ lantern. The slip was pardonable, he urges, as he read proof on the line only seven times—in manuscript, in typescript, in proof for the magazine, in the copy for the book, in galley, in page-proof, and finally in the printed book. And heaven only knows how many proofreaders let it through. “Be that as it may,” says Rupert, “I am like our famous humorist, Archibald Ward, who refused to be responsible for debts of his own contracting. And, anyway, I thank you for calling my attention to the blunder quietly and confidentially, instead of bawling me out in a public place where a lot of people might learn of it.”