A TOAST
by John R. Gregg.
For Success—initiative, concentration and perseverance;
For Happiness—love, cheerfulness and a sense of humor;
For Good-fellowship—the Pleiades.
L a d y C r i n o l i n e
by John Campbell Delano.
Illustration by Frank A. Nankivell.
AINTY Lady Crinoline,
Frail as the frailest porcelain,
Memory doth take me back
O’er Life’s long-forgotten track
Sweet as sweetest metheglin,
Dainty Lady Crinoline.
Dark thine hair as deepest night,
And thine eyes were stars alight,
Roses blushed thy cheeks to see.
Blessings on thee, Memory,
For this maid in bombazine,
Dainty Lady Crinoline.
Ankles slim as lily’s stem,
Tiny feet from out the hem
Of thy dress my heart entranced
When the minuet we danced.
Sweet, angelic cherubin,
Dainty Lady Crinoline!
“Dainty Lady Crinoline,
Frail as frailest porcelain; . . .
Ankles slim as lily’s stem.”
A t t h e P l e i a d e s
by Maurice V. Samuels.
HE music sounds, my pulse responds;
My neighbor who is young and fair
Holds me in conversation’s bonds—
And yet my spirit is not there!
Around me merry friends I see,
Gay laughter and saluting smile.
Here in the Hall of Jollity
Present, I still am in exile.
Bohemia’s spell is subtly wove;
What she seems to display most clear
Is not her real treasure-trove—
She whispers to an inner ear.
She pictures what remains unseen,
Sings songs too exquisite for tongue,
Tempts one with hope for nobler gains
And ever shows one higher rung!
Bohemia, ah! how base-maligned!
Thy form mistaken oft for Thee!
Thy body gazed upon, Thy Mind
Regarded as an absentee!
Thou who dost hand the cup of wine
To stir the heart till it let free
The prisoned spirit—form divine—
Art wronged by many a devotee!
The music sweet, and she whose face
Is soft illumed, and echoed laugh,
As gayety grows on apace,
Fill not the goblet that I quaff.
Somewhere, away, by Thee led on,
Aware, alive, responsive still,
I feel the tremulous light shed on
My spirit by that wanton will.
We all, earth-bound most time, behold
Thy shrine and there libation pour;
Mistake the alloy for pure gold
And mere appearance, to adore.
For know, Bohemia, Goddess glad,
We all in some way comprehend
Thy worship must be gay, not sad,
Or Thou refusest to befriend.
So here, with revelry and mirth,
Gay song, quick toast and wassail mood,
We greet Thee in Thy form of Earth
And place before Thee wine and food!
T h e L a n d o f D r e a m s
by Willard D. Coxey.
Illustration by Ryan Walker.
H, a curious place is the Land of Dreams,
With its vapory castles of smoke—
A shadowy land where the sun never beams,
And Reality’s only a joke!
’Tis a place where fortunes are made in a night
With nothing of cost or labor;
And all that you do is to turn out the light—
And dream that Wealth is your neighbor!
’Tis a land of bliss, where no one is missed—
’Tis a land that lovers adore,
Where the prettiest girl who ever was kissed
Is a dream on the edge of a snore!
So here’s to the shadowy Realm of Sleep!
And here’s to the People of Seeming!
The rest of the world may awake and weep,
But me for the laugh and the dreaming.
“Where the prettiest girl who ever was kissed
Is a dream on the edge of a snore.”
T h e W e d d i n g of the V i n e s
by Aimee Greene-Abbott.
CURIOUS vine leaned over the wall,
Gay with pride, and straight and tall.
It danced and swung in the playful wind,
And peered about to see what it could find.
Its tendrils, light and airy and gay,
Flaunted and fluttered, day after day,
Till a larger vine on the side of a church,
Swung out a branch, with decisive lurch.
He grasped the tendril with loving force,
(She thought she couldn’t resist, of course.)
They twined together, heart to heart,
Now none who pass can tell them apart.
Drawn by A. I. Keller.
T h e F a b l e of the O v e r - T a l e n t e d
by Dorothy Dix.
Illustration by Wm. J. Steinigans.
HERE was once a Sagacious Youth, with a High Brow, who Opined that the World owed him a Living.
“It is all very well,” he reflected, “for Ordinary Dubs who have not been blessed with a Superabundance of Gray Matter as I have, to Strain on the Collar in the Tread Mill of Business, but the very thought of Work makes me Tired, and I apprehend that there are Easier ways of getting the Pelf than by Earning it.
“It is, of course, a Good Thing that not every one is as Brilliant as I am, for if they were the world would blow up with Spontaneous Combustion. It really pains me to see others toiling along day after day for Measly Salaries, when they might have money coming to them on Wings if they only used their Wits instead of their Paws.”
With that the Sagacious Youth worked out a system that was a Sure Thing on paper for Divorcing the Public from its Long Green.
“There was once a Sagacious Youth with a High Brow.”
“I learned from the Census Report,” he said to himself, “that every Minute a Sucker is Born, and I apprehend that they are Providentially provided to furnish Automobiles and Wealth Water for Wise Guys like Me, and that all that I shall have to do is to take advantage of their Gullibility in order to Hook Them and have a Fish Chowder that will be a Perpetual Picnic.
“I have perceived that most of my Fellow Creatures are so Greedy that they will swallow any sort of Bait if it looks Fat, and that if you only Promise them enough, it Razzle-dazzles them so they do not investigate your means of Making Good.”
Thereupon the Youth began burning the midnight Carbon concocting a Prospectus of Speculation made Easy, by which Widows and Orphans and Clergymen could be separated from their Pile and enjoy all the Excitement and Losses of Wall Street at Home.
As an idea it was a Jim Dandy that commanded the respect of the Financial World, but before the Youth could realize it the Post-Office Department got Wise, and he felt it best to Travel in Europe for his Health.
“Alas!” cried the Youth, “I fear that the Confidence Game is getting Over-Crowded, and it is evidently up to me to either Marry and give some Female the Pleasure of Supporting me, or else go to Work.
“Personally, my tastes are not Domestic, and I prefer Single Blessedness to Double Wretchedness, but it is clear that it will be less Fatiguing to hold a Lady’s Hand than to call Stations in the Subway; it’s me for the Altar. Besides, as soon as I have annexed little Tootsey-Wootsey for my own, I will take possession of her Bank Account and then all will be well.”
So the Youth espoused an Elderly Widow whose No. 1 husband had left her a Large and Juicy slice of Insurance, but contrary to his expectations she was a Foxy Lady with a Time Lock on her Pocketbook, and he could not work the Combination that opened it.
At this the Youth shed bitter Tears, but when he began knocking Fate his Friend called him down.
“It may be True,” said the Friend, “that the World owes you a living, but there are many Small Debts that we have to Personally Collect.
“If you had displayed as much Imagination in writing Fiction as you have in Telling Lies that deceive no one, you would have received an Honorary Degree from Yale instead of the Double Cross from your Fellow Creatures, and if you had worked as hard at some Honest Calling as you have in trying to Rob Others you would be a Millionaire instead of a Tramp. It is my observation that the Beater always gets Beaten in the end. Farewell!”
Moral: This Fable teaches that Most of the Short Cuts to Success end on the Dump.
A S o n g
by Philip Verrill Mighels.
Illustration by F. Luis Mora.
Somewhere I have heard that the “Pleiades all sang together,” and I therefore submit these all-star verses as a song.
N the Northern seas I loved a maid
As cold as a polar bear,
But of taking a cold I was not afraid—
Sing too rel le roo
And the wine is red—
For a kiss is a kiss most anywhere,
When a man’s heart goes to his head.
Ho! the heart of a man is an onion, boys,
An onion, boys, with a shedding skin;
And never it breaks, for you off with its hide
When the old love’s gone—and it’s fresh within!
In the Southern seas I loved a lass
As warm as a day in June,
And oh, that a summer should ever pass—
Sing too rel le roo
And the wine is red—
For my summer, my lads, was gone too soon,
With a man’s heart gone to his head.
Ho! the heart of a man, etc.
“In the Southern seas I loved a lass
As warm as a day in June.”
In the Western seas I loved a miss
As shy as the sharks that swim,
And it’s duties we owe to the art of a kiss—
Sing too rel le roo
And the wine is red—
If a maiden so shy should be took with a whim
And a man’s heart gone to his head.
Ho! the heart of a man, etc.
P. S.—There are said to be seven seas. It ought to be seventy.
