Something to Worry About
The famous race horse, Man o’ War, receives more personal attention than any being, human or otherwise, since Cleopatra. He has a retinue of servants and is housed more expensively than the Gaekwar of Baroda or the Jhilwar of Jhock.
* * *
Love isn’t blind—just near-sighted.
Whiz Bang Editorials
“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet”
Did you ever feel embarrassed? We did, the other day when the boss cow, Ethelbert, kicked over our bucket at milking time and ripped our trousers in front of the chickens. Write to us about your embarrassed moments and let’s console each other. For instance, Gus, our hired man, was in Minneapolis the other day getting his usual supply of moonshine and was riding on the street car to the depot.
“I noticed a girl sitting across the aisle that I had met while in swimming at Lake Minnetonka last summer,” said Gus when he got home, “I had not seen her since until then. I tipped my cap and said ‘Hello! How are you?’” and for a minute she looked at me blankly and then burst out: “Oh, why, hello! I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’ Of course this attracted the attention of the passengers and I found it more comfortable by getting off the car at the next stop for another little drink.”
Now, of course, that may have been only Gus’s alibi for coming home intoxicated.
* * *
I had a similar experience myself last time I was in the city. A girl was telling me how embarrassed she was. “Do you know,” she confided, “I was standing in a doorway fixing my garter when a gust of wind came along and blew the hair from off my right ear. I was so embarrassed, don’t you know.”
* * *
Newspapers tell of a woman who, in order to become a mother, obtained a divorce and married another man for a year, after which she and her child went back to her first husband. This is an exception. Some women, it seems, now are inclined not to trouble with the divorce proposition at all.
* * *
Diogenes grabbed his trusty lantern and hiked from the Presidio of Frisco to the Bronx of Manhattan searching for an honest man. Old Diog was a wise bird; he never even looked for an honest woman.
* * *
He seeks relief in vain who will not follow advice.
We always remember those who have done us a favor when we want another favor done.
Running down other people’s reputation won’t run up your own.
The trouble with the average man is that he seldom increases his average.
Many a “good fellow” is so stingy with his family that he’ll stand between his wife and a show window.
When holding a straight flush it is better to stay in and raise and win than not to have raised at all.
* * *
The pretty manicurist, Louise,
Has very many beaus;
She calls these fellows, if you please,
Her manicurios.
Holding hands is dangerous business. The hand is the lightning conductor of love and lust. The manicurist, like Othello, would find “occupation gone” if hand-holding were practised by men or old women. It is the sex element that usually attracts and holds.
Many modest and decent manicurists go regularly and professionally to the homes of their patients, or are found in office, parlor or barber annex position. Anywhere and everywhere they are pure and true womanly.
People who won’t work with their hands are known by the manicures they keep. Nails are peeled, pared, polished and painted, while the owner’s rough mind lives in the cellar and garret of mental and moral poverty.
Manicuring is a society luxury for men and women who form the polished horde of bores and bored. The world is still deceived with fuss and feathers and people who hide grossness with fair ornament.
The manicure is a necessity for musicians, doctors—and dudes and darlings in society who, beyond the actual care of their body, in food, dress and drink, think their hands were only made to wear gloves, rings, be manicured, held or united in a “good catch” marriage.
The rich are manicured who have money to burn. The idle are manicured who have time to waste. The idiots are manicured who have no idea of the value of time or money. Libertines are manicured who play guilty Fausts to pure and innocent Margarets. Hotel leechers and loafers are manicured who forget mother, sister, wife or sweetheart.
They have no time or money for church or charity, but sit by the hour holding a girl’s hand, looking into her face, trying to fan a spark of passion into their burnt-out cinder body while with hand, foot, eye and tongue they try to make a date.
The word “hand” means to hold or seize and is to man what the claw is to the bird, fin to fish, and hoof to horse. The hand is marvelously made with 27 bones, 8 of which are in the wrist, 5 form the palms, and 14 the bones or phalanges, or fingers. The hand was made for work, as proved by anatomy and Scripture—“Go to work”; “Work earnestly with both hands”; “Handsome is that handsome does”; and black or white hands are fine which do good work. Angelo carving marble, Raphael painting Madonnas, Shakespeare writing immortal dramas, Beethoven copying heavenly symphonies, Washington drawing his sword for liberty, and Lincoln penning the Emancipation Proclamation, spent little time or money in manicuring parlors.
Beautiful are the hands of wife, sister, man or friend which have directed, lead and lifted us by pitfall, through marsh and despair to mount the height on which we stand—hands perfumed with prayer, baptized with tears, clasped with affection, and generous with charity.
The man ought to be horsewhipped who uses the words “hard,” “homely,” “unmanicured,” of the hands of a father, calloused that they might give daily bread; hands of a mother, blistered and aching for work never done until they are crossed white in the coffin and God gives them rest; baby hands which twine around the trellis of our hearts and are unclasped by Death.
* * *
Another “international marriage” has gone the way of many spectacular predecessors—through the divorce mill.
In this it is hardly noteworthy. Experience and commonsense alike indicate that such unions rarely can be successful. The base allurements of a British title on one side and American gold on the other, are not the sources in which wholesome happiness finds its inspiration.
But in quite another way there is something worth noting in the divorce proceedings through which Consuelo Vanderbilt has freed herself, at last, from the disreputable ninth duke of Marlborough. It is the revelation, through her simple letters, of the true nobility of birth which does not rest upon a “Burke’s Peerage” or an “Almanach de Gotha.”
Miss Vanderbilt married this highly decorated fortune hunter in 1895. Two children were born to them. For their sakes the American wife, with womanly reserve, suffered much indignity during many years. Eventually driven to a separation, she still endured in silence, without resort to the unsavory publicity of divorce, reflecting upon her growing sons.
These children came of age last winter. The wife then made a last brave effort toward reconciliation. There was a brief reunion—ending in a disgraceful visit of the 45-year-old duke to Paris with a 25-year-old female companion.
Blood will tell—the plain American kinds and likewise the tainted blue sort that trickles through “noble” veins.
* * *
Noah was building the ark. A gang of “drys” hung around criticizing the job.
“Ever built an ark before?” asked the leader of the gang.
“Nope,” replied Noah, pounding away.
“By what right do you assume that this boat will be a success?” asked the other. “This has always been a dry country and there has never been any need for a so-called ark. What experience have you had with your so-called ark upon which to base so absurd a claim as that it will float? Don’t you know that umbrellas and gaiters have gotten us through the thunderstorms for the last forty years? There can be no hope of success for your so-called ark.”
But Noah kept on building away. Then came the Deluge, and for once in history, the knockers got what was coming to them.
Smokehouse Poetry
Smokehouse Poetry will lead the February issue readers through a variety of red-blooded gems, including, for instance, a bright little jingle from the pen of a new Kipling. His name is Carl M. Higdon and his first offering is “The Shimmy Shaker,” and what it lacks in veteran polish is made up in breezy sway. Such as thus:
She could shimmy on a mountain,
She could shimmy in a pool;
When it comes to shimmy shaking,
She’s a shimmy shaking fool.
Last month we promised to give you a full portion of George R. Sims’ tragic masterpiece, and so here we offer it for your approval.