Turns about Town

by Robert Cortes Holliday

He that high growth on cedars did bestow,

Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow.

And so on. At any rate, you always do this. Then you say that his (or her) eyes for whom the book was written will change the dross to gold, the "blind words" to "authentic song," the "mushrump" to a flower, or some such thing. So, after all, you skillfully contrive to leave your book to the reader on a rather high, confident note. Any other way of writing a dedicatory poem to a book of verse (being out of the tradition altogether) is, I take it, bad, very bad, literary etiquette.

Numerous dedications have considerable fame. There is that enigmatical one to "Mr. W. H.," prefixed by Thomas Thorpe, bookseller of London, to Shakespeare's Sonnets. And Dr. Johnson's scathing definition of a patron when Lord Chesterfield fell short of Johnson's expectations in the amount which he contributed to the publication of the famous dictionary men will not willingly let die. Another celebrated dedication is that of "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies"—"To the Rare Few, who, early in life, have rid themselves of the Friendship of the Many." Laurence Sterne's solemn "putting up fairly to public sale" to an imaginary lord a dedication to "Tristram Shandy" is not without merit. John Burroughs was felicitous in his dedication of "Bird and Bough"—"To the kinglet that sang in my evergreens in October and made me think it was May." And a very amiable dedication prefixed to "The Bashful Earthquake," by Oliver Herford, illustrated by the author, is this: "To the Illustrator, in grateful acknowledgment of his amiable condescension in lending his exquisite and delicate art to the embellishment of these poor verses, from his sincerest admirer, The Author." Mr. Herford's latest book (at the time of this writing), "This Giddy Globe," is dedicated so: "To President Wilson (With all his faults he quotes me still)."

A clever dedication, I think, is that of Christopher Morley's "Shandygaff"—"To The Miehle Printing Press—More Sinned Against Than Sinning." A dedication intended to be clever, and one frequently seen, is, in effect, "To the Hesitating Purchaser." A certain appropriateness is presented in a recent book on advertising, "Respectfully dedicated to the men who invest millions of dollars a year in national advertising." And some nimbleness of wit is attained in the inscription of the book "Why Worry"—"To my long-suffering family and circle of friends, whose patience has been tried by my efforts to eliminate worry, this book is affectionately dedicated." As cheerful a dedication as I have come across is that prefixed by Francis Hackett to his volume "The Invisible Censor"; it is: "To My Wife—Signe Toksvig—whose lack of interest—in this book has been my—constant desperation."

Miss Annie Carroll Moore, supervisor of work with children at the New York Public Library, tells me that the other day a small boy inquired, "Who was the first man to write a book to another man?" I'm sure I don't know. Perhaps this is told somewhere. A number of books and articles concerning dedications, I have heard, are to be found in studious places. I have never read any of them. I remember, however, reviewing for a newspaper a number of years ago (I think it was in 1913) a book, then just published, called "Dedications: An Anthology of the Forms Used from the Earliest Days of Bookmaking to the Present Time." It was compiled by Mary Elizabeth Brown. The volume made handy to the general reader a fairly representative collection of dedications.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE SEXLESS CAMERA

THERE is no nicer point, perhaps, in the study of photography as the one true, detached observer of mankind than here: It sees, what man has not seen—as his own representations show, his paintings, his drawings, his sculptures—the feminine underpinning with a quite passive, sexless eye.

In this interesting matter there are two human conceptions. There is the chorus girl style of leg, the expression of piquancy, which does not perhaps appeal to the noblest emotions, but the fascination of which has always haunted man whenever he has delineated anything in a stocking. Then there is the chaste, nude feminine limb of the painter and the sculptor. Both photography shows to be idealization.

When the camera reproduces the chorus girl herself, suddenly strangely plain and painted, there is to the observing and reflective instead of sauciness the hollowness of sauciness. There can be few things more awful than those silent photographs of some gay chorus, reproducing, as they do, the spectacle with solemn critical aloofness from the spirit. It is as though the dawn of Judgment Day had suddenly broken upon the unspeakably wretched and tawdry scene. There is something, it would seem, indescribably tender, affectionate, in the irony of the gods which arranges that men should display in theatre lobbies, as an inducement to buy tickets of admission within, these death's heads of frivolity. As if the Comic Spirit itself were touched by the charm of the naiveté of man.

But, indeed, twinkling in the sympathetic light upon the Broadway stage, the professional chorus girl leg, well selected no doubt to begin with, and shaped with all the science of art, has beguiled even the reflective. A light intoxicant, it swirls in the veins like champagne for the careless moment it makes. It is pleasant because it is false.