John Northern Hilliard.
BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.
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 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.