Chapter II: Preface (2)

’Tis not hyperbole to say, that by as much as these shapely, sentient, palpitating columns exceed and surpass in grandeur and in beauty those other misshapen supports which the bard of Avon has stigmatized as riding-rods, by so much does the genius of our tragedian transcend the strutting, tottering pretences that are served up by his competitors. What strength, what decision, what grace, what durability, what forcefulness, what nobility, do we perceive herein! What breadth of understanding, what continuity, what power of endurance, what bottom, do we instantly recognize! And these beauties will continue to expand and to grow, just as they have in the past, provided that the distance between one-night stands is not shortened, and the walking holds out good. We remember, that, when we first saw Mr. Miln’s Hamlet, three years ago, it was crude and angular: now we behold it rounded out and symmetrized. This is the blossoming of our friend’s genius: what will the harvest be? Ah! who can say what a perfect art-picture will be presented when the whole nature of the actor becomes permeated with, and symmetrized by, the subtile beauty of that shapely calf? We hail the prospect with delight, and most cordially do we congratulate Melpomene thereupon.

_The Literary Wayside._

DURING the base-ball tourney between Chicago and St. Louis we are issuing extra editions of “The Daily News,” containing such excellent reports of the all-important contest as to excite the warmest admiration in leading literary circles.

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AT the meeting of the West-Side Literary Lyceum last week, the question, “Are Homer’s poems better reading than Will Carleton’s?” was debated. The negative was sustained by a vote of 47 to 5. On this occasion Miss Mamie Buskirk read an exquisite original poem entitled “Hope; or, The Milkman’s Dream.”

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COL. T. WESTON BRIGGS, the well-known real-estate agent, offers his magnificent private library for sale at four dollars per front foot.

_A Beautiful Article of Virtue._

Our esteemed fellow-townsman, Mr. Charles F. Gunther, the well-known candy-manufacturer, is indefatigable in collecting rare old curiosities. Not very long ago he discovered a genuine autograph of William Shakespeare, and he paid five thousand dollars for it; subsequently he found and bought a volume of Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poems containing the autograph of Dante Alighieri written in a clean, round hand on one of the fly-pages; but still more recently he has come into possession of a relic more valuable than all the rest combined—in fact, so highly does Mr. Gunther prize this latest acquisition, that he freely confesses that he would not exchange it for an Ossa of caramels piled upon a Pelion of gum-drops. This relic is an Egyptian mummy, and Mr. Gunther exhibited it to us the other day. It seems that when Mr. Gunther was in Egypt some years ago, he fell in with Professor Schliemann, the famous excavator, archæologist, explorer, etc. At that time the professor was tunnelling into the pyramids, excavating the sphinx, and pursuing divers other humorous fads, whims, and crochets. Mr. Gunther took quite a fancy to the professor, showed him his autograph of Shakespeare, gave him a recipe for making lemon-taffy, and presented him with a photograph of McVicker’s theatre before the fire. For these manifestations of sympathy, Professor Schliemann was deeply grateful, and he promised to reciprocate in due course of time.

About a month ago Mr. Gunther was charmed to receive from the professor an express-package containing a mummy of the first water. Considering the wear and tear to which it must have been subjected for the last twenty or thirty centuries, this mummy is in excellent condition. We shall refer to the mummy as “it,” although Mr. Gunther chooses to call it “he.” It is not more than three feet in length, and its weight is perhaps equal to that of a two-dollar box of jujube paste. Its girth does not exceed twenty-eight inches. Such of its complexion as is exposed, is of the pronounced hue of chocolate-drops; and the few strands of hair remaining on the shrivelled scalp are as black and straight as a stick of licorice. Beginning at the upper part of the neck, and extending down beyond the toes, are tightly wrapped swathings of linen which have become begrimed with the dust of many hundreds of years. Outside the swathings which envelop the breast of this singularly unappetizing object of _virtu_, appears a broad strip of thin cloth, upon which is printed a large number of figures, which we supposed might have been used in ancient times as the advertisement of a zoölogical garden, but which, Mr. Gunther told us, was in fact a group of Egyptian hieroglyphics stating in brief the biography of the enclosed deceased. Mr. Gunther said he could not read the hieroglyphics, but he had asked a committee of members of the Chicago Literary Club—that quintessence of local learning and culture—to sit in inquest, as it were, upon this prehistoric corpse, and to decipher the rude characters emblazoned upon its pectoral envelopment. Mr. Gunther said that the committee had not yet made a report, but that, until it did, he would continue to indulge the belief that the remains were those either of Rameses II. or of Cambyses I. These persons, he went on to say, were Babylonian kings, who flourished in that pagan age when every man had several hundred wives,—a barbaric custom which most men openly denounce, but secretly covet. He knew that this specimen was a king, because of the evident care that had been taken to preserve him against the ravages of time; and he was confident that he was either Rameses II. or Cambyses I., because he had read recently in a number of the “Candy-Manufacturer’s Journal” that both these monarchs had been sepultured in one of the pyramids. It was with a good deal of anxiety, he added, that he awaited either the report of the Chicago Literary Club committee, or advices from Professor Schliemann, clearing away the clouds of doubt and mystery now surrounding the identity of this antique _bric-à-brac_.

_The Shakespeares Identified._

In the “Florida” of Lucius Apuleius it is narrated that Socrates, having looked for a long time upon a certain handsome but silent youth, exclaimed, “Say something, that I may see you.” From this it is inferred that the grand old philosopher saw not with his eyes, and that he thought that men were to be considered rather with the rays of the intellect and with the gaze of the soul. In the practical times of the present, however, the Socratic theory goes for naught; and humanity, justified in so doing by the counsel of the law, holds to the opinion of the soldier mentioned by Plautus as having declared that “one eye-witness is worth more than ten ear-witnesses.” Therefore, it is remarkable, we think, that, while the scholars of these days are searching for clews to the authorship of certain works of antiquity, none of them has been pleased to accept and to make the most of the ocular evidence that has come down from remote times and that bears directly upon these things.

Several portraits of the much-discussed William Shakespeare are in existence: two corresponding closely are the Droeshout engraving and the Chandos painting. The Droeshout engraving was produced in 1623 in the first collected edition of the so-called Shakespearian plays; and it was eulogized by the critics of that time, and accepted as a true likeness by William Blake, the idealist poet and painter. This engraving represents Shakspere as an intellectual man with regular but strong features, a small, shapely mouth, large, speaking eyes, and a wondrous expanse of forehead. In all the authentic pictures, Shakespeare is represented as wearing a loose jerkin, about the top of which a broad, unstarched shirt-collar is turned down in a charmingly _négligé_ fashion.

Of Sir Francis Bacon, so-called, but one portrait has come down to posterity. The original is now in possession of the British Museum, having been given to that institution by the Earl of Ripon, whose father had it from Katherine, Duchess of Marlborough, in payment of a debt. This portrait would seem to give us the duplicate of the facial features of Shakespere; the eyes, mouth, nose, and expression being the same, likewise the cut of the beard, the curl of the mustache, and the style of wearing the hair. But Bacon is pictured with his hat on,—a prim affair, worn cocked somewhat to one side,—and a ruffle about his neck, as was the fashion among courtiers and gentlemen of the Elizabethan time. It was to Bacon that the ingenious Jonson addressed the lines,—

“Him ruffs and ribands prettily become,
While at his learning stands the world adumb.”

Yet in his “Masque of the Roses,” which was performed under royal auspices, Jonson makes Bacon say,—

“Beshred me of these silken patches, you will find
A master wit, a wholesome soul, a generous mind:
What need of garters and what use of name
Sith these three fellows do atchieve such fame?”

Of Ben Jonson, the author of these lines, there are three authentic portraits. That which is known as the Dinwiddie portrait is the most popular. It was made while Jonson was visiting his friend Herbert Latshawe at that fine old artist’s country-seat near Patmore. Jonson was then in his sixty-third year, and therefore the portrait is that of a man considerably beyond the prime of life. Yet, is there any so blind that he cannot detect under these spectacles the calm, intelligent eyes of Shakspur and Bacon, and cannot recognize in the other features, the features delineated in the Droeshout engraving of Shakspere and in the Marlborough portrait of Bacon? Several years before this picture was made by Latshawe, Jonson wrote his remarkable play of “The Fox.” In the course of this play (act 3, scene 1), one of the characters, a literary man, has this to say:—

“The gaping world shall see me in my age
Wearing the wit that lumined Shakspere’s page:
Bacon’s big learning, Beaumont’s virgin grace,
And Fletcher’s power shall sit upon my face.”

Francis Beaumont, thus prettily referred to, was a precocious creature. He is said to have died at the age of twenty-nine; yet during his short life, he earned so great a reputation as a poet and dramatist, that to this day he is accorded half the credit of the work which Fletcher really did. It is narrated that Ben Jonson had so high an opinion of the young man’s critical genius, that he used to refer his plays in manuscript to Beaumont for revision, when Beaumont was scarce turned of twelve. The only portrait of Beaumont is to be found in the collection of the Duke of Ayrshire: it is in a state of excellent preservation, and is, perhaps, the handsomest portrait that has come down from the sixteenth century. It is interesting to compare this picture with those of Shaxspere, Bacon, and Jonson. Leigh Hunt said, “When he was a boy, how much the poet of the Elizabethan period must have looked like the other fellow!” We think so too. Does it require more than a hasty glance to assure one that, at twenty-eight years of age, William Shakspeare, Francis Bacon, and rare Ben Jonson must have been the very counterparts of handsome, gifted, winning Francis Beaumont?

And how about John Fletcher? Well, there is but one portrait of him, and that is now in the British Museum. It was painted by a Hollander named Bruggmarx, and Fletcher was then sixty years old. The face, it will be noted, is still the face that we have seen in the authentic pictures of Shakspear, Bacon, and Jonson! An older face, perhaps, but the strong, inspired features are there, and we are forced to declare it the same face. The hair is scantier than in the other pictures, but the effect which is produced by curling the one surviving tuft over and about the bald cranium so as to give an appearance of hair—this effect, we say, is artistic.

In one of his letters which are still preserved for the edification of posterity, the gifted Walter Raleigh writes, “Right sorely hath her Majesty the queen been displeased with my lord Bacon for that he hath caused privily to be made a likeness of himself in the similitude of an old man, the which being carried to the Green Boar, and therein exhibited under the divers names of Jonson, Fletcher, Shakesper, and the like, hath brought a grievous scandal upon the queen, and such sorrow withal, that, hearing of the same, she did swound, and even now maintaineth secrecy in her closet, making great moan, and weeping beyond all measure.”

Two other so-called British dramatists are entitled to our attention. One is Robert Greene, and the other is George Peele, of whom capital portraits have been handed down. Greene is said to have been a dissipated, rakish fellow, and the picture we have of him would appear to confirm this story. It is not hard to detect traces of dissipation in this handsome face: it is such a face as old Ben Jonson might have had, if, instead of devoting himself to quiet symposiums at the Green Boar and the Blue Dragon, he had rioted about the slums of London with evil women. Such a face might William Shakspeare have been favored with if, instead of invading his neighbors’ preserves with his gum-shoes on, he had seen fit to debauch his talents in the ale-houses of the British metropolis. And such a face, too, might “that ponderous sink of learning,” Francis Bacon, have had, if he had abandoned the writing of Shakspear’s plays for the pursuit of Robert Greene’s midnight orgies. In a word, with the exception of the trifling detail of his coiffure, happy-go-lucky Bob Greene bears a striking personal resemblance to the other distinguished _littérateurs_ who flourished in his time. And here is a curious extract from a letter which Greene wrote to his friend Raleigh shortly after the production of his tragedy of “James IV.” It is dated in London: “Vastly distraught is my good Anne Hathaway by the evil rumors that hath gained prevalence in these parts, and that do grievously belie me in that they make me to be a thief by night. But his grace hath signed and given into my hands a paper confessing it to be a libel and his bucks to be properly accounted, whereat methinketh my dame Anne should be set aright as touching her vexation.” The astute critic, Malone, wonders how it is that Robert Greene should have been accused of poaching, the same charge that was preferred against Shakspeare; he wonders, too, how Anne Hathaway, Shaxpeare’s wife, could be the wife of Robert Greene also. His wonderment is not amazing.

This interesting portrait is of George Peele; and its striking likeness to the portraits of Bacon, Jonson, Shakspur, Beaumont, Greene, and Fletcher has been remarked by critics from time immemorial. In short, the likeness which the pictures of all the dramatists of the Elizabethan period bear to each other is so marked that we think there is good reason for believing that Sheksper, Jonson, Beaumont, Greene, Fletcher, Peele, and Bacon were not different individuals, but one man.

It is quite true that the scholarly Donnelly and the learned Holmes have proved to their own satisfaction that Shaxpeare did not write the plays commonly imputed to Shaikspore; but they have not proved who wrote the plays commonly imputed to Jonson, Peele, and the other alleged dramatists of the glorious old days when a lady was designated as a lousy wench, and when _liaisons_ were made the text of popular society plays. It seems to us that the pictures of these old dramatists fill this hiatus, if so we may term it, and these pictures teach us that once upon a time there was a humorous genius who figured under many names, who tossed off many plays, and who posed for many portraits. We do not know his name, but we know that he is variously called Shakspeare, Bacon, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Peele, and Greene. And we know, too, that his glory will illumine the world long after wiseacres and charlatans have abandoned the task of trying to determine his identity.

The old poet, George Chapman,—he who was the contemporary of these puzzlingly numerous one,—understood what he was about when he penned these lines to his friend, Francis Shaxpur:—

“Or seen in poacher’s guise or courtly robes of satin,
Or read in English verse or tomes of prosy Latin,
Or viewed in chiselled bust (the best the critic thinks it),
Or masking in a daub which some rude Dutchman pinxit—
In all thy verse, prose, portraits, effigies of plaster,
Shines the vast genius of one universal master.”

_Among the Literati._

IT is reported in high literary circles that the McAfee Refining Company will take two pages of “The Easter Current” for the purpose of advertising the excellences of its new brand of leaf-lard.

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AT the formal dedication of the Blue-Island Avenue toboggan-slide last Saturday evening, a beautiful poem in imitation of the Pindaric odes was read by the gifted authoress, Miss Birdie McLaughlin.

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AMONG the recent additions to the valuable collection of our esteemed fellow-townsman, N. Hawthorne Smith, is an autograph of Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sahara.

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WE are informed that a Browning Society has been organized by the inmates of the Cook-County Imbecile Asylum.

_The Markeesy di Pullman._

“Il bianco di cazerni della graze fio bella,
Di teruca si mazzoni quel’ antista Somno della.”
_Petrarch._

“He who conduces to a fellow’s sleep,
Should noble fame and goodly riches reap.”
_Tasso._

“Sleep mocks at death: when weary of the earth,
We do not die—we take an upper berth.”
_Dante._

Never since the great fire of 1871 has Chicago society been so profoundly agitated as it was when it became noised about that King Humbert of Italy had created our esteemed fellow-townsman, Col. George M. Pullman, a knight of the first water. At first, grave doubts as to the genuineness of the report were indulged; but when, later in the day, it became known that the rumor was credited at the headquarters of the Italian legation, the joy of the public burst all restraints, and manifested itself in every variety of ebullition.

Col. Pullman is, we believe, the first citizen of Chicago who has been honored in so distinguished a manner by royalty. It is true that the Pshaw of Persia craved the boon of investing the Hon. Frederick H. Winston with the order of the Yellow Dromedary, but the negotiations fell through as soon as the eminent American diplomate declined to advance the pshaw the ten thousand golden pistoles which his serene majesty expected as an evidence of Mr. Winston’s good faith in the premises. It is true, also, that there are in the midst of us a number of royal personages—or perhaps we should say a number of persons of noble descent. Very many of our Irish citizens are of high extraction,—descendants of dukes, earls, booyars, barons, and knights, who for political offences have been exiled from the land of their nativity. To our certain knowledge, Col. John F. Finerty is a lineal descendant of Brian Boroihme; and many other fellow-townsmen of ours can boast ancestries almost as noble. Ex-Senator Millard B. Hereley is one of the Bourbons from Bourbon co., France; and we could, if we had the space wherein to tell it, specify who the Duke of Eniscarty, the Earl of Ballanasloe, the Duke of Cork, etc., are, and by what aliases they are known to the people of this city.

In spite of these facts which we have stated, it is true that Mr. Pullman is the first citizen of Chicago to be recognized and honored by a crowned head of Europe. As near as we can come to it, Mr. Pullman’s elevation to knighthood was brought about in this wise: Last year he made a tour through Italy; and when he reached Naples he called upon King Humbert, and made a formal complaint touching the railroad facilities with which his Majesty’s kingdom is, and always has been, cursed. His Majesty was struck at once with the learning, the eloquence, the earnestness, the _sang froid_, and the _swaviter in modo_, of the petitioner; and he besought him to suggest an improvement, if he could, upon the system of travel then in vogue. Thereupon Mr. Pullman caused to be made by the Herculaneum and Pompeii Manufacturing Company (limited) a palace sleeping-coach, which he presented to King Humbert with his compliments, demanding no recompense for the distinguished gift further than the privilege of appointing and controlling the porters for said car. The grateful potentate readily granted this request; for he was charmed, positively delighted, with the luxurious innovation introduced by the enterprising American. For the next six months King Humbert did nothing but travel around: the chances are that he would be travelling still, if he had not been compelled to suspend operations until after the Senate voted him another appropriation. At the end of the six months, the king found himself out of pocket about 1,500,000 lires; and about this time Mr. Pullman’s porter in Naples, one Giacomo Fiozzo, began buying corner-lots, and erecting ten-story apartment-buildings on the principal Neapolitan thoroughfares. Kings, however, are liberal folk; and well can they afford to be, even when dealing with a Chicago businessman. So when King Humbert fell to thinking of all the pleasures (not to say benefits) he had derived from his six months’ experience in Mr. Pullman’s coach, he paid not even the tribute of a passing thought to the financial outlay involved, but rather set his wits to work at inventing some means whereby he might further distinguish the gentleman, whom he viewed in the light of a benefactor. The result is this elevation of Mr. Pullman from the ranks of the hoi polloi to the dignity and the title of a marchese, which, in the Italian tongue, corresponds to the knighthood of Great Britain, the booyars of Roosha, and the flambustules of Siam.

Sig. Pietro Casa del Comma, secretary of the Italian legation in this city, tells us that when the official communication from his Majesty reaches Chicago, it will become the duty of the consul at this point to proceed at once to Mr. Pullman’s palatial residence on Prairie Avenue, and there, in the presence of the Italian legation, and in the name of his Catholic majesty, to dub Mr. Pullman a marchese or (as Mr. Pullman may prefer to be called) a chevalier. Sig. del Comma says that “marchese” is pronounced “mar-kee-sy,” and that “chevalier” is pronounced “shee-val-ya:” we are inclined to think that markeesy sounds just a trifle more bong tong than sheevalya, and we hope that Mr. Pullman will choose that title.

After he has been invested with this honor, Mr. Pullman—or, we should say, the Markeesy Pullman—will be visited by the gardener of the legation (for this is an old custom), who will present him with a bouquet, saying, “Io ho l’onore, onorevole signor, di presentarvi le queste fiori e di gratularvi.” Upon receiving this bouquet, the markeesy will be expected to hand the simple gardener fifty francs (or ten dollars), and this is all the money the markeesy will have to pay out for the honor. By a singular coincidence, the gardener of the Italian legation in Chicago at this time is one Patrick Murphy, a kinsman of the late Markeesy di Potata (_née_ Murphy) of San Francisco, who was elevated from obscurity by the late Pope Pius IX.

Sig. del Comma tells us furthermore that one of the first things the Markeesy Pullman will have to do will be to choose a coat-of-arms, for a markeesy without a coat-of-arms would be an anomaly which the Italian potentate could not well endure. With a view to relieving the markeesy of much anxiety and labor, the signor has compiled a coat-of-arms, which he will submit for the markeesy’s approval and adoption.

This chaste design represents a shield engrailed, bordured, and vert, with a supporting figure at each side; the figures are what in the vernacular of heraldry is called expectant and demandant; the shield dexter is quartured—that is to say, divided into four berths, or compartments, which are left blank for posterity to fill; the shield sinister is decorated with the portraiture of a small feather pillow issuant, this being the heraldic symbol of luxury and ease; upon this pillow appears the personification of indefatigable industry and ceaseless vigilance, rampant, illustrating not only the means by which the markeesy has achieved his noble ends, but also the still nobler teaching of the most wise Solomon, who said, “Go to the ant, you sluggard, or you will go to the dogs.”

Above the shield appears a motto, “Pro Patria Caveliere,” which is the Latin for “For His Country, a Knight;” but the particular beauty of this motto is, that it can be abridged to P. P. C., and thus be made to serve a business purpose.

As we understand it, the Markeesy di Pullman becomes, immediately upon the acceptance of this title, the local protector, patron, promoter, and _chaperon_ of Italian art. When Col. J. H. Mapleson comes to Chicago with his wheezy old cantatrices and spavined tenors, it will be the markeesy’s duty to go security for advertising, hotel-bills, and theatre-rent; it will also be the markeesy’s duty to advance Mapleson and his troupe enough money to take them to St. Louis; this will be a great boon to our Opera Festival Association, and we presume that the markeesy will be glad to make the trifling sacrifice for the dignity of the crown that has honored him. As soon as Mme. Adelina Patti heard of the rumor of the markeesy’s elevation to the peerage, she sent him a bouquet by Sig. Nicolini. The markeesy gracefully acknowledged the compliment in a note made up of polite Italian phrases judiciously culled from the libretto of “Il Trovatore.”

The Italian population of Chicago is highly gratified with the distinguished tribute paid by their monarch to our popular fellow-townsman. At a meeting of the Societa d’Italia in Poggio’s restaurant last evening, several speeches were made in eulogy of the Markeesy di Pullman’s many virtues, his enterprise, his munificence, his philanthropy, etc. An address to his Majesty King Humbert, congratulating him upon having recemented the ties which bind Italy and the United States, was read by Giovanni Bianco, the banana-merchant, and approved by the meeting: it was ordered that the address be cabled to his Majesty, provided that the Markeesy di Pullman would pay the toll.

The effect of the Italian boom has already become apparent in our literary circles. The leading book-sellers say that incessant have been the calls for Dante, for Petrarch, and for Tasso, since the news of the Pullman affair reached Chicago. The markeesy’s portrait in the rooms of the dancing-class was draped with Italian flags last evening; and already the caterer at Caveroc’s on Wabash Avenue has invented a new dish of macaroni, which is entitled macaroni di Pullman. We mention these trifling details merely to indicate how generally and how deeply this compliment of royalty to our amiable and gifted townsman is appreciated by his fellow-citizens.

_Literary Laconics._

WE understand that Mr. Gunther, the autograph virtuoso, recently paid two hundred and fifty dollars for an autograph of Dante Alighieri, which he discovered on the fly-leaf of a volume of Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poems.

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MR. MÆCENAS B. FULSOMTONE, the well-known purveyor of green hams, and president of the Michael Angelo Art Club, has just sent to his London agent an order for fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of books. The choice of volumes is left with the agent; the only specification made by Mr. Fulsomtone being that the books contain plenty of pictures, and be bound in red morocco.

_As to the Garter of a Markeesy._

WITHIN the last two days we have received a large number of communications touching the handsome coat-of-arms which the secretary of the Italian legation has designed for the marchese di Pullman. Several of the communications contain comment upon the picture of the industrious insect represented as sprawling rampant on the feather pillow in the sinister half of the so-called Pullman shield. One correspondent says that the insect is not an ant, but a potato-bug; another declares that it is a busy bee; and still a third maintains that it is neither a chinch-bug, nor a busy bee, nor yet an ant, but one of those predatory vampires known (by name only) in polite society as “the flat-backed militia.” A gentleman, signing his letter “Scholasticus,” writes that he is deeply learned in heraldic lore, and that he has studied with increasing pleasure and profit the design submitted by Sig. Pietro Casa del Comma. He says, however, that he has one important suggestion to submit, and it is this: That the dexter quartures of the shield, which have been left blank for posterity to fill, should be designated as No. 1 upper, No. 1 lower, No. 2 upper, and No. 2 lower.

The suggestion submitted by “Scholasticus” strikes us most favorably, and we have sent it around to the Italian legation. As for the communications of the other correspondents, we have to say this only: That the form of animal life depicted upon the pillow of the shield was designed by the artist to represent an ant, the most industrious, the most frugal, and the most provident, of creatures. It may be that chinch-bugs and busy bees are in the habit of spending their precious time gallivanting around over feather pillows, but we have never met with any of this kind in the course of our travels. On the other hand, the ant is to be found everywhere, and in every employment. As Aristotle truly has it,—

“Whether upon the raging billow,
Or o’er the meads her path be bent,
On buttery shelf or Pullman pillow,
The ant is busy and content.
Full many a bird of rarer beauty
Is heralded by trump of fame:
The ant toils on in line of duty—
And gets there all the same.”

In connection with this little affair, we will say that a matter of much more importance than the marchese di Pullman’s coat-of-arms is bothering us just at present. We are informed that when a man is invested with the order of knighthood, he is expected to wear a garter upon (or around) his left leg. We have been devoting some time to an investigation of the subject of garters, and we think that we are competent to give a pretty able opinion thereupon. Garters, we maintain, are divided into three grand divisions or schools. The first is the Elizabethan, the second is the Boston, and the third is the Reform school. This picture will give a pretty fair idea of the three:—

Now, here in Fig. 1 (which is the verisimilitude to the left) is a tableau of the Elizabethan garter upon the left leg of a knight: we will suppose the knight to be the marchese di Pullman. The garter encircles the leg below the knee, and it clasps the leg so tightly as to shut off the blood-supply from that part of the member below it: the result is, that the marchese di Pullman’s left calf shrivels and abates, until it falls to the level of the ankle, and, when that unhappy climax is reached, it becomes necessary to sew the garter to the hose, else it will not retain the position required by the etiquette of the court. We doubt very much whether there could be imagined a more pitiable spectacle than that of the marchese di Pullman travelling about the world in his knightly robe, with his right calf normally plump and shapely, and his left calf all wizened and shrunken under the baleful effects of the knightly garter. In Fig. 2 (the illustration in the centre of our design) we have a representation of the marchese’s left leg adorned with the Boston garter, which we consider a great improvement upon the garter of the Elizabethan period. This modern innovation conduces to the development of the muscles in the lower part of the leg, and at the same time it supports the hose in a most ingenious manner. It permits the blood to course unimpeded on its way, thus insuring against cold feet, and proving a very salvation for corns and bunions.

The third illustration is of the Reform garter. We hear it highly spoken of, but we have not looked into its merits. Inasmuch as it is so warmly recommended by those who have tried it, we think we can safely say that we hope to see more of it in the future. As we are told, this machine consists of divers straps and pulleys so ingeniously contrived as to bring its weight upon no particular part of the body, but to distribute it (or diffuse it, if you please) over the whole system. One part of it, as we are told, girds the neck, and the other part holds the hose in a deathlike grip. This establishes such an immediate and close relationship between the pedal and the pectoral regions, that, if the wearer have corns, a palpitation of the heart is likely to ensue, or, if the wearer’s feet happen to get wet, a sore throat is invariably the consequence.

We think, therefore, that, viewed from every stand-point, the Boston garter has notable advantages over its competitors; and, if we are called upon, we shall advise the marchese di Pullman to adopt it as the insignia of his noble office.

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WE heartily sympathize with our ennobled fellow-townsman, the marchese di Pullman, in the sorrow entailed upon him by the official announcement that the Italian olive-crop is almost a total failure this year. Yet when one accepts the burdensome responsibilities of the peerage, he is expected to endure with Spartan fortitude the providential dispensations that remorselessly crush those less honorably fortified.

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“THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE” is rather late in the day: still, we are glad to find it lumbering to the front with the venerable information that the Markeesy Giorgio di Pullman is not entitled to the title of sir. This is what we said last week. The title which our cultured and opulent fellow-townsman has, in recognition of his philanthropics, been honored with, is the Italian title of markeesy, which corresponds with the English title of sir; but the bearer cannot Anglicize the title: he must remain a markeesy all the days of his natural life, or until, at least, he is promoted to some higher dignity. The Markeesy di Pullman understands this perfectly, and he would not exchange his markeesyship for the cream and flower of English knighthood. In connection with this subject, we beg to say that we deeply deplore the existence of a bitter malice against, and a rancorous envy of, the Markeesy di Pullman in certain local society circles. The existence of this insidious hostility was first brought to our knowledge by means of a song composed by a Chicago poet, and set to music by one of our amateur musicians. The chorus to this ribald song runs as follows:—

“When the party is breezy and wheezy,
And palpably greasy, it’s easy
To coax or to wring,
From a weak-minded king,
The titular prize of markeesy.”

_Mr. Emerson in ’Frisco._

While Ralph Waldo Emerson was on his way to California, several years ago, he fell in with a gentleman who was altogether so sociable and chatty that an otherwise tedious journey was rendered as cheerful as you please. This gentleman’s name was Sackett, and he told Mr. Emerson that he resided in San Francisco: this was all the information he ventured concerning himself, but from his conversation Mr. Emerson gathered that his newly made acquaintance was indeed a gentleman of intelligence and standing. Mr. Sackett pointed out all the points of interest along the way, retailed a lot of amusing anecdotes, and, best of all, was an attentive listener when Mr. Emerson fell to discoursing upon the Is, the To Be, the Seeming, and other frothy subjects with which his scholarly and saintly intellect seemed thoroughly conversant.

The natural consequence was that Mr. Emerson came to the conclusion that Mr. Sackett was as charming a gentleman as he had ever met with, and it was in this positive conviction that he accepted Mr. Sackett’s invitation to dine with him immediately upon their arrival in San Francisco. The next morning Mr. Emerson was well-nigh paralyzed to find in all the local papers this startling personal notice: “Professor Ralph Waldo Emerson, the eminent philosopher, scholar, and poet, is in our city as the guest of Mr. H. J. Sackett, the well-known proprietor of the Bush-Street Dime Museum; _matinées_ every half-hour, admission only ten cents. The double-headed calf and the dog-faced boy this week!”

Mr. Sackett is now in the amusement business in Chicago, and he refers to his experience with the sage of Concord as one of the most profitable strokes of enterprise in his long and active career.

_A Summer Philosopher._

CHICAGO, ILL.

_To the Editor._—I cannot express to you how charmed I am to learn through the columns of your valued paper that the _littérateurs_ and the thinkers of Chicago are going to have a School of Western Philosophy in this city early in July. Although I have but recently come from the East (having resided in Michigan for the last five years), I take a keen interest in the growth of Western culture; and, knowing the great good effected by these re-unions whereat sympathetic intellects may revel in mutual delights, I am exceedingly anxious that this promised School of Western Philosophy shall eventuate. I was visiting friends in Boston in 1879, and went with my Aunt Holbrook to the first Concord School of Summer Philosophy. It was then and there that I got my first taste of the joys which accrue from the scholarly discussion of such subjects as the Am, the To Be, and the Knowing. The grandest minds of the century were there,—Emerson, Harris, Sanborn, Alcott, Mrs. Cheney, H. K. Jones, Wasson, Professor Pierce, Higginson, Dr. Bartol, Harrison G. O. Blake, Aunt Holbrook, and myself. It was the first and only time I met Emerson—oh, how I revere that divine man’s memory! He read an essay on “Memory;” and we hung upon his utterances, as bees cluster at the swarming. When I was introduced to him, he smoothed my hair kindly, and murmured, “Sweet child; sweet child.” He was a dreamy, poetic man, and his saintly thoughts were always amid the clouds of the vast Above. While he was discoursing of metempsychosis, or carving apple-pie, there was about him a subtile prescience and an ineffable psychic consciousness that were beauteous to cognize. Frank Sanborn was another philosopher-poet who charmed me deeply. I have in my scrap-book his entire “Address to the Mutability of Things,” and his tender lines in memory of Emerson’s dead canary-bird, beginning,—

“Oh! can this mortal ken descry
The Whither thou hast went?”

I am preparing a voluminous paper on the subject of the immortal intellects I met at Concord, and criticisms upon the various philosophies of the same. If I get this work completed by that time, I would like to read it at the Western School of Summer Philosophy next July. My well-known maiden effort, “The Chautauqua Cook Book, with Hints to Young Mothers,” may be cited as an earnest of my capability; and as a further proof of my acquaintance with the notables of whom I am treating, I can produce my album in which are inscribed the autographs of the same. Yours in the Noble work,

MRS. AMIABLE J. HOLBROOK.

_The Truth about Dante._

Folco di Ricovero Portinari had a daughter named Beatrice, a comely and amiable child, who had just turned of nine years when her estimable father gave a fashionable party to numerous friends in his palatial Florentine residence. There came to this party, in company of his father and mother, a lad named Durante Alighieri, himself but a few months older than little Beatrice. These two children, being the only little folk at the party, took a fancy to each other, and romped and played together on this occasion, as any other two children would have played under similar circumstances. Being somewhat the elder, and considerably the stronger, of the two, little Durante, or Dante as he was called, had pretty much his own way; and having robbed little Beatrice of most of her cake and all her candies, and having threatened to thrash her if she ever told, Dante declared to his doting parents that he had never before met with so sweet a little playmate as was this same little Beatrice.

We are given to understand that from an acquaintance thus made, grew an affection that endured until death removed the two principals to another sphere. In fact, the love of Dante for Beatrice has been the theme of many a sentimental poem and emotional essay.

The truth, however, is, that although Beatrice lived to be twenty-five years of age, Dante could at no time, during the sixteen years he associated with her, convince himself that he loved her well enough to make her his wife. It was not until he heard of her death that he became satisfied that he had loved Beatrice with an all-consuming love; and, having satisfied himself on this point, he began at once to indite elegiac verse to her memory,—a habit which, we regret to observe, he had the infinite bad taste to persist in up to the very date of his demise.

Fortunately, there have been preserved, by the genius of a Bostonian named Prang, a countless number of copies of a portrait of Beatrice made several months previous to that estimable maiden-lady’s death; and the sad beauty of the unhappy woman’s face has appealed to the compassion of all beholders. This portrait, as we interpret its expression, represents the patient Beatrice as gazing pensively into space, and wondering when Dante was going to propose.

Beatrice had been buried scarcely a year when her heart-broken lover made up his mind that the best consolation for the loss of one sweetheart was the procuring of another; and so he began paying his _devoirs_ to a wealthy and beautiful girl named Gemma Donati, one of the belles of Florence. While he was courting this bright, pretty, and unsuspecting lady, however, he continued to indite whining elegies, sonnets, triolets, quatrains, couplets, etc., to the memory of Beatrice, the woman who had died of a broken heart because Dante didn’t have spunk enough to pop the question. We take it for granted that none of these mortuary verses ever reached the eyes or the ears of Gemma Donati before she was married. Otherwise, you can depend upon it, she would have given Mr. Alighieri the mitten he deserved, for she was a proud, spirited girl. She believed Dante loved her; and believing in him, and trusting in his love, she went to the altar with him.

It was not long, however, before Gemma discovered that she had caught a Tartar. Instead of the bright, happy fellow she had a right to expect in her bridegroom, she found that Dante was capricious, moody, and dyspeptic. He had a habit of sitting up late of nights, groaning and sighing, writing poetry which he industriously hid away from her, but read to everybody else,—doing, in fine, all manner of things beseeming a person afflicted with a chronic disorder of the liver and a natural wrongness of the heart. Truly, an enviable honeymoon it must have been that poor Gemma passed with this bridegroom of hers! One day, at last, she found a verse that explained much to her. It was a verse in Dante’s chirography; and Gemma read the cruel lines, and fell down in a swoon.

“Fatto era un stagno piu secura e brutto—
O Beatrice! di quel grazzia la citta,
Altro non e dar;
Uno esperto non Gemma e l’opra
Un correger soave un pio sostegno—
Figgo del sperto solle!”

That night she taxed Dante with having deceived her, and he was mean enough to accuse her of being jealous. When he discovered that his bride was hopelessly miserable, he clinched the general cussedness of the situation by applying himself more diligently than ever before to the business of composing maudlin poetry to the memory of the defunct old maid,—“his sainted Beatrice,” as he called her in his miserable dago hypocrisy.

This delectable state of affairs continued a number of years; and meantime, in spite of his devotion to the sacred memory of his “first and only love in heaven,” Dante contrived to become the father of six children, one of whom was a girl. This girl should have been named after her estimable mother; but in order, apparently, to grind the iron even deeper into his wife’s soul, Dante stole away to a priest’s house with the baby one day, and had the little creature christened Beatrice. There seems to have been no end to this man’s indecent cruelty.

Well, having wrecked his wife’s life, Dante proceeded to make a public nuisance of himself; and he embarked in politics, and began sloshing around at a great rate. But dealing with a discriminating and exacting public is very different from bully-ragging a patient, submissive wife; and the first thing he knew, Dante was in deep water,—hot water too. He was banished from the province; and, although he made vigorous and persistent efforts to get back again, his fellow-townsmen were wise enough to let the decree stand. Of course Gemma sympathized with her husband in his troubles, but the burden of these troubles fell rather upon her; for now it became her duty to provide for the six children which Dante had left behind when he made his escape. A small part of Dante’s property she saved from confiscation by claiming it as her dower; and it was upon this pittance that Gemma reared and educated their children,—Dante’s and hers. It was a hard struggle, involving countless sacrifices; but it was a struggle to which Gemma applied herself courageously, patiently, and grandly,—courageous, patient, noble woman that she was!

The biographies that have come down to us are all biographies of Dante. Therefore we can only surmise at the magnitude of the suffering which Gemma endured. But we know this, that Gemma brought her six children to maturity, and that she lived to see them prosperous and honored. During all the intervening years, it was one continuous fight to make the ends meet; and every now and then Gemma squeezed out of her paltry savings a little money to send to her exiled husband.

Meantime, instead of trying to earn means whereby to contribute to the support of his family, Dante seems to have devoted all his time to writing poetry and things calculated to make trouble for the home-folk. His most pretentious composition was a grotesque production purporting to be an account of a visit to hell and purgatory. His dyspeptic stomach, his torpid liver, and his malignant temper, qualified him for a work of this character; and, having consistently raised —— all his life, it is not surprising that he should have left to posterity a minute description of that undesirable locality, and the industries therein abounding. With the utmost care, Dante drew his pen-pictures of the infernal regions, and introduced as figures therein all the Florentines he disliked, particularly those who were likely to be of kindly service to his wife and his children. At one time, having heard that the noble Duke della Caseras had advanced Gemma the sum of ten ducats to keep her and her babies from starving, Dante at once proceeded to represent the noble duke in hell, with his body submerged in a lake of sulphurous flame, and his legs sticking up in a preposterous manner. If any citizen of Florence was good to Dante’s wife, he was promptly put in hell by Dante himself. In fact, hell, as Dante pictured it, was peopled with men and women who treated Dante’s wife and children humanely. This made life rather awkward for Mrs. Alighieri and the rising generation of Alighieris; but their feelings were not to be considered, so long as Mr. Alighieri’s demoniacal spite was being gratified.

Many of the Florentine people whom Dante utilized in this scandalous manner overlooked his offences in a good-natured way. They regarded Gemma as a very worthy woman; and they were prepared at all times to do her kindnesses, no matter how rudely Gemma’s husband treated them in his spiteful poems. But there were others who refused to take kindly to Dante’s ungrateful methods. Giovanni Ferato, the baker, was one of these. “Signora,” said he to Gemma one day, “I have suffered your account to run for many months. Whenever you came for bread, or called for rolls, or ordered pie, or sent for cake, I have permitted you to have them without question; for I knew you were pressed by poverty, and I thought to do you a kindness. But your husband has paid the debt by devoting seven lines of blank verse to me and my family, representing us as floating about in a sea of molten lead, with winged devils shooting flaming darts into our bodies. You will have to go elsewhere for your pastry hereafter.”

Guiseppe Angelo once let Gemma have a load of fagots at half price, whereupon Dante represented Guiseppe as being nailed down with red-hot nails to the very floor of hell; while a vulture tore out his entrails, and devoured them without seasoning. When Gemma went for another load of fagots, she had to pay a double price.

In like manner, Torquato Rovera, the cobbler; Michael Levato, the huckster; Hermozo Bambino, the butcher; and a score of other tradefolk,—were prejudiced against this modest, amiable, and unoffending woman. To put the case as mildly as possible, it was, so far as Gemma was concerned, awkward.

But of all the mean, despicable things done in Dante’s career of incomparable meanness, the meanest was his allusion to his wife in the sixteenth canto of his “Hell.” Heedless of the wrongs he had done her, and forgetting all her sacrifices for him and for his children, the jaundiced ingrate left to posterity these lines:—

“—me, my wife
Of savage temper, more than aught beside,
Hath to this evil brought.”

Dante died at Ravenna. While he was ill, he wrote his wife a dismal letter, begging for money: she borrowed three ducats, and sent them to him. The gold reached him just as he lay at the point of death. He read the accompanying letter, and groaned. “She does not say who lent her the money,” he sighed. “Would that I knew his name, that I might put him with the others in that brimstone pit!”

Then he raised himself feebly, and said to Pietro Alfieri, his friend, “Take this gold, and with it pay the printer, who delays too long the publication of my last poem.” With these words he expired.

Alfieri took the money to the printer. “Have you a poem here, the work of Dante Alighieri?” he asked.

“I have,” said Fernando Pizaro. “There is due upon it three ducats, else it shall not leave the shop.”

“Let me see the poem,” demanded Alfieri.

The printer brought forth the manuscript. It was entitled, “To My Beatrice in Heaven!”

“Whistle for your money!” said Alfieri laconically; and he threw down the manuscript, and walked out of the shop.

Pietro Alfieri was a man of decency. He sent the three ducats back to Gemma Alighieri; and with the money the frugal widow bought shirtwaists for her five boys, and a nice new jersey for her little girl.

_The Good Cause._

WE understand that our talented fellow-townsman, T. Babbington Greenleaf, is engaged upon a rhythmical translation of the tripods of Horace.

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THE Book-Binders’ Union will give its regular annual ball in Brand’s Hall immediately after Lent.

_The Convention of Western Writers._

The Chicago people who went down to Indianapolis last Tuesday, to attend the convention of Western writers, have returned; and they are telling a great many amusing stories of their experiences. It would appear that the convention was not as numerously attended as its promoters had hoped it would be; the mistake seems to have been in calling a second convention so soon after the date of the first: once a year is often enough for authors and poets to get together for consultation. The Chicago delegates were treated very hospitably; and it is perhaps to their credit that they took no part in the proceedings, except to stand around, look dignified, and hear what the other people had to say.

“So you’re from Chicago, are you?” would be the first question asked.

“Yes.”

“What have you written?”

Here would follow a modest confession, made in tones indicative of embarrassment.

“But have you never written any thing for ‘The Current’?” and this question would be put with an expression of countenance that seemed to add, “If you _have_, you must be all right; but if you _haven’t_, you can’t amount to much.”