Chapter V: Prud’homme (1)

This is a copy of a pleasant letter we have received from a distinguished Washington lady: we do not print the accentuations, because the Chicago patwor admits of none. A literal rendering of the letter into English is as follows: “From after your article in ‘The New-York Tribune,’ copied from ‘The Chicago News,’ I to myself have figured that the inhabitants of Chicago having great want of a system of a pronunciation French, I take the liberty to you to send by the mail-post the number two of a work which I come from to publish: if you desire the other numbers, I to myself will make the pleasure of to you them to send also. The packers of porkers, having little of time to consecrate to the study (owing to the omnipotent dollar), will be, I believe, enchanted and grateful of a system by the which they may learn and understand the language of the clever Sara, at the end of thirty lessons, especially if Mister the editor will at the end of his pen witty to them thereof indicate the road. Whereupon the author of the system has much the honor of him to salute,” etc.

We have not given Mdlle. Prud’homme’s oovray that conscientious study and that careful research which we shall devote to it just as soon as the tremendous spring rush in local literature eases up a little. The recent opening up of the Straits of Mackinaw, and the prospect of a new railroad-line into the very heart of the dialectic region of Indiana, have given Chicago literature so vast an impetus, that we find our review-table groaning under the weight of oovrays that demand our scholarly consideration. Mdlle. Prud’homme must understand (for she appears to be exceedingly amiable) that the oovrays of local _littérateurs_ have to be reviewed before the oovrays of outside _littérateurs_ can be taken up. This may seem hard, but it cannot be helped. Still, we will say that we appreciate, and are grateful for, the uncommon interest which Mdlle. Prud’homme seems to take in the advancement of the French language and French literature in the midst of us. We have heard many of our leading _savants_ and scholiasts frequently express poignant regret that they were unable to read “La Fem de Fu,” “Mamzel Zheero Mar Fem,” and other noble old French classics whose fame has reached this modern Athens. With the romances of Alexandre Dumas, our public is thoroughly acquainted, having seen the talented James O’Neill in Monty Cristo, and the beautiful and accomplished Grace Hawthorne (“Only an American Girl”) in Cameel; yet our more enterprising citizens are keenly aware that there are other French works worthy of perusal—intensely interesting works, too, if the steel engravings therein are to be accepted as a criterion.

We doubt not that Mdlle. Prud’homme is desirous of doing Chicago a distinct good; and why, we ask in all seriousness, should this gifted and amiable French scholar _not_ entertain for Chicago somewhat more than a friendly spirit, merely? The first settlers of Chicago were Frenchmen; and, likely as not, some of Mdlle. Prud’homme’s ancestors were of the number of those Spartan _voyageurs_ who first sailed down Chicago River, pitched their tents on the spot where Kirk’s soap-factory now stands, and captured and brought into the refining influences of civilization Long John Wentworth, who at that remote period was frisking about on our prairies, a crude, callow boy, only ten years old, and only seven feet tall. Chicago was founded by Jean Pierre Renaud, one of the original two orphans immortalized by Claxton & Halevy’s play in thirteen acts of the same name. At that distant date it was any thing but promising; and its prominent industries were Indians, muskrats, and scenery. The only crops harvested were those of malaria, twice per annum,—in October and in April,—but the yield was sufficient to keep the community well provided all the year round. Certain dabblers in etymology have argued that the name “Chicago” was derived from an Indian word meaning “a skunk.” There is in the Sioux dialect, we believe, a word “She-Kag,” literally meaning Cat-that-Perfumes. Other alleged scholars insist that the name of our fair city is derived from the Crow Indian word “Chee-kar-goh,” meaning “wild onion,” an exotic that is said to have bloomed hereabouts in the early times. But this whole matter, which is revived every now and then to our discredit by envious and ribald writers, has been set at rest in Howden’s “History of Illinois,” vol. i. p. 289 (we think Howden is the name: at any rate, it will serve the purpose of giving people to understand that we know what we’re talking about). Howden, who was a conscientious student, and painstaking historian, asserts (and we believe him) that the early French settlers gave to this town the name of Chicago, and that the name is derived from the two French words _chic_ and _hog_, meaning the live (or piquant or frisky) hog. This, of course, is the literal meaning; but the subtile idea of old Jean Pierre Renaud and his fellow-tramps (if so we may term his distinguished coparceners), was to imply that Chicago was a living, bustling reality,—a community made up, if you please, of people now on earth. Even at that early day the hog was the national bird of the mighty West; and how proper it was that the founders of Chicago should couple indissolubly with the name of this metropolis the name of that proud animal that has served as the noble foundation upon which the vast superstructure of our wealth, our art, and our culture has been reared. Did their inspired eyes not see in this sagacious and graceful association what old Sam Johnson, puttering about at the auction in Thrale’s brewery, called “the potentiality of acquiring riches beyond the dreams of avarice”?

_Her Genuine Culture._

There is no longer any doubt that Chicago is the literary centre of the country. Adam Forepaugh says so.

“I had three times as many people under my canvas every day last week,” says he, “than I had in Boston; and I turned away about three thousand people every night. I know what I am talking about when I say that for genuine git-up-and-git culture, Chicago beats the world!”

_The Demand for Condensed Music._

There is a general belief that the mistake made by the managers of the symphony concert in Central Music Hall night before last was in not opening the concert with Beethoven’s “Eroica,” instead of making it the last number on the programme. We incline to the opinion, however, that, in putting the symphony last, the managers complied with the very first requirement of dramatic composition. This requirement is to the effect that you must not kill all your people off in the first act.

There doubtless are a small number of worthy people who enjoy these old symphonies that are being dragged out of oblivion by glass-eyed Teutons from Boston. It may argue a very low grade of intellectuality, spirituality, or whatsoever you may be pleased to call it; but we must confess in all candor, that, much as we revere Mr. Beethoven’s memory, we do not fancy having fifty-five-minute chunks of his musty opi hurled at us. It is a marvel to us, that, in these progressive times, such leaders as Thomas and Gericke do not respond to the popular demand by providing the public with symphonies in the nutshell. We have condensations in every line except music. Even literature is being boiled down; because in these busy times, people demand a literature which they can read while they run. We have condensed milk, condensed meats, condensed wines,—condensed every thing but music. What a joyous shout would go up if Thomas or Gericke would only prepare and announce

“_SYMPHONIES FOR BUSY PEOPLE!
THE OLD MASTERS EPITOMIZED!_”

What Chicago demands, and what every enterprising and intelligent community needs, is the highest class of music on the “all-the-news-for-two-cents” principle. Blanket-sheet concertizing must go!

Now, here was this concert, night before last. Two hours and a half to five numbers! Suppose we figure a little on this subject:—

EXHIBIT A—SYMPHONY.

Total number of minutes 150
Total number of pieces 5
Minutes to each piece 30

EXHIBIT B—TRADE.

Total number of minutes 150
Hog-slaughtering capacity per minute 3
Total killing 450

Figures will not lie, because (as was the reason with George) they cannot. And figures prove to us, that, in the time consumed by five symphonic numbers, the startling number of four hundred and fifty hogs could be (and are daily) slaughtered, scraped, disembowelled, hewn, and packed. While forty or fifty able-bodied musicians are discoursing Beethoven’s rambling “Eroica,” it were possible to despatch and to dress a carload of as fine beeves as ever hailed from Texas; and the performance of the “Sakuntala” overture might be regarded as a virtual loss of as much time as would be required for the beheading, skinning, and dismembering of two hundred head of sheep.

These comparisons have probably never occurred to Mr. Thomas or to Mr. Gericke; but they are urged by the patrons of music in Chicago, and therefore they must needs be recognized by the caterers to popular tastes. Chicago society has been founded upon industry, and the culture which she now boasts is conserved only by the strictest attention to business. Nothing is more criminal hereabouts than a waste of time; and it is no wonder, then, that the _crême de la crême_ of our _élite_ lift up their hands, and groan, when they discover that it takes as long to play a classic symphony as it does to slaughter a carload of Missouri razor-backs, or an invoice of prairie-racers from Kansas.

_Opera, Opuses, and Opi._

Mr. Gericke, the kappelmeister of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, called upon us yesterday, and, with some show of acrimony, asked us what we meant by calling the symphonies he played “opi.” He, for his part, insisted that they were opera, and not opi; and what the poor, misguided fellow said in defence of his theory indicated very clearly that his education in music had never been brought up to the standard of Chicago culture. There are three kinds of music compositions: they belong to the one general family of music, yet each is a distinct class. We divide them into (1) opera, (2) opuses, and (3) opi. To the first class, or to the opera, belong such dramatic compositions (set to light music) as “Evangeline,” “Il Trovatore,” “Chimes of Normandy,” “Lohengrin,” “Pinafore,” “Rienzi,” “The Mascot,” and “Tannhauser;” and the best-known producers of these opera are Verdi, Ed Rice, Offenbach, Wagner, Sullivan, Flotow, Gounod, and Edward Solomon. Among the second class (the opuses) are to be mentioned the more pretentious and the heavier compositions, such as “Lucille” and “Zenobia,” and a large number of other works that have had their origin in the West, and whose appearance has incited fears that, perhaps, a _renaissance_ of the old Italian masters was likely to occur in the midst of us. But astrologers assure us that these portents with which the public is sporadically afflicted signify simply that music in the Western country is now passing through its porcine period. As for the opi, they are the heaviest of all music compositions. They must be a hundred years old, or they are not regarded as acceptable. No man can perform them until he has become addicted to the spectacles and onion habits, and even then a certain fineness of expression is said to be lacking unless to these accomplishments the performer has added that further accomplishment of enjoying cheeses that are old enough to vote.

_Chicago the Music Centre._

This is the last week of Mr. Theodore Thomas’s present concert season in Chicago. After next Saturday night the Exposition Building will be relegated to oblivion. Mr. Milward Adams will skip out for Saratoga, and the Thomas orchestra will drift Eastward to resume rehearsals for the approaching American opera season. Mr. Thomas is deeply gratified with the result of his labors in Chicago. “There are several music-centres in this country,” said he last night, “but Chicago is the grandest of them all. She has responded nobly to my call, and it is my sweetest hope that she will ever retain her proud pre-eminence among the music-loving cities of the earth. When I came here six weeks ago, I found the cause languishing in the midst of you; but the revival of interest in music set in at once, and I am rejoiced to find my humble efforts crowned with such glorious fruition. Two negro-minstrel companies are in full blast at the leading theatres, and a third will be with you next week. These are the sweetest rewards a man in my profession can hope for. Pecuniary profit is a secondary consideration: it is a mere _bagatelle_ in the eyes of the true friend of music, when compared with that calm joy and that ineffable peace which permeate my bosom when I see that three negro-minstrel shows are springing into existence in immediate answer to the demand for higher music which my work in Chicago has created.”

_Still Blooming._

CHICAGO, ILL., April 28.

_To the Editor._—As a gratifying indication that there is in the midst of us a great and growing interest in literature, will you please note that Chicago has a Waverley Temperance Coffee House, named in honor of the famous Scotch novels of the same name? I see, too, that Addison’s Livery Stable and Wordsworth’s Coal and Kindling Yard are institutions recently established on the West Side.

Yours truly,
NOCTES AMBROSIANIÆ PHILLIPS.

_The Offence._

Col. Milward Adams is going to pander to the refined tastes of the _élite_ of Chicago next week by giving a series of concerts in his Central Music Hall. The performers he has engaged as his tools in this laudable enterprise, are that justly famed band of peripatetic minstrels known as the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This organization consists of sixty-five performers, and it plays only the most intricate music. A programme of the three prospective concerts now lies before us; and from it we learn that the orchestra will interpret at the first concert the overture of Carl Goldmark’s “Sakuntala,” Wieniawski’s allegro and andante for violin, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”), Op. 55; at the second concert, the overture of Cherubini’s “Anacreon,” Beethoven’s first movement for the violin, Bach’s adagio and gavotte, Saint-Saens’s “Danse Macabre,” and Schumann’s symphony in B flat, No. 1, Op. 38; at the third concert, the overture of Weber’s “Freischuetz,” Mendelssohn’s andante and finale for the violin, Schubert’s unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, Brahms’s “Hungarian Dances,” and Wagner’s vorspiel and liebestod from “Tristan and Isolde.” A special interest will (or should) attach to the first concert; for it is for that occasion, as Mr. George Fair tells us, that Beethoven has composed the eroica symphony which will then be given. We do not know what an eroica symphony is; but in our most cultured circles, it is believed that eroica is a misprint for erotica. There will be three soloists (one male and two female) to give these performances additional _éclat_. These soloists are very famous ones. The first is Helene Hastreiter, the pianiste; the second is Timothee Adamowski, the renowned Italian lyric tenor; and the third is Adele Aus der Ohe, the eminent soprano. Miss Aus der Ohe is a niece of Chris Von der Ohe, president of the St. Louis Base-ball Club; and the fact that she is unmarried should forever set at rest the current rumor that she is the original Ohe mamma. It will be a great treat to hear this brilliant vocalist, and our public is indebted to Col. Adams for billing a number of Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words” for the gifted young song-bird’s rendition. Mme. Hastreiter has never before been in Chicago; but her fame has preceded her, and it is with intense enthusiasm that we await the renowned pianiste’s _début_ in this great music-centre. As for Sig. Adamowski, he is said to be one of the most promising robustos on the lyric stage. His real name is Timothy Adams, and he is a first cousin to our own Milward Adams; but having been born and reared in Petersburg, Hampden County, Mass., he preferred to adopt a Russian name for professional uses.

We shall be surprised and pained if these symphony concerts are not largely attended. Three weeks of Professor Silas G. Pratt’s “Lucille” has elevated and refined Chicago’s music-taste to a degree—we will not specify the degree, but we think that it is high enough to render an appreciation of the symphony concerts a probability.

_A Lament._

The wold is drear, and the sedge is sere,
And gray is the autumn sky,
And sorrows roll through my riven soul
As lonely I sit and sigh
“Good-by”
To the goose-birds as they fly.

With his weird wishbone to the temperate zone
Came the goose-bird in the spring;
And he built his nest in the glorious west,
And sat on a snag to sing—
Sweet thing!—
Or flap his beautiful wing.

But the boom of the blast has come at last
To the goose-bird on the lea;
And the succulent thing, with shivering wing,
Flies down to a southern sea—
Ah me,
That such separation should be!

But it’s always so in this world of woe:
The things that gladden our eye
Are the surest to go to the bugs; and so
We can only wearily sigh
“Good-by”
To the goose-birds as they fly.

_The Apology._

Col. Milward Adams tells us that we got things terribly mixed in our notice of his symphony concerts yesterday morning. He complains that the whole business was wrong; but this was not our fault, but the fault of Col. Adams’s lieutenant, George Fair, who gave us the written notes upon which we based our article. Of course, it pains us deeply to learn that we have misrepresented the colonel’s entertainments, and we hasten to square ourselves upon the record. In the first place, therefore, it appears that Miss Helene Hastreiter is not a piano-player, but a native German vocalist from Louisville, Ky. She was the prima donna of the American Opera Company for a long time; but when Mapleson severed his connection with the organization, she, too, renounced her allegiance thereto, and went into the concert profession. She is an extraordinarily beautiful woman, and the critics agree that her voice is a soprano of the first water. So far from being a lyric tenor, and a native of Massachusetts, M. Timothee Adamowski is a Russian booyar and a piano-forte player of unbridled ferocity and tremendous learning. His name is pronounced Taymotay, with the accent (a la Frongsay) on the ult, the penult, and the ante-penult. Col. Adams was particular in giving us this seemingly trifling detail, because, he said, cultured circles would appreciate the art of a Taymotay more keenly than that of a Timothy. This M. Adamowski was born under the shadow of the Kremlin, in Moscow; and he studied music with Tschktsckffky, the old master whose fugues, symphonies, and other opi in B minor are unequalled in the gamut of intricate composition. Our connoisseurs will be glad to learn that in all his concerts M. Adamowski has none but the sign of Spiegelbaum Bros. displayed on the piano-forte he uses. This is another little detail that always adds to the charm of a refined music entertainment.

_A German Personal._

In our valued exchange, the “Baden-Baden Freie Blatter” of Aug. 16, we find a pleasant reference to Col. Henry Watterson, the distinguished editor of “The Louisville Courier-Journal.” “On the last night,” says the “Freie Blatter,” “to the springs down a man came which was the great statesman from America, and the journalist, Herr Heinrich Watterson. ‘Let me to see the springs,’ said he to the keeper from the place. Then being shown to her, Herr Watterson cried out, ‘She is the most beautiful springs which I have set eyes on already. Will you let me to have some from the water on the side?’”

_Col. Aldrich’s “Last Cæsar”_ (_1_).

Professor W. Thackeray Wilkerson, the well-known _littérateur_ and dentist of the West Side, calls our attention to a poem that is printed in the current number of “The Atlantic Monthly.” For the information of our public we will say that “The Atlantic Monthly” is a magazine published in Boston, being to that intelligent and refined community what “The Literary Life” was to Chicago culture before a fourth-ward constable achieved its downfall with a writ of replevin. “The Atlantic Monthly” is to the _élite_ of the East what “The Century” is to the hoi polloi or the kayneel or the protalyrats. The poem in question is entitled “The Last Cæsar;” and it is from the pen of Col. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the editor of “The Atlantic.” Professor Wilkerson tells us that Col. Aldrich belongs to the same literary clique as Col. J. Russell Lowell, emeritus professor in the Chicago school of Shakespearian politics, and Dr. O. Wendell Holmes, author of numerous T. B. Peterson novels, and composer of the famous Greek poem entitled “The Iliad.” So it is to be taken for granted that Col. Aldrich is a very cultured and very affable gentleman; although, so far as we can learn, he has never done any thing for Chicago.

“I am very much surprised,” says Professor Wilkerson, “that none of the critics has pounced upon this Aldrich poem; for it is as bold a piece of error as I ever met with in the whole course of my existence. The poet claims to treat of one of the Cæsars: yet it is clear that the subject of his verses is Louis Napoleon, the late ex-emperor of the French; in fact, right under the title of his poem, Aldrich has put the figures 1851-1870, with the intention of giving people to understand thereby that the period of time between these dates is the era, or epoch,—or whatever you please,—of which he sings.”

This certainly would appear to be as clear as logic.

“Now,” continues Professor Wilkerson, “there is none so lost in the Egyptian darkness of ignorance as to be unaware of the fact that the last of the Cæsars died very many centuries before 1851. This is a historical matter that is determined in text-books used in our public schools; and if anybody has any doubts on the subject, let him refer to the ‘Lives of the Twelve Cæsars,’ a series of biographies second only in thrilling reliability and positive interest to A. T. Andreas & Co.’s ‘Lives of Prominent Chicagoans’ (half-calf, $14 net).”

The professor then told us that the author of this biography (not the half-calf one) was a Latin gentleman, whose name was Sweetonius. This Sweetonius seems to have been an Elijah M. Haines sort of fellow: he lived not for the Is, nor for the To Be, but for the Was. He had a morbid passion for prowling around in rusty old ruins, and for delving into old bureau-drawers, after family manuscripts and private letters: another of his penchants, too, was for sitting around in corners, and listening to scandals and legends about the ancients; and, upon his return to his lodgings, he would make memoranda of the same for elaboration at some future date. On the whole, he appears to have been a kind of premature Poggio, rather than a Haines; for, while our Haines is content with the proper historical literature of the meek and lowly Indian, this man Sweetonius had an appetite for nothing short of the most flagrant scandals of royalty. In after-years this lamentable penchant broke out in Kenelm Digby, old Pepys, G. Y. M. Reynolds, and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.

“In his poem,” says Professor Wilkerson, “the misguided editor of ‘The Atlantic’ shows a better acquaintance with Paris than with Roman history. He speaks of the Eleezy (sometimes called the Shongzy Leezy), the day zonvyleeds, the Sane, the Tweelyrees, and the Plas de la Concord. Surprisingly enough, he says nothing about the basteel, nor the boorse, nor the zhardan maybeel, nor the Pier la Shays, nor the loover—and, what is still more preposterous, he has the effrontery to write about an alleged Cæsar without even alluding to the Latin quarter! Now, flippancy is something that people will not tolerate in poetry: the people of Chicago, at least, will not read with any patience a narrative that takes a Roman monarch all the way to Paris for no other purpose, we will say, than that of satisfying the whim of an erratic Boston poet. What if our own poet, Irving J. Higgins, had tried to play a trick of this kind when he composed the great lyric which he read at the unveiling of the corner-stone of the Fairbanks Lard Refinery? What if, instead of speaking of Apollo as the ‘smiling god of Belvidere, Ill.,’ he had located him in Indiana, or some other heathen community? What if he had assigned Mercury to one of the suburban packing-houses instead of to Dale’s drug-store? Would the Chicago public have stood it?”

“But is there not a certain amount of freedom which is allowed to every poet?”

“There exists in the minds of the vulgar,” said Professor Wilkerson, “a base idea that a poet has license to prance around about as he pleases; but true culture accords the poet no such license. There was a time when poets could commit every sort of—of anarchism—I mean anacreonism—and yet be regarded as poets. That time has passed: its end came when Chicago’s output of pork swept the last prop from under the old Elizabethan school at Cincinnati. Under the new dispensation, poets are compelled to observe certain rigid rules; and nowadays none can drive his Pegasus without a snaffle.”

“His Pegasus?”

“That is metaphor. Pegasus is a mythological horse which every poet mounts when he engages in composition. Riding this horse Pegasus is called ‘soaring to empyrean realms,’ or ‘achieving Parnassan heights.’ Parnassus was a mountain in Thessaly near the Attic salt-mines: it has been immortalized by N. P. Willis in his poem of ‘Parnassus and the Captive.’ The trouble with Col. Aldrich’s poem is, that Col. Aldrich mounted his Pegasus in Italy in the second century, and immediately let it gallop away with him over into France and the nineteenth century. Boston critics may wink at this sort of thing, but we of the West are too precise to abide it. We discussed this matter at the monthly meeting of the West-Side Dante Club last Thursday night, and we adopted a resolution expressing a lack of confidence in Col. Aldrich and Boston. The only man who voted against the resolution was a young poet named Algernon Remorse; and he opposed the resolution, because, as he said, he had just sent ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ a poem on ‘The Last Faro; or, The Result of a Spring Election in Chicago.’ Algernon explained that he hoped to have his poem accepted, as he needed the money to buy a railroad ticket to Omaha.”

_Col. Aldrich’s “Last Cæsar”_ (_2_).

Professor Wilkerson’s critique upon Col. Thomas B. Aldrich’s “Last Cæsar” appears to have provoked a great deal of criticism in local literary circles, and to this criticism our distinguished dramatic managers have contributed not a little. It is seldom that we pay attention to the critiques upon critiques appearing in our columns; but when gentlemen of wealth and culture take exception to matter printed in this paper, we very properly suffer their objections to be heard. Our respected fellow-townsman, Col. J. H. McVicker, the veteran theatre manager, and the oldest “first grave-digger” now on earth, complains that Professor Wilkerson, so far from correcting the error into which the poet Aldrich has fallen, involves himself in follies more labyrinthian than the Boston poet’s.

“It is my lot (whether good or evil, I will not say) to be personally acquainted with the last Cæsar,” so Col. McVicker remarked yesterday. “When I say the last Cæsar, I mean the Cæsar who last appeared in Chicago; and certainly neither Col. Aldrich’s Cæsar nor Professor Wilkerson’s has been visible in the flesh since the fall of 1885. It was at that time that the Cæsar of whom I speak appeared upon the stage of my theatre under the auspices of Lawrence Barrett. It was on a Thursday: the previous Monday, Barrett had come to me, and had said, ‘Can you get me a Cæsar for Thursday night? Southburn, who usually takes the part, is down with a boil on his neck; and, unless I can find a substitute, we will have to change the bill.’ I told Larry that I hated to disappoint the public, and that I would find a Cæsar, or die in the attempt. Well, I found one; and I will venture to say that if he was not the last Cæsar, he ought to have been. His name (I find upon consulting my old play-bills) was Terence O’Toole. Previously he had carried a banner in one of Kiralfy’s spectacles, and had led in the horse in the second act of ‘The Black Hussar’ at the Columbia Theatre. My stage-manager, Louis Sharpe, told me that he had known Terence for several years, having become acquainted with him when he was running the elevator at the Tremont House, and he said he had made up his mind, then, that Terence was a rising young man. Louis is a humorist, you know; but I never suspected that he would take an advantage of me.”

Col. McVicker then proceeded to tell of the ovation of which Mr. O’Toole was the recipient when he made his _début_ that Thursday night as Cæsar; but, inasmuch as this performance was criticised in our columns at that time by a professional hired for that purpose, far be it from us to supplement that criticism with any remarks now. But we will confirm Col. McVicker’s assertion that Mr. O’Toole’s was the last Cæsar seen upon the Chicago stage.

Professor Samuel Kayzer, manager of the Chicago Conservatory of Acting, calls our attention to an interesting matter—in fact, it is so interesting that we would fain lay it before the public. The professor is an accomplished linguist, and he speaks living and dead languages with equal fluency. He says that in the European colleges and universities this word “Cæsar” is pronounced “Kayzer,” and that it is the word from which the Teutonic word “kaiser,” and the Russian “czar,” or “tsar,” are derived. This pronunciation (viz., Kayzer) has been accepted, and is taught, in Harvard and in Yale, and in numerous other fashionable institutions having in view the preparation of our youth for the solemn duty of spending their fathers’ estates. The State University of Missouri, and Knox College at Galesburg, Ill., are the only prominent educational institutions in the country where young men and women are taught to pronounce “Cæsar” as if it were spelt “Seezur” instead of “Kayzer.” The preponderance of fashion and wealth is largely in favor of “Kayzer.”

“Of course,” said the professor, “I make no boast that Col. Aldrich had me in his mind’s eye when he wrote that poem. He has never met me, nor is it likely that he has ever heard of me; although, now that this question is being agitated, I shall mail him a prospectus of my conservatory, and a programme of our recent engagement at McVicker’s theatre. Still, you will discover, if you but refer to the city directory, that I am the only Kayzer in Chicago: therefore, it follows, consecutively and logically enough, that, to whomsoever Col. Aldrich’s poem may refer, I am indeed the last Kayzer.”

Our distinguished friend, Col. William F. Poole, city librarian, and author of the famous “Index of Salem Witches, with Copious Notes,” tells us that the Sweetonius to whom Professor Wilkerson refers, is a very unreliable historian, and that, although his book is given in the catalogue of the public library, it is not issued to any reader who does not produce a certificate that he has arrived at years of discretion, and is a member of some church in good standing. Col. Poole says that he has not read the Aldrich poem, but, for all that, he stands ready to indorse any thing that Aldrich has written, or will write. Col. Poole is a great admirer of Eastern _littérateurs_. He comes by this strange infatuation very naturally; for he himself was born and reared in Massachusetts, and would never have come West but for his o’erweening lust for gold. He says that he knew Aldrich when Aldrich was a boy; that he used to find Aldrich playing marbles on Boston Common, and that, noting the precocity of the lad, he sought to woo him from his childish sports, and incline his tender mind to nobler pursuits. Many a time, Col. Poole says, he has taken the boy Aldrich upon his lap, and there, under the shade of the gingko-tree, and within a stone’s-throw of the frog-pond, has he recited to the intent child legends and tales of the Salem witches, the Roxbury flubdubs, the Chelsea hobgoblins, and other suburban supernaturals, calculated to insure to a nervous child a refreshing night’s repose. Of course, that was a good many years ago; yet Col. Poole claims the credit of having inculcated into the child those tastes and inclinations upon which the imposing superstructure of Aldrich’s noble poesy has been reared.

* * * * *

NEW literature just received: “The Dial,” “The Grocer’s Criterion,” “The Hide and Leather Journal,” “The Packer’s Monthly Garland,” “The South Water Street Review,” “The Hyde Park Herald,” “The Elite News,” “The Blue Island Voice and Optic,” “The Tanner’s Guide,” “The South Chicago Bouquet of Friendship,” “The Shingle and Clapboard Review,” and “The Wheat and Grain Journal.” For sale at all book-stores.

_Miss Bayle’s Romance._

Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. send us a circular announcing that they are upon the eve of publishing a volume entitled “Miss Bayle’s Romance,” the same recounting the exploits of “a Miss Bayle and her family—all of Chicago—among the effete aristocracy of the Old World.” When Eastern publishers say “the Old World,” they mean Europe; although there are reasons for suspecting, that, in point of fact, Europe is no older than any other part of the globe. “This novel,” the circular continues, “which is reported to be the work of _a hand well known in literature_, has been considered important enough to be the subject of some cablegrams to the press.” Now, if “Miss Bayle’s Romance” were the work of a Chicago _littérateur_, we would not be in any harrowing doubt as to the authorship. Chicago _littérateurs_ deal in a refreshingly candid and open-handed way: in all our voluminous city directory, there is no person (male or female) of the name of Anon. “A hand well known in literature” is an ambiguous phrase,—that is to say, it is ambiguous in the national, broad sense; but here in Chicago, “a hand well known in literature” is the horny, warty, but honest hand, which, after years of patient toil at skinning cattle, or at boiling lard, or at cleaning pork, has amassed a competence sufficient to admit of its master’s triumphant reception into the _crême de la crême_ of Chicago culture. We fancy that this “Miss Bayle” is a myth, and that her “romance” is simply the invention of some envenomed Eastern scribbler who has become tainted with the leprosy of Eastern culture, which envies Chicago her output of pork, beef, wheat, lard, and other fruits of a refined civilization.

* * * * *

COL. ALVA EUGENE DAVIS, the handsome and talented proprietor of “The Current,” says that the Eastern _littérateurs_ are a very snobbish set. He called on the business editor of “The Century” magazine while he was in New York, and had some trouble in identifying himself. “The Current,” “The Current,” repeated “The Century” business-manager with a puzzled expression on his literary countenance. “Really, I cannot locate that paper—pray tell me where is it published?” Of course Col. Davis got as hot as a cooking-stove right away. “Well, if you don’t know where ‘The Current’ is published, you must be a —— of a _littérateur_,” said he; and then he added, “And you must be a d——d queer sort of a business-manager too, for you’ve been advertising in ‘The Current’ for the last two years.” “The Century” man thought this was such a good joke, that he took Col. Davis up into the editorial department, and introduced him to the young reporters who write the war reminiscences.

_A Humorist’s Courtship._

The venerable Phocion Howard, who probably knows more about Illinois and her people than any other human being does, claims to have been the discoverer of Robert J. Burdette, the humorist whose reputation is now world-wide. Col. Howard was editor of a small paper at Peoria when he became acquainted with Burdette. The latter was then a very young man, and he enjoyed the name of being as wild and as harum-scarum a fellow as ever woke up a sleepy community. But Col. Howard saw something more than the mere mischief in the boy; and, calling him into the office one day, he gave him a long talk, and wound up by asking him to go to work on the paper. This was Burdette’s start in literary work. On one of the bluffs back of Peoria lived an old justice of the peace,—sturdy and grim,—who had a bright and pretty daughter. With this daughter, Burdette fell in love; and great was his rapture when he learned, in time, that his affection was reciprocated by the young lady. But the sturdy squire guarded his daughter with an austere and jealous eye, and vast was his rage when he beheld the young reporter swinging on the front-gate at least three evenings per week. The squire saw no good in the boy; and at last he declared in good round terms that the boy must keep away from that particular house on the bluff, else perchance the coroner might be called to sit on the mangled remains of a promising journalist that had been cut off in the flower of his youth. This pronunciamento, which would seem to have been emphasized by the important fact that the choleric squire kept a gun swung up on his cottage-wall, and well filled with formidable slugs—this pronunciamento, we say, inspired in the bosoms of the daughter and her lover the most grievous emotions; and it was not long ere they mutually declared that an heroic step must be taken toward abating the poignant anguish which the squire’s harsh declaration imposed. Therefore the two met one afternoon, and, proceeding unostentatiously to another justice of the peace, were married in less time than you could say a _paternoster_. This, however, they recognized as only the beginning of the struggle by which the Gordian knot was to be untied or cut; but Burdette’s ingenuity and valor were equal to the rest of the task. He stepped into the post-office, and said to one of his friends there employed, “Charlie, I want to go hunting this afternoon: will you lend me your gun?”

“Certainly,” replied his friend; and he handed out as fine a double-barrelled breech-loader as ever you clapped eyes on.

“Is it loaded?” inquired Burdette.

“Yes,” said the friend.

“What kind of shot?” asked Burdette.

“Duck-shot,” replied the friend.

“Well, I guess that’ll do,” said Burdette. “I’ll stop in as I go down the street, and get some more ammunition of the same kind.”

So, with the gun on his shoulder, and a smile on his face, Burdette rejoined his bride on the street outside. Arm in arm the two toiled up the bluff toward the testy old squire’s residence, Burdette stopping every now and then to see whether his battery was in working-order. It was well-nigh dusk when the truant couple marched into the bride’s home. The testy squire sat in his favorite rocking-chair, grimly reading an evening paper. You can perhaps imagine his amazement when, upon looking up, he beheld Burdette boldly intrude into his presence with the object of his affection on one arm, and a double-barrelled gun on one shoulder.

But, with all his testiness, it was to the squire’s credit that he possessed a fair share of that always admirable and frequently serviceable quality called discretion. This quality asserted itself at this critical moment. Instead of exploding the volcanic fires which had been pent up in his paternal bosom, he calmly laid down his evening paper, scrutinized the twain before him, and in an unruffled tone remarked, “Well?”

All will agree that this was the shrewdest thing the testy squire could have done under the circumstances; for it is universally admitted by authorities on rhetorical tactics, that the simple word “well,” when uttered with the proper inflection and at the proper moment, serves as an invincible and incomprehensible skirmish-line. But the happy bridegroom was on this occasion fully equal to the task of meeting the testy squire’s rhetorical skirmish-line—all of which goes to prove that a shotgun in the hand is worth ten thousand “wells” in rhetoric.

“Carrie and I have been getting married,” said Burdette, looking the squire straight in the eyes; “and now I want to know what you are going to do about it?”

If the squire’s calmness but a moment before had been admirable, it was now phenomenal. The announcement of his daughter’s marriage did not seem to even ruffle his temper. He put his paper aside quietly, and glanced out of the window musingly; and he put his tongue in his cheek, and appeared to be absorbed in thought.

“You’d better go down and help your mother get supper, Carrie,” said the squire at last; “and as for you, Robert, sit down, and make yourself at home. I want to get better acquainted with you if you’re my son-in-law.”

So much for the courtship and marriage of our most popular humorist. Of the happy wedded life that succeeded, we all have heard. The girl became a devoted wife; and it is not hard for those who have felt the ennobling influence of woman’s love to believe Mr. Burdette when he says that the little woman whom he called wife—whose spiritual beauty we all admired—with whose physical sufferings we all sympathized, and whose death we all deplored—we believe Mr. Burdette when he says that she was indeed the best and sweetest inspiration in his life and of his work.

_That One Floating Vote._

Down at the town av Springfield, phwhere our statesmin congregate
To draw their wages twicet a month to git John Logan bate,
The Dimmycrats is tremblin’ and a sweatin’ wid dismay
On account av O’Shea.

The all av thim is solid for our horizontal Bill,
And the all av thim is solid for reform and office—shtill
The all av thim is worried to anticipate the play
Contem_pla_ted by O’Shea.

Bill Morrison shtands _here_, and Logan he shtands _there_,
And whin the wotes is even, there’s a tie bechune the pair;
But whin it comes to wotin’, can innybody say,
Phwhere the divil is O’Shea?

_A Persian Mission._

In “The New-York World” we find this remarkable editorial paragraph: “Mr. Winston, our new minister to Persia, has had himself appointed a brigadier-general of Illinois militia in order that he may be able to shine at the shah’s resplendent court in a gorgeous uniform. We need a minister to Persia about as much as we need a consular agent at the north pole; but, inasmuch as we are carrying on the tomfoolery, we might, as by special enactment, authorize our representative at Teheran to appear in the full dress of a Choctaw chief. Something variegated and humorous in that line would be likely to make an impression on the shah’s mind.”

We are amazed to find a democratic paper speaking in these terms of one of the most distinguished appointments that has been made to our diplomatic service. Yet we think the gross misrepresentation comes merely from misinformation. Gen. Winston’s magnificent record as a citizen and soldier demands an explanation of these things.

We are reliably informed, that, when President Cleveland took his seat as executive of this republic, he cast his eagle eye abroad over all the land, and allowed each of the eminent statesmen to pass before him in review, as candidates for the Persian mission; that after months of careful, earnest study, inspired by the sincerest patriotism, President Cleveland made up his mind, that, in all the country, there was one man pre-eminently qualified for this high and responsible office; that the name of that man was Frederick H. Winston.

We are reliably informed that President Cleveland sent privily for Gen. Winston, and informed him of his selection for the Persian mission; that Gen. Winston demurred, alleging that his ambition beckoned him not in the direction of diplomatic exploits; that it was only by personal and constant importunities, and by presenting the matter to him in the light of a patriotic duty, that the president succeeded in overcoming Gen. Winston’s superhuman modesty, and inducing him to accept the mission.

We are reliably informed, that, as soon as he heard of Gen. Winston’s appointment to the court of Persia, Gov. Oglesby said to himself, “Now is the time for me to bestow upon this great and good man some official recognition of his distinguished civic and military services; but how shall I do so best? A commission as notary public would not avail, because the benighted Persian pagans know naught of the notary system; nor, for similar reason, would a commission as grain-inspector, or humane-society agent, or State veterinary agent, or insane-asylum commissioner, or soldiers’-home trustee. No,” thought Gov. Oglesby, “I must bestow upon this human paragon some distinction, honor, mark, title, and decoration that will not only be in keeping with his exalted career at home, but also give to him a certain lustre and bedazzling brilliancy in the eyes of the heathen among whom he is soon to exploit most featly. So, therefore, I will create him a brigadier-general; and I will invest him with the ever-to-be-revered authority to wear high top-boots and spurs, as well as gilt buttons, gold epaulets, and a cocked hat withal.”

We are reliably informed that Gov. Oglesby had to wrestle rhetorically three whole days and nights with Gen. Winston before the latter was induced to accept the proffered military decoration, and that even then a squad of militia had to be called out and put on a war-footing before Winston could be induced to go to his tailor to be measured for a suit of regimentals; that even when he did go to said tailor, a corporal and four soldiers had to guard the doors and windows lest the super-modest general should repent his errand, and privily effect his escape from the prick-louse.

We are reliably informed, that, upon calmer and maturer reflection, the embryotic diplomate travailed much in spirit, and groaned, and by the advice of the spirits of Jefferson and Jackson, which did visit him in dreams and visions, finally made up his mind that he would have done with this matter of display, which was opposed in spirit and in truth to the traditions and practices of democracy; that he did so advise Gov. Oglesby, the press, and the public at large, and that if he _did_ accept the regimentals from the tailor, and order them to be packed among his official effects, it was merely for the purpose of exhibiting them in Persia as a specimen of American handiwork.

We are reliably informed, that, at a sumptuous feast tendered to the departing, citizen-soldier-diplomate by such exalted social, intellectual, and political stars as Johnnie Hand, Emil Hoechster, Charlie Felton, J. J. Curran, Austin J. Doyle, Charlie Kern, John Mattocks, P. Dudley, W. M. Devine, and other representatives of the cream and flower of native and naturalized gentility, there did prevail an eloquent and piteous protest against the harsh decree of fate which was about to remove from the midst of them the pole-star, the central sun, the inspiration of this incomparable galaxy. So poignant was the grief marking this lachrymose event, that, ill content with the restraining powers of prose and poetry, one of the distinguished chief mourners, to wit, Charlie Kern, did essay the subtile influence of song to alter Gen. Winston’s intention of going abroad.

We are reliably informed, that, having heard Mr. Kern sing, Gen. Winston became more fixed in his patriotic determination to leave his country.

Of Gen. Winston’s eternal fitness for the Persian mission, we have no doubt. Since his appointment he has made a close study of Persia, its history, literature, language, people, customs, etc. Hearing that Persia was the land of the date and palm, he took no rest until he had secured the very latest editions of Hayden’s “Dictionary of Dates,” and Fowler’s “Guide to Palmistry.” Having devoured these standard works, as well as an unabridged edition of the “Arabian Nights,” he is, beyond compare, deeply learned in Persian lore.

And who that has beheld him; who that has studied his methods; who that is acquainted with his high and mighty career in the forum, on the mart, upon the field of carnage; who that has seen that undaunted integrity, that unselfish patriotism, that sweet philosophy, and that heroic valor, which have characterized every act and utterance in his life; who, in fine, that knows this good and great man,—will deny that his career in that pagan land, to which he goes anon, promises to redound to his own glory, and to the advantage of the government, which, by his distinguished service, he places under renewed obligations?

_A Senator’s Valor._

It is interesting to read and to study the opinions of different newspapers touching the Hon. John J. Ingalls, senior senator from Kansas. The truth is, that no public man is more generally misunderstood than is Senator Ingalls. By this we mean that a vast majority of the writers who have occasion to write about Senator Ingalls, really do not know him at all. Senator Ingalls is, in fact, a tender, gentle, lovable man. He is exceedingly sentimental, as emotional as a woman, as guileless as a child. He loves nature, and to commune with nature’s quiet, subtile influences. Every day he takes long walks in Washington; he is the most tireless pedestrian in Congress; he is acquainted with all the woodland strolls on the Virginia side, and oftentimes his rambles take him far into rural Maryland. There is a peace, a tranquillity, a simplicity about this man’s private life that is as remarkable as it is beautiful; yet, oh, how grievously he is misjudged!

Illustrative of his humane tenderness, a story is told of a characteristic incident of Senator Ingalls’s visit to Colorado some years ago. He undertook to walk from Leadville to Golden, a mighty distance across the mountains. His friends warned him of the dangers that beset travellers of that mountain fastness, but Senator Ingalls laughed them to scorn.

“I have my penknife with me,” he answered. “It will suffice to protect me, I venture.”

Proceeding on his lonely journey, the senator held sweet communion with the giant trees, the gnarled rocks, the tawdry wild-flowers, and the chattering magpies that greeted him from this side and from that; and his soul contemplated through his reverential ocular orbs the awful grandeurs of the eternally snow-clad hills that rose beyond these hills, and heard the songs the storm-clouds sang.

Floating placidly, so to speak, upon this pleasant sea of thought, the senator strode along for many a league, until finally, all of a sudden, he distinctly beheld coming down the mountain-road toward him, a monstrous grizzly bear,—an ursine megatherium, whose fur bristled, whose eyes emitted sparks, whose claws rattled, and whose fangs gnashed, as he scuttled along the mountain-road. In Senator Ingalls’s place at that supreme moment, any other man less humane, less tender than he, would have reached instinctively for his penknife, with which to have assailed the shaggy monster, and to have made him pay for his temerity with his life. But not so with Senator Ingalls. “Go thy way, poor devil!” he murmured softly, paraphrasing Uncle Toby. “Go thy way, poor devil. This mountain pathway is wide enough for me and thee!”

And with this humane sentiment, Senator Ingalls crawled into a hollow tree at the roadside, and waited there until the grizzly bear had passed by, and was well on his way toward the bee-hive in a pine-tree near Crazy-Horse Gulch.

_Season of New Music._