Chapter III (1)

Ach! weh das Niebelrungen spott—
Ach! weh das Maedchen Turnverein—
Und unser Meister lieben Gott—
Ach! weh das Wienerwurst und Wein.
Ach! weh das Bricht zum kleiner Geld—
Ach! weh das Schlabbergasterfeldt!

_The Works of Sappho._

It would be hard to say whether Chicago society is more deeply interested in the circus which is exhibiting on the lake-front this week, than in the compilation of Sappho’s complete works just published in London, and but this week given to the trade in Chicago. As we understand it, Sappho and the circus had their beginning about the same time: if any thing, the origin of the circus antedated Sappho’s birth some years, and has achieved the more wide-spread popularity. In the volume now before us, we learn that Sappho lived in the seventh century before Christ, and that she was at the zenith of her fame at the time when Tarquinius Priscus was king of Rome, and Nebuchadnezzar was subsisting on a hay-diet. It appears that, despite her wisdom, this talented lady did not know who her father was; seventeen hundred years after her demise, one Suidas claimed to have discovered that there were seven of her father; but Herodotus gives the name of the gentleman most justly suspected as Scamandronymus. Be this as it may, Sappho married a rich man, and subsequently fell in love with a dude who cared nothing for her; whereupon the unfortunate woman, without waiting to compile her writings, and without even indicating whom she preferred for her literary executor, committed suicide by hurling herself from a high precipice into the sea. Sappho was an exceedingly handsome person, as we see by the engraving which serves as the frontispiece of the work before us. This engraving, as we understand, was made from a portrait painted from life by a contemporaneous old Grecian artist, one Alma Tadema.

Still, we could not help wondering, as we saw the magnificent pageant of Forepaugh’s circus sweep down our majestic boulevards and superb thoroughfares yesterday; as we witnessed this imposing spectacle, we say, we could not help wondering how many people in all the vast crowds of spectators knew that there ever was such a poetess as Sappho, or how many, knowing that there was such a party, have ever read her works. It has been nearly a year since a circus came to town; and in that time public taste has been elevated to a degree by theatrical and operatic performers, such as Sara Bernhardt, Emma Abbott, Murray and Murphy, Adèle Patti, George C. Miln, Helena Modjeska, Fanny Davenport, and Denman Thompson. Of course, therefore, our public has come to be able to appreciate with a nicer discrimination and a finer zest the intellectual _morceaux_ and the refined tidbits which Mr. Forepaugh’s unparalleled aggregation offers: this was apparent in the vast numbers and in the unbridled enthusiasm of our best citizens gathered upon the housetops and at the street-corners along the line of the circus procession. So magnificent a display of silks, satins, and diamonds has seldom been seen: it truly seemed as if the fashion and wealth of our city were trying to vie with the splendors of the glittering circus pageant. In honor of the event, many of the stores, public buildings, and private dwellings displayed banners, mottoes, and congratulatory garlands. From the balcony of the palatial edifice occupied by one of our leading literary clubs, was suspended a large banner of pink silk, upon which appeared the word “Welcome” in white; while beneath, upon a scroll, was an appropriate couplet from one of Robert Browning’s poems. When we asked one of the members of this club why the club made such a fuss over the circus, he looked very much astonished; and he answered, “Well, why not? Old Forepaugh is worth over a million dollars, and he always sends us complimentaries whenever he comes to town!”

We asked this same gentleman if he had read the new edition of Sappho’s poems. We had a good deal of confidence in his literary judgment and taste, because he is our leading linseed-oil dealer; and no man in the West is possessed of more enterprise and sand than he.

“My daughter brought home a copy of the book Saturday,” said he, “and I looked through it yesterday. Sappho may suit some cranks; but as for me, give me Ella Wheeler or Will Carleton. I love good poetry: I’ve got the finest-bound copy of Shakespeare in Illinois, and my edition of Coleridge will knock the socks off any book in the country. My wife has painted all the Doray illustrations of the Ancient Marine, and I wouldn’t swap that book for the costliest Mysonyay in all Paris!

“I can’t see where the poetry comes in,” he went on to say. “So far as I can make out, this man Sapolio—I mean Sappho—never did any sustained or consecutive work. His poems read to me a good deal like a diary. Some of them consist of one line only, and quite a number have only three words. Now, I will repeat five entire poems taken from this fool-book: I learned them on purpose to repeat at the club. Here is the first:—

“‘Me just now the golden-sandalled Dawn.’

“That’s all there is to it. Here’s the second:—

“‘I yearn and seek.’

“A third is complete in—

“‘Much whiter than an egg;’

and the fourth is,—

“‘Stir not the shingle,’

which, I take it, was one of Sapphire’s juvenile poems addressed to his mother. The fifth poem is simply,—

“‘And thou thyself, Calliope,’

which, by the way, reminds me that Forepaugh’s calliope got smashed up in a railroad accident night before last,—a circumstance deeply to be regretted, since there is no instrument calculated to appeal more directly to one versed in mythological lore, or more likely to awaken a train of pleasing associations than the steam-calliope.”

A South-Side packer, who has the largest library in the city, told us that he had not seen Sappho’s works yet, but that he intended to read them at an early date. “I’ve got so sick of Howells and James,” said he, “that I’m darned glad to hear that some new fellow has come to the front.”

Another prominent social light (a brewer) said that he had bought a “Sappho,” and was having it bound in morocco, with turkey-red trimmings. “I do enjoy a handsome book,” said he. “One of the most valuable volumes in my library, I bought of a leading candy-manufacturer in this city. It is the original libretto and score of the ‘Songs of Solomon,’ bound in the tanned pelt of the fatted calf that was killed when the prodigal son came home.”

“I have simply glanced through the Sappho book,” said another distinguished representative of local culture; “and what surprised me, was the pains that has been taken in getting up the affair. Why, do you know, the editor has gone to the trouble of going through the book, and translating every darned poem into Greek! Of course, this strikes us business-men of Chicago as a queer bit of pedantry.”

The Hon. Elijah M. Haines says that Sappho was an Indian chief of one of the original Chicago tribes, and founder of the Ancient Order of Red Men. “I have never looked into this book you mention,” says he; “but I presume to say that there’s nothing new in it. We are digging up marble slabs at Kaskaskia every week or two, and they all have Sapphic poems on them; but what is there in the poetry business? There is more philanthropy and business in one reliable recipe for curing hams than in the longest epic poem ever written.”

The scholarly and courtly editor of “The Weekly Lard Journal and Literary Companion,” Professor A. J. Lyvely, criticised Sappho very freely as he stood at the corner of Clark and Madison Streets, waiting for the superb gold chariot drawn by twenty milk-white steeds, and containing fifty musicians to come along. “Just because she lived in the dark ages,” said he, “she is cracked up for a great poet; but she will never be as popular with the masses of Western readers as Ella Wheeler and Marion Harland are. All of her works that remains to us are a few fragments, and they are chestnuts; for they have been printed within the last ten years in the books of a great many poets I could name, and I have read them. We know very little of Sappho’s life. If she had amounted to much, we would not be in such ignorance of her doings. The probability is, that she was a society or fashion editor on one of the daily papers of her time,—a sort of Clara-Belle woman, whose naughtiness was mistaken for a species of intellectual brilliancy. Sappho was a gamey old girl, you know. Her life must have been a poem of passion if there is any truth in the testimony of the authorities who wrote about her several centuries after her death. In fact, these verses of hers that are left, indicate that she was addicted to late suppers, to loose morning-gowns, to perfumed stationery, and to hysterics. It is ten to one that she wore flaming bonnets and striking dresses; that she talked loud at the theatres and in public generally; and that she chewed gum, and smoked cigarettes, when she went to the races. If that woman had lived in Chicago, she would have been tabooed.”

The amiable gentleman who reads manuscripts for Rand, McNally, & Co., says that Sappho’s manuscripts were submitted to him a year ago. “I looked them over, and satisfied myself that there was nothing in them; and I told the author so. He seemed inclined to dispute me, but I told him I reckoned I understood pretty well what would sell in our literary circles and on our railroad-trains.”

But while there was a pretty general disposition to criticise Sappho, there was only one opinion as to the circus-parade; and that was complimentary. For the nonce, we may say, the cares and vexations of business, of literature, of art, and of science, were put aside; and our populace abandoned itself to a hearty enjoyment of the brilliant pageant which appealed to the higher instincts. And, as the cage containing the lions rolled by, the shouts of the enthusiastic spectators swelled above the guttural roars of the infuriate monarchs of the desert. Men waved their hats, and ladies fluttered their handkerchiefs. Altogether, the scene was so exciting as to be equalled only by the rapturous ovation which was tendered Mdlle. Hortense de Vere, queen of the air, when that sylph-like lady came out into the arena of Forepaugh’s great circus-tent last evening, and poised herself upon one tiny toe on the back of an untamed and foaming Arabian barb that dashed round and round the sawdust ring. Talk about your Sapphos and your poetry! Would Chicago hesitate a moment in choosing between Sappho and Mdlle. Hortense de Vere, queen of the air? And what rhythm—be it Sapphic, or choriambic, or Ionic a minore—is to be compared with the symphonic poetry of a shapely female balanced upon one delicate toe on the bristling back of a fiery, untamed palfrey that whoops round and round to the music of the band, the plaudits of the public, and the still, small voice of the dyspeptic gent announcing a minstrel show “under this canvas after the performance, which is not yet half completed”? If it makes us proud to go into our book-stores, and see thousands upon thousands of tomes waiting for customers; if our bosoms swell with delight to see the quiet and palatial homes of our cultured society overflowing with the most expensive wallpapers and the costliest articles of virtue; if we take an ineffable enjoyment in the thousand indications of a growing refinement in the midst of us,—vaster still must be the pride, the rapture, we feel when we behold our intellect and our culture paying the tribute of adoration to the circus. Viewing these enlivening scenes, why may we not cry in the words of Sappho, “Wealth without thee, Worth, is a shameless creature; but the mixture of both is the height of happiness”?

_November._

The night is dark and the night is cold,
And the wind blows fierce and strong:
And the rich man sits in his castle old;
He drinks his wine, and he counts his gold,
As the night goes frowning along, along,
And the night wind sings its song.

The wind speeds out to the withered lea,
Afar from the urban throng,
Where the poet abideth in poverty:
Nor castle, nor wine, nor gold, hath he,
But he heareth the night wind’s song—its song
As the night goes frowning along.

Oh! give me no castles, proud and old,
Nor honors that station brings;
Give me no plenty of wine and gold;
But give me the soul, when the nights are cold,
To hear what the night wind sings and sings
As it rustles its voiceful wings.

_A Novelette._

“Sing me the old song!”

The words rang out clear and bell-like upon the mellow September air, and coquetted with the autumnal zephyrs that ruffled the cerulean bosom of the mighty lake. It was night. The moon rolled proudly through the azure heavens, bathing the landscape in a shimmer of silvery sheen, and tipping the dark waters of Chicago River with a wavy, tremulous light. The nightingale throbbed his melodious plaints upon the hushed air; the crickets chirped tunefully in the hedge; and every thing afar and near bespoke the poetry of that sweet time dedicate to slumber and repose.

“Sing me the old song!”

There was a pleading querulousness in the tones that betokened William Bross’s anguish and heartache. The words were wrung from a soul in which pride and anger and sorrow battled for the ascendency. William Bross was the prototype of manly beauty. But now his supple limbs quivered with agony; his brave bosom heaved with tumultuous emotions; his ambrosial locks, brushed back by the hand of despair from his high white forehead, revealed features strikingly handsome, but, oh! so cruelly marked by the ravages of mental woe. What great grief was it that gnawed like a canker-worm at the vitals of this good and valorous young man? what secret anguish preyed upon his pure, clean white soul, that ever and anon he stretched forth his pale, quivering hands, and cried, in tones that would have melted an adamantine heart, “Sing me the old song”?

The imperious beauty, Joseph Medill, was not indifferent to the charms of the handsome and chivalric knight kneeling there. Between the two the tenderest sentiments had existed for many years, and ’twere vain to imagine that any passing zephyr of doubt or discontent could rend apart two hearts that for so long a time had throbbed in unison. Joseph Medill’s thoughts went back to the happy hours, the tender conferences, the mutual vows, the sweet obligations, the endearing scenes, the blissful episodes, of the past; and his beautiful bosom heaved, and his large, liquid, fathomless eyes filled with tears, and his ripe red lips quivered, as he momentarily pondered upon that pathetic panorama, and then gazed upon the limp and pleading object at his feet.

“Sing me the old song!”

Yes, Joseph Medill had not forgot that song,—the dear old song William Bross had taught him to sing when years ago they had wandered hand in hand through the primeval forests and tangled jungles where now a teeming, busy city stands. It was the song that Joseph Medill had sung through all the years of his existence since first he met the knightly William Bross, and learned of him that wondrous melody: it was the same sweet song, which, speeding from Joseph Medill’s tuneful lips, had spread like a subtile perfume afar and wide, had wooed every human ear, and awakened a response in every human breast.

But now for weary weeks that song had been hushed. A chilling, icy cloud had come between Joseph Medill and William Bross. Half regretfully, yet firmly, Joseph had plucked from his soul the cadences of that harmonious strain, and refused to sweep his waxen, taper fingers across the golden strings of his dulcet lyre. For weary weeks William had brooded o’er his sorrow: for dismal days had he nursed in bitter silence his grewsome grief and unavailing anguish. But, tortured to desperation, he had come at last to implore a reconciliation, and the mercy of that sweet song again.

“What song mean you?” inquired the imperious Joseph Medill, bestowing upon the kneeling William a look of melting tenderness that bespoke a relenting mood.

“What song? What other song but that which you, and you alone, have sung so pathetically and so divinely all these years?”

The imperious Joseph turned his beautiful face away, as if to conceal the emotion that perturbed his delicately chiselled features.

In another moment, William Bross had sprung to his feet, had clasped Joseph Medill in his arms, and was straining him to his breast.

“Sing me the old song,” he whispered hotly in Joseph’s shell-like ear, “the old, sweet song about free trade.”

_Inter-State Commerce Bill Items._

The lightning-express train on the Illinois and Iowa route came in last night, three weeks overdue. The report that it had ivy and moss growing on the driving-wheels of its locomotive is not true.

* * * * *

J. Arthur Simpson, city agent of the Topeka and Tophet short line, who has been visiting Joe Bedee and Jake Aull in Omaha for a week, returned home yesterday with a beautiful seal-brown taste in his mouth.

* * * * *

Projectors of railway enterprises are cordially invited to come to Chicago, and to investigate our inducements. We have in the midst of us lands, riparian privileges, terminal facilities, a city council, and other advantages which are for sale at preposterously low figures. Before going elsewhere, give us a trial.

* * * * *

The community will be deeply shocked to hear that by the explosion of his lantern on train No. 11, last evening, genial Conductor Jerseybingle lost the left lobe of his whiskers; also the distinguished wart he had always worn on his right nostril. For some inexplicable reason, the Posey Grand Trunk line seems to have had a long run of bad luck lately.

_The Wizard of Vermilion._

While the great billiard tournament was in progress in Chicago, Col. Joe Mann came up from Danville, and saw Maurice Vignaux play his remarkable game. Maurice saw Col. Mann among the spectators, and was so much pleased with his appearance that he asked for an introduction. The result was, that Maurice and Joe got pretty thick, and Maurice gave Joe a good many valuable pointers on “the gentleman’s game.” When Col. Mann got back to Danville, he had a good deal to say about billiards; and he talked so loud, that at last Col. Phocion Howard challenged him to a series of match-games of 15-ball pool. The tournament took place last Saturday night; and it was witnessed by the wealth, fashion, and beauty of Vermilion County. The Hon. William H. Calhoun was referee; and he sends us a full report of the tournament, with diagrams of several of the more remarkable shots. We regret that we have not space for this full report and all these diagrams. We print a few of the latter, in order that our readers may know to what an extraordinary height the billiard-art has risen in the provinces.

This represents the remarkable around-the-table shot made by Col. Howard at the beginning of the first game. The balls were bunched on the spot at the lower end of the table, and Howard led off to break the combination. His cue, not being properly chalked, did not strike the ball full. The ball, therefore, barely touched the maroon-colored ball at the apex of the group, glanced to the left, cushioned to the right, carromed thence to the right cushion, thence to the left across the table, and then shot across into the pocket at the confluence of the right hand and upper rails at the head of the table amid loud applause.

Here we have an extraordinary play made by Col. Mann near the close of the second game. He desired to put the yellow ball in the lower left-corner pocket: to do this, required a long reach across the table; bridges being barred, under the rules of the Danville Billiard Association. Col. Mann overreached himself, and gave his cue-ball such an unusual impetus that it rapidly described two acute angles, bounced across the table and over the right rail, and struck one of the spectators full in the nose. This very properly was accounted one of the marvellous shots of the tourney; and the referee shook hands with Col. Mann, and complimented him in high terms. At the close of the third game, Col. Mann made a remarkable massay shot, the like of which had never before been witnessed in Vermilion County. There were but two balls (the speckled one and the dark-blue) on the table, and Col. Mann determined to try one of the massays Mr. Vignaux had taught him. The dark-blue lay within the 14-inch line, and the speckled ball just outside: the thing was, to tick the speckled one, chassez around it, and strike the dark-blue hard enough to send it into the middle pocket of the left rail. This required a good deal of what is called “English” by the Vermilion-county experts. Col. Mann reached over the table, held his cue perpendicularly over the cue-ball, had jabbed it fiercely down—just as Mr. Vignaux had told him to do. The massay was perfect; but, after striking the cue-ball, the cue glanced to the bed of the table, and ploughed up about three cubic inches, or fifteen dollars’ worth, of the cloth.

This ended the tournament; and the championship was awarded to Col. Howard, who is now familiarly known as the “Wizard of the Vermilion-county cue.”

_Why He was Tardy._

Mr. Ruggles of the Michigan Central road tells of a funny dream he had the other night. He had been eating stewed terrapin at Caveroc’s; and when he finally got to sleep, he dreamed that he had died, and was knocking at the jasper gate of heaven.

“Who’s there?” demanded St. Peter.

“O. W. Ruggles of Chicago,” was the reply.

“Let me see,” said St. Peter, looking over his books, “let me see; when did you die?”

“Last week Tuesday,” said Ruggles.

“A week ago!” cried the saint, “seems to me you’ve been a long time on the way.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for it,” protested Mr. Ruggles; “for under the old system, there’d have been no trouble; but this interstate commerce law is seriously interrupting travel.”

_Base-Ball as a Classic._

“The St. Paul Globe” must not be too severe on the class of people whom it stigmatizes as base-ball cranks; for base-ball is our national game, and it includes among its admirers many of the wisest and the best of our citizens. Love of the game of ball is no new thing: it is as old as history itself. It is a pity that old Izaak Walton knew nothing of the sport; for how he would have enjoyed it, and how charmingly he would have written of it! It is a particularly desirable game, because it calls into, and keeps in, the open air a large number of people who otherwise would remain cramped up indoors. It is the enemy—call it rival, if you please—of billiards and other house-sports, and we are heartily glad that it is so successful. It has charms not only for those who participate in it, but also for those who are spectators simply; and it is rapidly acquiring those scientific excellences which will ultimately place it far above other athletic sports. A certain class of writers (who cannot know what they are talking about) inveigh against what they are pleased to term the “ball-craze;” and the circumstance that Mike Kelly recently got a large sum of money for leaving the Chicago to join the Boston club, is dished up in every style to prove that these are degenerate times, and that humanity is on the highway to idiocy. But the truth of the matter is, ball-playing isn’t made nearly so much of as it was many centuries ago, when even Homer delighted to weave its praises into his immortal verse. Athens had its Mike Kelly. Of course, he was not as good a man as our own Mike Kelly is; but the world was comparatively young then, and we think we can safely say that Aristonicus the Carystian was a worthy representative of our national game at that time. At any rate, Aristonicus won the admiration of King Alexander; and his majesty was not satisfied until he had bought Aristonicus’s release from the Carystian Club, and had signed him with the Athens White Buskins. The sum which Alexander paid for this release is said to have been four didrachms and three tetrobolons, a prodigious price for those days, but a comparatively small amount for modern times. Money was scarce then: if the cashier of an Athenian bank had tried to abscond with four dollars’ worth of money, he would have required thirty elephants and sixteen four-horse chariots to transport the coin. The money which King Alexander paid for Aristonicus’s release was equivalent to a dollar and twenty-five cents in our money; but it was esteemed such an extravagant sum at that time, that the contemporary press of Thrace pounced upon it, and paraded it as an instance of preposterous profligacy. But his majesty felt more than repaid for the investment: his ball-club won the championship, and held it until the death of Aristonicus. This famous player became very popular with the Athenians: they made him a free man, and they erected a statue to him! Now, just imagine the Boston people erecting a Monson granite statue to Mike Kelly on the banks of the frog-pond in Boston Common,—ay, and under the very shade of the classic gingko-tree!

Demoxenus, who seems to have been the Browning of Athenian poesy, has left us this word-picture of the Grecian ball-player,—to be more explicit, a picture of the third-base man of the Athens White Buskins:—

“The youth I saw was playing ball,—
Seventeen years of age, and tall;
From Cos he came; and well I wot
The gods looked kindly on that spot,
For when he took the ball, or threw it,
So pleased were all of us to view it,
We all cried out. So great his grace,
Such frank good-humor in his face,
That, every time he spoke or moved,
All felt as if that youth they loved.
Had I staid long, most sad my plight
Had been to lose my wits outright;
And even now, the recollection
Disturbs my senses’ calm reflection.”

It appears, however, that, even among the ancients, there were those who thought that too much attention was being paid to ball-playing. One of the grumblers was a person of the name of Chærephanes, who, notwithstanding his blatant and persistent decrying of the sport, was in the habit of attending every game to which he could get a free pass. This inconsistency irritated the alleged base-ball cranks of Athens; and one day, while a match-game was in progress in the park at the base of the Acropolis, Demoteles, who appears to have been the Baby Anson of the White Buskins aforementioned, addressed Chærephanes rather testily. “Tell me, O Chærephanes! how comes it, that, not liking this game, you are always on hand whensoever you can get a free pass?” To him Chærephanes responded, “Because I enjoy seeing you boys play it, think not that I approve the game.”

_Culled in Helicon._

Here is an important literary item which we find in the current number of “The Chicago Indicator:” “W. S. Crouse of Mitchell, Dak., has given a chattel mortgage for eighty-five dollars.”

* * * * *

It pains us to note that our local literary boom has suffered somewhat of a set-back in the violent interest which, all of a sudden, is being taken in the subject of drainage. It were much better, we think, if these twin arts could go together hand in hand.

_Oon Criteek de Bernhardt._

The re-appearance of Sara Bernhardt in the midst of us has, of course, set our best society circles into a flutter of excitement; and we have been highly edified by the various criticisms which we have heard passed upon that gifted woman’s performance of “Fedora” night before last. All these criticisms have flavored of that directness, that frankness, and that rugged discrimination, which are so characteristic of true Western culture. Col. J. M. Hill, the esteemed lessee of the Columbia Theatre, told us some weeks ago that his object in securing a season of Bernhardt was to give a series of entertainments which would appeal for appreciation and for patronage to the intellectuality of our _crême de la crême_, and which would be several degrees above the comprehension of the hoi polloi. We noticed last Monday evening that the hoi polloi were not on hand to welcome the eminent French artiste; and we were ineffably pained to notice, too, that the _crême de la crême_ was very meagrely represented. This amazed as well as pained us: if Sara Bernhardt cannot pack the Columbia at Col. Hill’s popular prices, who, by the memory of Racine and Molière! who—we ask in all solemnity—who can? And what amazed us, furthermore,—perhaps we should say what _shocked_ us,—was the exceeding frigidity with which the select few of our _crême de la crême_ received the superb bits of art which Sara Bernhardt threw out, much as an emery-wheel emits beauteous vari-colored sparks.

“Zis eez awful!” exclaimed Sara to her stage-manager, as she came off the stage after the first act of “Fedora.” “Ze play eez in Russia, but ze audiongce eez in ze circle polaire!”

It strikes us that Sara was pretty nearly correct; but for the date on the play-bill, we might have surmised that our French friends were performing amid surroundings of the glacial period.

“Ze play eez ‘Fedora,’” said Sara to M. le General Carson, _entre acte_, “ze artiste eez Bernhardt, and ze audiongce eez ‘Les Miserables!’”

M. le General came right out, and told this to distinguished friends in the lobby. He said it was a bong mo; but young Horace McVicker, who once conducted a Paris-green manufactory in California, and therefore is an accomplished French scholar, corrected M. le General by alleging that Sara’s witticism was not a bong mo, but a judy spree.

The Markeesy di Pullman applauded the famous actress a great deal after he had once located her. In order to make sure of doing the proper thing, he applauded every woman that appeared on the stage; and by the time the second act was fairly under way, he was able to identify the “cantatreese” (as he called her) by the color of her hair. “But,” he remarked to his friend, M. le Colonnel Potter Palmer, later in the evening, “I don’t mind telling you that I don’t like her as well as I do Patti; and as for this man Sardoo”—

“Sardoo? Who’s he?” interrupted M. le Colonnel Palmer.

“Why, he’s the man who wrote this piece,” said the markeesy; “and he doesn’t hold a candle to our Italian poets, Danty and Bockashyo.”

“I don’t know any thing about such things,” said M. le Colonnel Palmer meekly. “As for myself, I like to be amused when I go to a show; and I presume I’d like this woman very much if I could see her in one of the fine old English comedies, such as the ‘Bunch of Keys,’ or the ‘Rag Baby.’”

Now, while these two distinguished personages were aware that the play was “Fedora,” there were many in the auditorium who had not very clear convictions on this point. M. Thomas J. Hooper, the prominent linseed-oil manufacturer (whose palatial residence on Prairie Avenue is the Mecca of our most cultured society),—M. Hooper, we say, sat through three acts without dreaming that the play was “Fedora.”

“I like Clara Morris better in this _rôle_,” said he to M. T. Desplaines Wiggins, one of the vice-presidents of the Chicago Literary Club.

“But, my dear fellow,” said M. Wiggins, in a tone of expostulation, “Clara Morris never played the part.”

“Never played Cameel?” cried M. Hooper. “Why, bless you, man, I seen her do it right here in this theatre!”

“But this isn’t Cameel,” said M. Wiggins: “it’s Feedorer.”

“Well, now, I’ll bet you fifty it’s Cameel,” said M. Hooper, calmly but firmly.

M. Wiggins covered the wager, and M. Billy Lyon decided in favor of Wiggins and Fedora.

“I knew I was right,” exclaimed M. Wiggins triumphantly, “for I saw it on the programme.”

M. Hooper was very much put out. “You don’t pronounce that word right, anyway,” he muttered sulkily.

“What word?” demanded M. Wiggins hotly.

“That word programmay,” said M. Hooper. “It’s French; and it isn’t program, but programmay.”

They wagered fifty dollars on it between them, and referred it to M. Jean McConnell.

“At popular prices, it’s program,” said M. McConnell; “but during this engagement, it’s programmay, sure.”

So M. Hooper squared himself financially; and M. Wiggins went down to his seat in the parquettay, muttering something that sounded very like a profane and inexcusable rhyme for program.

But, as we have hinted above, M. Hooper was not the only one in the audience who was unsettled as to what the play was, and what it was all about. Throughout the auditorium, messieurs, mesdames, and mademoiselles were sadly bothered to know whether it was Cameel, or Faydorah, or Tayodorah, or Fru-Fru, or some other morso from the Bernhardt repertevoi. M. James M. Billings, the prominent restaurateur, told his family that the bill had been changed, and that the piece was “Jennie Saper.”

“Why, no, ’taint, pa,” protested Mdlle. Billings: “it’s ‘Faydorah.’”

“Now, look here, Birdie,” said M. Billings sternly. “I know what I’m talking about. As we were comin’ in, I asked one of the men in the entry what the piece was, and he said ‘Jennie Saper;’ and he knew, for he was a Frenchman.”

“Our seats,” said M. T. Frelinghuysen Boothby, “were so far back, that we had difficulty in making out what Burnhart said; but from what I _did_ hear, I would judge that she spoke better English than Rhea: at any rate, I could understand her better than I ever could Rhea.”

M. le Colonnel Fitzgerald confessed to being disappointed. “It may be my fault, however,” said he: “for I am very rusty in my French, having paid no attention to it since I visited Montreal in the summer of 1880. I brought my ‘French Conversations’ along with me to-night, but it was of no assistance to me. I hadn’t got half through the first scene in the first act, when Fedora was dying in the last act. This was slow business. Of course, there were a good many words and phrases that were familiar, such as, ‘voyla,’ ‘toot sweet,’ ‘tray be-yen,’ ‘mercee,’ ‘pardong,’ ‘bong zhour,’ and ‘wee wee.’ You can depend upon it, that, whenever I heard these old friends, I applauded with the nicest and the heartiest discrimination.”

Now, all these criticisms and features (and there were many, many more such) interested us—or, at least, they entertained us. But we were grieved to discover a disposition (shall we say a pongshong?) on the part of the audience to compare Bernhardt’s Fedora with Fanny Davenport’s. To institute any such comparison would be a sore injustice to both ladies. Bernhardt and Davenport represent two very different dramatic schools: one is the school of avoirdupois, and the other is essentially so different that it must be estimated only under the accepted rules of troy weight. To be more explicit, we will say, that, while you would properly weigh Miss Davenport’s art on a hayscales, you must use a more delicate machine if you would seek to learn the true magnitude and concinnity of Bernhardt’s art. It is quite true that to both Fedoras the same amount of practical appreciation is paid here in Chicago. When Miss Davenport played Fedora at the Columbia Theatre last January, she was applauded rapturously by 2,000 delighted tradesfolk at 50 cents apiece: now Bernhardt comes along with her subtile impersonation, and does business to 333⅓ of the _crême de la crême_ of our pork-packers at $3 per head. You see that the box-office receipts are the same in both instances: it would be impossible, therefore, to compare the merits of each actress by the amount of money derived from the performance of each.

It is far from our purpose to institute any invidious comparisons between these two gifted women: each excels in her way; and the way of the one is as far from the way of the other as the beauties of a fat-stock show are removed from the beauties of a floral display. If there is in Fanny’s art a breadth and a weight that remind us of the ponderous thud of a meat-axe, there is (it must also be confessed) in Sara’s art a daintiness and an insinuation that remind us of the covert swish of a Japanese paper-knife. Horace has explained this very difference in that charming ode wherein he tells of Næera, who, “with ruddy, glowing arm, holds out an earthen cup of goat’s milk,” while, on the other hand, Lydia extends to the parched poet a silver flagon, “filled to the brim with old Falernian chilled with snow.” Now, there is no doubt in our mind that Horace chose the Falernian; but we are not all Horaces; and we presume to say, that, as between goat’s milk at popular prices, and Falernian at war-rates, a vast majority of Chicagoans would choose the former.

“The last act was a great disappointment,” said one of our most cultured beef-canners. “It is there that Davenport gets away with this French woman. Why, Davenport’s tussle with that young Rooshan is the grandest piece of art I ever saw! she just tears around and horns the furniture like a Texas steer in a box-car.”

George Bowron, leader of the orchestra at the Columbia, says that he knew, just as soon as he saw the score of the incidental music, that Bernhardt’s Fedora was very unlike Davenport’s.

“Bernhardt’s score,” says he, “is interspersed throughout with ‘pianissimo,’ ‘con moto,’ and ‘andante.’ On the other hand, the music of Davenport’s Fedora is in big black type, and every other bar is labelled ‘forte’ or ‘fortissimo;’ and our trombone-player blew himself into a hemorrhage last January, trying to keep up with the rest of the orchestra in the death-struggle in the last act.”

We can see that Bernhardt labors under one serious disadvantage, and that is the fact that her plays are couched in a foreign language. We asked Col. J. M. Hill why Sardoo did not write his plays in English, and he said he supposed it was because Sardoo was a Frenchman. This may be all very well for Paris, but we opine that it will not do in Chicago. What protection has a Chicago audience in a case of this kind? What assurance have we, that, while we are admiring this woman’s art, the woman herself is not brazenly guying and blackguarding us in her absurd foreign language?

Now, we would not seek to create the impression that Sardoo’s work is not meritorious: on the contrary, we are free to say, and we say it boldly, that we recognize considerable merit in it. We fancy, however, that Sardoo is not always original: we find him making use of a good many lines that certainly were not born of his creative genius. As we remember now, Sardoo introduces into his dialogue the very “pardonnez-moy,” the very “mong-du,” and the very “too zhoors,” which we hear every day in our best society; and will he have the effrontery to deny that he has stolen from us—ay, brazenly stolen from us—the very “wee-wee” which is the grand commercial basis upon which Chicago culture stands and defies all competition?

Oh, how glad—how proud—Chicago is that Bronson Howard and William Shakespeare and Charley Hoyt, and her other favorite dramatists, have been content to put their plays in honest but ennobling Anglo-Saxon!

_Oon Conversarzyony Frongsay._

The Bernhardt engagement has brought out all the French scholars in Chicago. Never before had we suspected that there were so many able linguists in the midst of us. Gen. Stiles, we have just discovered, speaks French like a native of Paris (Edgar County). He attended the “Frou-Frou” performance last evening with his friend Judge Prendergast. The judge is a proficient Greek and Latin scholar; but he knows little of French, his vocabulary being limited to such phrases as “fo par,” “liaison,” “kelky shoze,” and “olly bonnur:” so Gen. Stiles had to explain the play to him as it progressed last evening.

“Now what is she saying?” the judge would ask.

“She said, ‘Good-evening,’” the general would answer.

“Does ‘bung swor’ mean ‘good-evening’?” the judge would inquire.

“Yes.”

“Oh, what rot!” the judge would exclaim; and then a dude usher in one of Willoughby & Hill’s nineteen-dollar dress-suits would teeter down the aisle, and warn the gentlemen not to whisper so loud.

Presently Col. William Penn Nixon, the gifted editor of “The Inter-Ocean,” came along, and slipped into the seat next to Gen. Stiles. He had an opera-glass, and he levelled it at once at Bernhardt’s red, red hair.

“Do you speak French?” asked Gen. Stiles in the confidential tone of a member of the Citizens’ Committee.

“Oony poo,” said Col. Nixon guardedly.

“Vooley voo donny moy voter ver de lopera?” asked the general, motioning toward the opera-glass.

“See nay par zoon ver de lopera!” protested the colonel. “Say lay zhoomels.”

“Mong doo! What do I want of zhoomels?” cried Gen. Stiles. “Zhoomels is twins!”

“Par bloo!” said Col. Nixon: “it is not twins, it is opera-glasses.”

“You’re all wrong, William,” urged the general. “The French idiom is ‘the glass of the opera.’ ‘Ver’ is glass, and ‘de lopera’ is of the opera.”

“I have heard them called lornyets,” suggested Judge Prendergast, in the deferential tone of a young barrister seeking a change of venue.

“Well, I don’t know what the general’s opera-glass is,” said Col. Nixon; “but this one of mine is a ‘lay zhoomels.’”

“Call it what you please,” replied the judge: “it is de tro as far as I am concerned, until the corpse de bally makes its ontray.”

“I thought you didn’t speak French,” said Gen. Stiles, turning fiercely upon the judge.

“Oh, well!” the judge explained apologetically, “I’m not what you and the colonel would call oh fay—I’m a june primmer at the business; but when the wind is southerly, I reckon I can tell a grizet from a garsong.”

Chicago society is still in considerable doubt as to where Bernhardt should be located in the artistic scale. A good many of the _élite_ think that her Fedora is second to Fanny Davenport’s, and there are very many others who prefer Clara Morris’s Camille. We notice that the popular inquiry in cultured circles is, “Have you been to see Bernhardt?” not, “Have you been to hear Bernhardt?”

“Oh, you don’t know how I enjoyed Bayernhayerdt the other evening!” exclaimed one of our most beautiful and accomplished belles. “Her dresses are beautiful, and they do say she is dreadfully naughty!”

_A Fearless Protector_.

At the rehearsal of “Frou-Frou” in the Columbia Theatre last Thursday noon, Col. J. M. Hill, the urbane lessee, stood in the lobby chatting with Miss Bernhardt; and, while they were thus chatting, a card bearing the name of a strange gentleman was handed to the eminent actress. Miss Bernhardt took the card, scrutinized it, and exclaimed in her pretty French way, “Sacre bleue! Who eez zis gentilhomme? I haf not ze honaire to know him.”

Noticing the lady’s dilemma, Col. Hill, with characteristic gallantry, was not slow in coming to her rescue.

“Have no fear, madam,” said he to Miss Bernhardt, “have no fear while I am by your side. Go back, young man, to him who sent you, and ask him if his intentions are honorable.”

_Mr. Knapp’s Scheme._

Mr. Thomas J. Knapp, manager of the Elgin Opera-House, returned home last evening very much disgusted. He had been in Chicago a week, trying to arrange for one night of Bernhardt in Elgin.

“Our town,” says he, “is the best one-night stand in Illinois. Our watch-factory employs ten thousand hands, and we have the best society in the West. It would pay this French woman to stop over a night with us.”

“Why doesn’t she?”

“The manager wants a guaranty of five thousand dollars,” says Mr. Knapp, “and I wouldn’t give it. I was willing to raise the price of seats to seventy-five cents, and we would have packed the house! But Bernhardt wants the earth,—or at least her manager does. You see, her expenses would be light,—virtually nothing. In the first place, she wouldn’t have had any hotel-bill to pay.”

“No hotel-bill? Why, how’s that?”

“No, none at all: I had made all the arrangements to have her stop with the minister.”

_A Fine Old Book._

There has come into our hands a small volume which we value very much as illustrating the degree of proficiency to which Boston had attained in 1842. At that time, Boston was about two hundred years older than Chicago now is. This volume, consisting of sixty-three pages, is entitled “Boston Common;” and it bears the imprint of William D. Ticknor and H. B. Williams. The latter gentleman appears to have been the compiler of the work; and he treats of the formation of the Common, the sky over the Common, the liberty-tree, the old elm, the frog-pond, booths around the Common, the National Lancers, Hollis-street steeple, the iron fence, fountains on the Common, the gingko-tree, cows on the Common, etc. The compilation is done very cleverly, and betrays a fine literary taste, and sound literary judgment. Here and there are introduced apt poetical quotations,—one from Homer, one from Robert Treat Paine, and two from Dr. Isaac Watts. We will make a few excerpts at random, from this pleasing work, for the edification of our readers:—

“The iron fence and brick sidewalk which surround the Common are noble monuments of public enterprise, and of the energy of American mechanics.”

“Since the day when Elder Oliver’s horse had the exclusive right of pasturage in the Common, there has been various legislation on the subject of admitting the cows to feed there. The gradual and now entire disappearance of the cow from our streets, is a sure sign of the triumph of artificial life over primitive manners.”

“The gingko-tree is enclosed by a slight paling. This species of tree is common in Japan.... It lives and thrives, while the family in whose ancient enclosure it once grew has shared the common destiny of families in this land.... The gingko-tree has left the family enclosure, and grows on the Common. We perceive in this fact a correspondence with that law of republicanism which scatters the names and the wealth of rich men into the great community; or, if they are preserved for a while, allows their continuance, and concedes to them a voluntary regard, even as the gingko-tree, in its careful preservation, is permitted to hold an honorable place amongst the public trees. This particular tree is the object of an interest in which a degree of sadness mingles with respect, at the thought of changes which,” etc.

Here is an interesting paragraph: “The Common with its varied surface is admirably fitted for military exhibitions.... The National Lancers, a company of able-bodied men, mounted on fine-looking horses, each lance bearing a red flag, and the mounted musicians adding not a little to the life and novelty of the moving show, are a most interesting sight. A knowledge of the effectiveness of their weapon mingles a little dread with our feelings of admiration. The lance rests in a socket on the stirrup: when a charge is made, the lance, remaining in the socket, is dropped into a horizontal position, and, being so held, the horse is urged against the enemy, and thus the whole power of the animal is thrown into the lance, which is thereby capable of transfixing an assailant with irresistible force.”

At the time this elegant passage was written, the present editor of “The Boston Herald,” the venerable Col. Haskell (father of the editor of “The Minneapolis Tribune,” now in Europe on a bridal tour), was captain of the Lancers; and the lance he used to carry may still be seen in the Boston Museum, hanging on the wall beside the sword of Bunker Hill.

The perusal of this book, “Boston Common,” has awakened in us the hope that some enterprising Chicagoan will do a similar work for this city by writing a history and description of Dearborn Park. This park is the oldest in the city, having been laid out when Long John Wentworth was a rosy-cheeked lad, only nine years old, and only eight feet tall. We cannot say that it has improved with age: it has no frog-pond, nor any old elm, nor any gingko-tree. But it reeks with associations, and we think that some local _littérateur_ ought to compile these associations into a tome.

_Stealing Our Thunder._

Boston has been making a great palaver over her “Longfellow memorial readings.” These readings were given in the Boston Dime Museum last Thursday, and the persons who participated were as follows: Col. J. R. Lowell, the Shakespearian lecturer; Mr. Mark Twain, the Missouri humorist; Mr. W. D. Howells, the New-York novelist; Mr. G. William Curtis, the New-Jersey Mugwump; the Rev. E. Everett Hale, editor of “The Lending Hand;” Col. Thomas B. Aldrich, editor of “The Atlantic Monthly;” Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the eminent surgeon; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, mother of Miss Maud Howe; the venerable John G. Whittier, author of the New-Hampshire idyl, “Joaquin Miller;” and Col. T. Wentworth Higginson, the friend of the late James T. Fields. “The Boston Globe” publishes the pictures of these _littérateurs_, and we observe that five of them (including Mrs. Howe) part their hair in the middle. But this is neither here nor there. What we wish to say, and what we wish the public at large to believe, is, that Boston stole this idea of giving memorial-fund readings: she stole it from Chicago. Two months ago, a movement was set on foot in this city to secure a fund for the purpose of erecting on the lake-front a splendid monument to the memory of “The Literary Life,” that never-to-be-forgotten literary journal, which, under the inspired genius of Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, waxed and waned in the midst of us one all-too-brief year ago. Professor Henry T. Bosbyshell, analytical chemist for Byers & Co., the eminent soap-manufacturers, conceived the laudable plan of securing this monument-fund by giving in Central Music Hall a grand symposium at which Chicago _littérateurs_ would read from their original works. The date fixed for this unique performance was May 28; and the following local authors were bespoken, and promised to participate:—

Professor H. T. Bosbyshell, author of “American Soaps Analyzed,” “The Secret of Perfuming Revealed,” “The Boss Baking Powder,” and “How to Remove Paint Stains.”

Col. T. Shelby Sothers, author of the “Chicago Directory for 1859,” “The Travellers’ Guide to Chicago,” “Compendium of Railroad Information,” and “Chicago Trade Statistics for 1883.”

Professor William Mathews, author of “How to get on in the World.”

Miss Tryphena Cora Swartwout, author of “West-Side Poems,” “Ode to the Chicago River and Other Sonnets,” “An Analysis of Browning,” and “A Complete Cook Book.”

Col. Peter G. Hobby, author of “The New Baconian Theory; or, A Modern Method of Smoking Sidemeats.”

Mr. Wellington Boothkins, author of “Handbook of Etiquette; or, Ten Years a Chicago Clubman,” and “A Review of the Linseed-Oil Trade in the West.”

Mrs. Martha W. Lester-Tubbs, author of “The Dawn of Chicago Literature,” “The Mother’s Companion,” and compiler of “Epics of the Hennepin Valley.”

Professor Thomas O’B. Swigert, author of “The Art of Composition; or, The Manufacture of Press-Rollers Made Easy.”

Mr. DeLancey Morris Sowerby, author of “Noctes Ambrosianæ; or, Ten Nights in the Chicago Literary Club,” and compiler of “The Record of the Chicago Races for 1886.”

Mrs. Minerva J. Peabody, the Calumet poetess, whose nautical poems, “Will Henry Come when Navigation Opens?” and “Aboard the Three-Mast Schooner when the Shingle Crop Comes In,” are sung in every Chicago household.

Col. James Russell Lowell was let into this secret when he was here last February; and it is probable that he went right back to Boston, and betrayed the whole scheme. It is very aggravating to have our original ideas snapped up in this piratical manner by the conscienceless Yankees; but we hope that our _littérateurs_ will stick to their programme, and show the false Bostonians that here, in the home of the muses, and in this wallow (if we may so term it) of culture, we can prepare and execute a literary programme which will put the presumptuous Bostonians to the blush. We can do this, too, without calling on Missouri, New York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire for help.

_Lost, Strayed, or Stolen._

Oh! what has become of the mugwump bird
In this weather of wind and snow?
And does he roost as high as we heard
He roosted a year ago?