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THE SECOND MAN
Yes, these foreigners know the game. They have made millions out of it in Paris. Every time you go to see a musical comedy at home, the second act is laid in Paris, and you see a whole stageful of girls wriggling around, and a lot of old sports having the time of their lives. All your life you hear that Paris is something rich and racy, something that makes New York look like Roanoke, Virginia. Well, you fall for the ballyho and come over to have your fling—and then you find that Paris is largely bunk. I spent a whole week in Paris, trying to find something really awful. I hired one of those Jew guides at five dollars a day and told him to go the limit. I said to him: "Don't mind me. I am twenty-one years old. Let me have the genuine goods." But the worst he could show me wasn't half as bad as what I have seen in Chicago. Every night I would say to that Jew: "Come on, now Mr. Cohen; let's get away from these tinhorn shows. Lead me to the real stuff." Well, I believe the fellow did his darndest, but he always fell down. I almost felt sorry for him. In the end, when I paid him off, I said to him: "Save up your money, my boy, and come over to the States. Let me know when you land. I'll show you the sights for nothing. This Baracca Class atmosphere is killing you."
THE FIRST MAN
And yet Paris is famous all over the world. No American ever came to Europe without dropping off there to have a look. I once saw the Bal Tabarin crowded with Sunday-school superintendents returning from Jerusalem. And when the sucker gets home he goes around winking and hinting, and so the fake grows. I often think the government ought to take a hand. If the beer is inspected and guaranteed in Germany, why shouldn't the shows be inspected and guaranteed in Paris?
THE SECOND MAN
I guess the trouble is that the Frenchmen themselves never go to their own shows. They don't know what is going on. They see thousands of Americans starting out every night from the Place de l'Opera and coming back in the morning all boozed up, and so they assume that everything is up to the mark. You'll find the same thing in Washington. No Washingtonian has ever been up to the top of the Washington monument. Once the elevator in the monument was out of commission for two weeks, and yet Washington knew nothing about it. When the news got into the papers at last, it came from Macon, Georgia. Some honeymooner from down there had written home about it, roasting the government.
THE FIRST MAN
Well, me for the good old U. S. A.! These Alps are all right, I guess—but I can't say I like the coffee.
THE SECOND MAN
And it takes too long to get a letter from Jersey City.
THE FIRST MAN
Yes, that reminds me. Just before I started up here this afternoon my wife got the Ladies' Home Journal of the month before last. It had been following us around for six weeks, from London to Paris, to Berlin, to Munich, to Vienna, to a dozen other places. Now she's fixed for the night. She won't let up until she's read every word—the advertisements first. And she'll spend all day to-morrow sending off for things; new collar hooks, breakfast foods, complexion soaps and all that sort of junk. Are you married yourself?
THE SECOND MAN
No; not yet.
THE FIRST MAN
Well, then, you don't know how it is. But I guess you play poker.
THE SECOND MAN
Oh, to be sure.
THE FIRST MAN
Well, let's go down into the town and hunt up some quiet barroom and have a civilised evening. This scenery gives me the creeps.
THE SECOND MAN
I'm with you. But where are we going to get any chips?
THE FIRST MAN
Don't worry. I carry a set with me. I made my wife put it in the bottom of my trunk, along with a bottle of real whiskey and a couple of porous plasters. A man can't be too careful when he's away from home——
They start along the terrace toward the station of the funicular railway. The sun has now disappeared behind the great barrier of ice and the colours of the scene are fast softening. All the scarlets and vermilions are gone; a luminous pink bathes the whole picture in its fairy light. The night train for Venice, leaving the town, appears as a long string of blinking lights. A chill breeze comes from the Alpine vastness to westward. The deep silence of an Alpine night settles down. The two Americans continue their talk until they are out of hearing. The breeze interrupts and obfuscates their words, but now and then half a sentence comes clearly.
THE SECOND MAN
Have you seen any American papers lately?
THE FIRST MAN
Nothing But the Paris Herald—if you call that a paper.
THE SECOND MAN
How are the Giants making out?
THE FIRST MAN
... bad as usual ... rotten ... shake up ...
THE SECOND MAN
... John McGraw ...
THE FIRST MAN
... homesick ... give five dollars for ...
THE SECOND MAN
... whole continent without a single ...
THE FIRST MAN
... glad to get back ... damn tired ...
THE SECOND MAN.
... damn ...!
THE FIRST MAN.
... damn ...!
VII.—FROM THE MEMOIRS OF THE DEVIL
VII.—From the Memoirs of the Devil
January 6.
And yet, and yet—is not all this contumely a part of my punishment? To be reviled by the righteous as the author of all evil; worse still, to be venerated by the wicked as the accomplice, nay, the instigator, of their sins! A harsh, hard fate! But should I not rejoice that I have been vouchsafed the strength to bear it, that the ultimate mercy is mine? Should I not be full of calm, deep delight that I am blessed with the resignation of the Psalmist (II Samuel XV, 26), the sublime grace of the pious Hezekiah (II Kings XX, 19)? If Hezekiah could bear the cruel visitation of his erring upon his sons, why should I, poor worm that I am, repine?
January 8.
All afternoon I watched the damned filing in. With what horror that spectacle must fill every right-thinking man! Sometimes I think that the worst of all penalties of sin is this: that the sinful actually seem to be glad of their sins (Psalms X, 4). I looked long and earnestly into that endless procession of faces. In not one of them did I see any sign of sorrow or repentance. They marched in defiantly, almost proudly. Ever and anon I heard a snicker, sometimes a downright laugh: there was a coarse buffoonery in the ranks. I turned aside at last, unable to bear it longer. Here they will learn what their laughter is worth! (Eccl. II, 2.)
Among them I marked a female, young and fair. How true the words of Solomon: "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain!" (Proverbs XXXI, 30.) I could not bring myself to put down upon these pages the whole record of that wicked creature's shameless life. Truly it has been said that "the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil." (Proverbs V, 3.) One hears of such careers of evil-doing and can scarcely credit them. Can it be that the children of men are so deaf to all the warnings given them, so blind to the vast certainty of their punishment, so ardent in seeking temptation, so lacking in holy fire to resist it? Such thoughts fill me with the utmost distress. Is not the command to a moral life plain enough? Are we not told to "live soberly, righteously, and godly?" (Titus II, 11.) Are we not solemnly warned to avoid the invitation of evil? (Proverbs I, 10.)
January 9.
I have had that strange woman before me and heard her miserable story. It is as I thought. The child of a poor but pious mother, (a widow with six children), she had every advantage of a virtuous, consecrated home. The mother, earning $6 a week, gave 25 cents of it to foreign missions. The daughter, at the tender age of 4, was already a regular attendant at Sabbath-school. The good people of the church took a Christian interest in the family, and one of them, a gentleman of considerable wealth, and an earnest, diligent worker for righteousness, made it his special care to befriend the girl. He took her into his office, treating her almost as one of his own daughters. She served him in the capacity of stenographer, receiving therefor the wage of $7.00 a week, a godsend to that lowly household. How truly, indeed, it has been said: "Verily, there is a reward for the righteous." (Psalms LVIII, 11.)
And now behold how powerful are the snares of evil. (Genesis VI, 12.) There was that devout and saintly man, ripe in good works, a deacon and pillar in the church, a steadfast friend to the needy and erring, a stalwart supporter of his pastor in all forward-looking enterprises, a tower of strength for righteousness in his community, the father of four daughters. And there was that shameless creature, that evil woman, that sinister temptress. With the noisome details I do not concern myself. Suffice it to say that the vile arts of the hussy prevailed over that noble and upright man—that she enticed him, by adroit appeals to his sympathy, into taking her upon automobile rides, into dining with her clandestinely in the private rooms of dubious hotels, and finally into accompanying her upon a despicable, adulterous visit to Atlantic City. And then, seeking to throw upon him the blame for what she chose to call her "wrong," she held him up to public disgrace and worked her own inexorable damnation by taking her miserable life. Well hath the Preacher warned us against the woman whose "heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands." (Eccl. VII, 26.) Well do we know the wreck and ruin that such agents of destruction can work upon the innocent and trusting. (Revelations XXI, 8; I Corinthians VI, 18; Job XXXI, 12; Hosea IV, 11: Proverbs VI, 26.)
January 11.
We have resumed our evening services—an hour of quiet communion in the failing light. The attendance, alas, is not as gratifying as it might be, but the brethren who gather are filled with holy zeal. It is inspiring to hear their eloquent confessions of guilt and wrongdoing, their trembling protestations of contrition. Several of them are of long experience and considerable proficiency in public speaking. One was formerly a major in the Salvation Army. Another spent twenty years in the Dunkard ministry, finally retiring to devote himself to lecturing on the New Thought. A third was a Y. M. C. A. secretary in Iowa. A fourth was the first man to lift his voice for sex hygiene west of the Mississippi river.
All these men eventually succumbed to temptation, and hence they are here, but I think that no one who has ever glimpsed their secret and inmost souls (as I have during our hours of humble heart-searching together) will fail to testify to their inherent purity of character. After all, it is not what we do but what we have in our hearts that reveals our true worth. (Joshua XXIV, 14.) As David so beautifully puts it, it is "the imagination of the thoughts." (I Chronicles XXIII, 9.) I love and trust these brethren. They are true and earnest Christians. They loathe the temptation to which they succumbed, and deplore the weakness that made them yield. How the memory at once turns to that lovely passage in the Book of Job: "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Where is there a more exquisite thought in all Holy Writ?
January 14.
I have had that scarlet woman before me, and invited her to join us in our inspiring evening gatherings. For reply she mocked me. Thus Paul was mocked by the Athenians. Thus the children of Bethel mocked Elisha the Prophet (II Kings II, 23). Thus the sinful show their contempt, not only for righteousness itself, but also for its humblest agents and advocates. Nevertheless, I held my temper before her. I indulged in no vain and worldly recriminations. When she launched into her profane and disgraceful tirade against that good and faithful brother, her benefactor and victim, I held my peace. When she accused him of foully destroying her, I returned her no harsh words. Instead, I merely read aloud to her those inspiring words from Revelation XIV, 10: "And the evil-doer shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels." And then I smiled upon her and bade her begone. Who am I, that I should hold myself above the most miserable of sinners?
January 18.
Again that immoral woman. I had sent her a few Presbyterian tracts: "The Way to Redemption," "The Story of a Missionary in Polynesia," "The White Slave,"—inspiring and consecrated writings, all of them—comforting to me in many a bitter hour. When she came in I thought it was to ask me to pray with her. (II Chronicles VII, 14.) But her heart, it appears, is still shut to the words of salvation. She renewed her unseemly denunciation of her benefactor, and sought to overcome me with her weeping. I found myself strangely drawn toward her—almost pitying her. She approached me, her eyes suffused with tears, her red lips parted, her hair flowing about her shoulders. I felt myself drawn to her. I knew and understood the temptation of that great and good man. But by a powerful effort of the will—or, should I say, by a sudden access of grace?—I recovered and pushed her from me. And then, closing my eyes to shut out the image of her, I pronounced those solemn and awful words: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!" The effect was immediate: she emitted a moan and departed. I had resisted her abhorrent blandishments. (Proverbs I, 10.)
January 25.
I love the Book of Job. Where else in the Scriptures is there a more striking picture of the fate that overtakes those who yield to sin? "They meet with darkness in the day-time, and grope in the noon-day as in the night" (Job V, 14). And further on: "They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man" (Job XII, 25). I read these beautiful passages over and over again. They comfort me.
January 28.
That shameless person once more. She sends back the tracts I gave her—torn in halves.
February 3.
That American brother, the former Dunkard, thrilled us with his eloquence at to-night's meeting. In all my days I have heard no more affecting plea for right living. In words that almost seemed to be of fire he set forth the duty of all of us to combat sin wherever we find it, and to scourge the sinner until he foregoes his folly.
"It is not sufficient," he said, "that we keep our own hearts pure: we must also purge the heart of our brother. And if he resist us, let no false sympathy for him stay our hands. We are charged with the care and oversight of his soul. He is in our keeping. Let us seek at first to save him with gentleness, but if he draws back, let us unsheath the sword! We must be deaf to his protests. We must not be deceived by his casuistries. If he clings to his sinning, he must perish."
Cries of "Amen!" arose spontaneously from the little band of consecrated workers. I have never heard a more triumphant call to that Service which is the very heart's blood of righteousness. Who could listen to it, and then stay his hand?
I looked for that scarlet creature. She was not there.
February 7.
I have seen her again. She came, I thought, in all humility. I received her gently, quoting aloud the beautiful words of Paul in Colossians III, 12: "Put on therefore, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering." And then I addressed her in calm, encouraging tones: "Are you ready, woman, to put away your evil-doing, and forswear your carnalities forevermore? Have you repented of your black and terrible sin? Do you ask for mercy? Have you come in sackcloth and ashes?"
The effect, alas, was not what I planned. Instead of yielding to my entreaty and casting herself down for forgiveness, she yielded to her pride and mocked me! And then, her heart still full of the evils of the flesh, she tried to tempt me! She approached me. She lifted up her face to mine. She smiled at me with abominable suggestiveness. She touched me with her garment. She laid her hand upon my arm.... I felt my resolution going from me. I was as one stricken with the palsy. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. My hands trembled. I tried to push her from me and could not....
February 10.
In all humility of spirit I set it down. The words burn the paper; the fact haunts me like an evil dream. I yielded to that soulless and abominable creature. I kissed her.... And then she laughed, making a mock of me in my weakness, burning me with the hot iron of her scorn, piercing my heart with the daggers of her reviling. Laughed, and slapped my face! Laughed, and spat in my eye! Laughed, and called me a hypocrite!...
They have taken her away. Let her taste the fire! Let her sin receive its meet and inexorable punishment! Let righteousness prevail! Let her go with "the fearful and unbelieving, the abominable and murderers, the white-slave traders and sorcerers." Off with her to that lake "which burneth with fire and brimstone!" (Revelation XXI, 8.)....
Go, Jezebel! Go, Athaliah! Go, Painted One! Thy sins have found thee out.
February 11.
I spoke myself at to-night's meeting—simple words, but I think their message was not lost. We must wage forever the good fight. We must rout the army of sin from its fortresses....
VIII.—LITANIES FOR THE OVERLOOKED
VIII.—Litanies for the Overlooked
I.—For Americanos
From scented hotel soap, and from the Boy Scouts; from home cooking, and from pianos with mandolin attachments; from prohibition, and from Odd Fellows' funerals; from Key West cigars, and from cold dinner plates; from transcendentalism, and from the New Freedom; from fat women in straight-front corsets, and from Philadelphia cream cheese; from The Star-Spangled Banner, and from the International Sunday-school Lessons; from rubber heels, and from the college spirit; from sulphate of quinine, and from Boston baked beans; from chivalry, and from laparotomy; from the dithyrambs of Herbert Kaufman, and from sport in all its hideous forms; from women with pointed fingernails, and from men with messianic delusions; from the retailers of smutty anecdotes about the Jews, and from the Lake Mohonk Conference; from Congressmen, vice crusaders, and the heresies of Henry Van Dyke; from jokes in the Ladies' Home Journal, and from the Revised Statutes of the United States; from Colonial Dames, and from men who boast that they take cold shower-baths every morning; from the Drama League, and from malicious animal magnetism; from ham and eggs, and from the Weltanschauung of Kansas; from the theory that a dark cigar is always a strong one, and from the theory that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake; from campaigns against profanity, and from the Pentateuch; from anti-vivisection, and from women who do not smoke; from wine-openers, and from Methodists; from Armageddon, and from the belief that a bloodhound never makes a mistake; from sarcerdotal moving-pictures, and from virtuous chorus girls; from bungalows, and from cornets in B flat; from canned soups, and from women who leave everything to one's honor; from detachable cuffs, and from Lohengrin; from unwilling motherhood, and from canary birds—good Lord, deliver us!
II.—For Hypochondriacs
From adenoids, and from chronic desquamative nephritis; from Shiga's bacillus, and from hysterotrachelorrhaphy; from mitral insufficiency, and from Cheyne-Stokes breathing; from the streptococcus pyogenes, and from splanchnoptosis; from warts, wens, and the spirochaete pallida; from exophthalmic goitre, and from septicopyemia; from poisoning by sewer-gas, and from the bacillus coli communis; from anthrax, and from von Recklinghausen's disease; from recurrent paralysis of the laryngeal nerve, and from pityriasis versicolor; from mania-a-potu, and from nephrorrhaphy; from the leptothrix, and from colds in the head; from tape-worms, from jiggers and from scurvy; from endocarditis, and from Romberg's masticatory spasm; from hypertrophic stenosis of the pylorus, and from fits; from the bacillus botulinus, and from salaam convulsions; from cerebral monoplegia, and from morphinism; from anaphylaxis, and from neuralgia in the eyeball; from dropsy, and from dum-dum fever; from autumnal catarrh, from coryza vasomotoria, from idiosyncratic coryza, from pollen catarrh, from rhinitis sympathetica, from rose cold, from catarrhus aestivus, from periodic hyperesthetic rhinitis, from heuasthma, from catarrhe d' ete and from hay-fever—good Lord, deliver us!
III.—For Music Lovers
From all piano-players save Paderewski, Godowski and Mark Hambourg; and from the William Tell and 1812 overtures; and from bad imitations of Victor Herbert by Victor Herbert; and from persons who express astonishment that Dr. Karl Muck, being a German, is devoid of all bulge, corporation, paunch or leap-tick; and from the saxophone, the piccolo, the cornet and the bagpipes; and from the theory that America has no folk-music; and from all symphonic poems by English composers; and from the tall, willing, horse-chested, ham-handed, quasi-gifted ladies who stagger to their legs in gloomy drawing rooms after bad dinners and poison the air with Tosti's Good-bye; and from the low prehensile, godless laryngologists who prostitute their art to the saving of tenors who are happily threatened with loss of voice; and from clarinet cadenzas more than two inches in length; and from the first two acts of Il Trovatore; and from such fluffy, xanthous whiskers as Lohengrins wear; and from sentimental old maids who sink into senility lamenting that Brahms never wrote an opera; and from programme music, with or without notes; and from Swiss bell-ringers, Vincent D'Indy, the Paris Opera, and Elgar's Salut d'Amour; and from the doctrine that Massenet was a greater composer than Dvorak; and from Italian bands and Schnellpostdoppelschraubendampfer orchestras; and from Raff's Cavatina and all of Tschaikowsky except ten per centum; and from prima donna conductors who change their programmes without notice, and so get all the musical critics into a sweat; and from the abandoned hussies who sue tenors for breach of promise; and from all alleged musicians who do not shrivel to the size of five-cent cigars whenever they think of old Josef Haydn—good Lord, deliver us!
IV.—For Hangmen
From clients who delay the exercises by pausing to make long and irrelevant speeches from the scaffold, or to sing depressing Methodist hymns; and from medical examiners who forget their stethoscopes, and clamor for waits while messenger boys are sent for them; and from official witnesses who faint at the last minute, and have to be hauled out by the deputy sheriffs; and from undertakers who keep looking at their watches and hinting obscenely that they have other engagements at 10:30; and from spiritual advisers who crowd up at the last minute and fall through the trap with the condemned—good Lord, deliver us!
V.—For Magazine Editors
From Old Subscribers who write in to say that the current number is the worst magazine printed since the days of the New York Galaxy; and from elderly poetesses who have read all the popular text-books of sex hygiene, and believe all the bosh in them about the white slave trade, and so suspect the editor, and even the publisher, of sinister designs; and from stories in which a rising young district attorney gets the dead wood upon a burly political boss named Terrence O'Flaherty, and then falls in love with Mignon, his daughter, and has to let him go; and from stories in which a married lady, just about to sail for Capri with her husband's old Corpsbruder, is dissuaded from her purpose by the news that her husband has lost $700,000 in Wall Street and is on his way home to weep on her shoulder; and from one-act plays in which young Cornelius Van Suydam comes home from The Club at 11:55 P. M. on Christmas Eve, dismisses Dodson, his Man, with the compliments of the season, and draws up his chair before the open fire to dream of his girl, thus preparing the way for the entrance of Maxwell, the starving burglar, and for the scene in which Maxwell's little daughter, Fifi, following him up the fire-escape, pleads with him to give up his evil courses; and from poems about war in which it is argued that thousands of young men are always killed, and that their mothers regret to hear of it; and from essays of a sweet and whimsical character, in which the author refers to himself as "we," and ends by quoting Bergson, Washington Irving or Agnes Repplier; and from epigrams based on puns, good or bad; and from stories beginning, "It was the autumn of the year 1950"; and from stories embodying quotations from Omar Khayyam, and full of a mellow pessimism; and from stories in which the gay nocturnal life of the Latin Quarter is described by an author living in Dubuque, Iowa; and from stories of thought transference, mental healing and haunted houses; and from newspaper stories in which a cub reporter solves the mystery of the Snodgrass murder and is promoted to dramatic critic on the field, or in which a city editor who smokes a corn-cob pipe falls in love with a sob-sister; and from stories about trained nurses, young dramatists, baseball players, heroic locomotive engineers, settlement workers, clergymen, yeggmen, cowboys, Italians, employes of the Hudson Bay Company and great detectives; and from stories in which the dissolute son of a department store owner tries to seduce a working girl in his father's employ and then goes on the water wagon and marries her as a tribute to her virtue; and from stories in which the members of a yachting party are wrecked on a desert island in the South Pacific, and the niece of the owner of the yacht falls in love with the bo'sun; and from manuscripts accompanied by documents certifying that the incidents and people described are real, though cleverly disguised; and from authors who send in saucy notes when their offerings are returned with insincere thanks; and from lady authors who appear with satirical letters of introduction from the low, raffish rogues who edit rival magazines—good Lord, deliver us!
IX.—ASEPSIS
IX.—Asepsis. A Deduction in Scherzo Form
CHARACTERS:
A CLERGYMAN A BRIDE FOUR BRIDESMAIDS A BRIDEGROOM A BEST MAN THE USUAL CROWD
PLACE—The surgical amphitheatre in a hospital.
TIME—Noon of a fair day.
Seats rising in curved tiers. The operating pit paved with white tiles. The usual operating table has been pushed to one side, and in place of it there is a small glass-topped bedside table. On it, a large roll of aseptic cotton, several pads of gauze, a basin of bichloride, a pair of clinical thermometers in a little glass of alcohol, a dish of green soap, a beaker of two per cent. carbolic acid, and a microscope. In one corner stands a sterilizer, steaming pleasantly like a tea kettle. There are no decorations—no flowers, no white ribbons, no satin cushions. To the left a door leads into the Anesthetic Room. A pungent smell of ether, nitrous oxide, iodine, chlorine, wet laundry and scorched gauze. Temperature: 98.6 degrees Fahr.
THE CLERGYMAN is discovered standing behind the table in an expectant attitude. He is in the long white coat of a surgeon, with his head wrapped in white gauze and a gauze respirator over his mouth. His chunkiness suggests a fat, middle-aged Episcopal rector, but it is impossible to see either his face or his vestments. He wears rubber gloves of a dirty orange color, evidently much used. THE BRIDEGROOM and THE BEST MAN have just emerged from the Anesthetic Room and are standing before him. Both are dressed exactly as he is, save that THE BRIDEGROOM'S rubber gloves are white. The benches running up the amphitheatre are filled with spectators, chiefly women. They are in dingy oilskins, and most of them also wear respirators.
After a long and uneasy pause THE BRIDE comes in from the Anesthetic Room on the arm of her FATHER, with THE FOUR BRIDESMAIDS following by twos. She is dressed in what appears to be white linen, with a long veil of aseptic gauze. The gauze testifies to its late and careful sterilization by yellowish scorches. There is a white rubber glove upon THE BRIDE'S right hand, but that belonging to her left hand has been removed. HER FATHER is dressed like THE BEST MAN. THE FOUR BRIDESMAIDS are in the garb of surgical nurses, with their hair completely concealed by turbans of gauze. As THE BRIDE takes her place before THE CLERGYMAN, with THE BRIDEGROOM at her right, there is a faint, snuffling murmur among the spectators. It hushes suddenly as THE CLERGYMAN clears his throat.
THE CLERGYMAN
(In sonorous, booming tones, somewhat muffled by his respirator.) Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together in the face of this company to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is commended by God to be honorable among men, and therefore is not to be entered into inadvisedly or carelessly, or without due surgical precautions, but reverently, cleanly, sterilely, soberly, scientifically, and with the nearest practicable approach to bacteriological purity. Into this laudable and non-infectious state these two persons present come now to be joined and quarantined. If any man can show just cause, either clinically or microscopically, why they may not be safely sutured together, let him now come forward with his charts, slides and cultures, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.
(Several spectators shuffle their feet, and an old maid giggles, but no one comes forward.)
THE CLERGYMAN
(To THE BRIDE and BRIDEGROOM): I require and charge both of you, as ye will answer in the dreadful hour of autopsy, when the secrets of all lives shall be disclosed, that if either of you know of any lesion, infection, malaise, congenital defect, hereditary taint or other impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in eugenic matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured that if any persons are joined together otherwise than in a state of absolute chemical and bacteriological innocence, their marriage will be septic, unhygienic, pathogenic and toxic, and eugenically null and void.
(THE BRIDEGROOM hands over a long envelope, from which THE CLERGYMAN extracts a paper bearing a large red seal.)
THE CLERGYMAN
(Reading): We, and each of us, having subjected the bearer, John Doe, to a rigid clinical and laboratory examination, in accordance with Form B-3 of the United States Public Health Service, do hereby certify that, to the best of our knowledge and belief, he is free from all disease, taint, defect, deformity or hereditary blemish, saving as noted herein. Temperature per ora, 98.6. Pulse, 76, strong. Respiration, 28.5. Wassermann,—2. Hb., 114%. Phthalein, 1st. hr., 46%; 2nd hr., 21%. W. B. C., 8,925. Free gastric HCl, 11.5%. No stasis. No lactic acid. Blood pressure, 122/77. No albuminuria. No glycosuria. Lumbar puncture: clear fluid, normal pressure.
Defects Noted. 1. Left heel jerk feeble. 2. Caries in five molars. 3. Slight acne rosacea. 4. Slight inequality of curvature in meridians of right cornea. 5. Nicotine stain on right forefinger, extending to middle of second phalanx.
(Signed) SIGISMUND KRAUS, M.D. WM. T. ROBERTSON, M.D. JAMES SIMPSON, M.D.
Subscribed and sworn to before me, a Notary Public for the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, State of New York.
(Seal) ABRAHAM LECHETITSKY.
So much for the reading of the minutes. (To THE BRIDE): Now for yours, my dear.
(THE BRIDE hands up a similar envelope, from which THE CLERGYMAN extracts a similar document. But instead of reading it aloud, he delicately runs his eye through it in silence.)
THE CLERGYMAN
(The reading finished) Very good. Very creditable. You must see some good oculist about your astigmatism, my dear. Surely you want to avoid glasses. Come to my study on your return and I'll give you the name of a trustworthy man. And now let us proceed with the ceremony of marriage. (To THE BRIDEGROOM): John, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together in the holy state of eugenic matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, protect her from all protozoa and bacteria, and keep her in good health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee unto her only, so long as ye both shall live? If so, hold out your tongue.
(THE BRIDEGROOM holds out his tongue and THE CLERGYMAN inspects it critically.)
THE CLERGYMAN
(Somewhat dubiously) Fair. I have seen worse.... Do you smoke?
THE BRIDEGROOM
(Obviously lying) Not much.
THE CLERGYMAN
Well, how much?
THE BRIDEGROOM
Say ten cigarettes a day.
THE CLERGYMAN
And the stain noted on your right posterior phalanx by the learned medical examiners?
THE BRIDEGROOM
Well, say fifteen.
THE CLERGYMAN
(Waggishly) Or twenty to be safe. Better taper off to ten. At all events, make twenty the limit. How about the booze?
THE BRIDEGROOM
(Virtuously) Never!
THE CLERGYMAN
What! Never?
THE BRIDEGROOM
Well, never again!
THE CLERGYMAN
So they all say. The answer is almost part of the liturgy. But have a care, my dear fellow! The true eugenist eschews the wine cup. In every hundred children of a man who ingests one fluid ounce of alcohol a day, six will be left-handed, twelve will be epileptics and nineteen will suffer from adolescent albuminuria, with delusions of persecution.... Have you ever had anthrax?
THE BRIDEGROOM
Not yet.
THE CLERGYMAN
Eczema?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Pott's disease?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Cholelithiasis?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Do you have a feeling of distention after meals?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Have you a dry, hacking cough?
THE BRIDEGROOM
Not at present.
THE CLERGYMAN
Are you troubled with insomnia?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Dyspepsia?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Agoraphobia?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Do you bolt your food?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Have you lightning pains in the legs?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Are you a bleeder? Have you haemophilia?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Erthrocythaemia? Nephroptosis? Fibrinous bronchitis? Salpingitis? Pylephlebitis? Answer yes or no.
THE BRIDEGROOM
No. No. No. No. No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Have you ever been refused life insurance? If so, when, by what company or companies, and why?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
What is a staphylococcus?
THE BRIDEGROOM
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
(Sternly) What?
THE BRIDEGROOM
(Nervously) Yes.
THE CLERGYMAN
(Coming to the rescue) Wilt them have this woman et cetera? Answer yes or no.
THE BRIDEGROOM
I will.
THE CLERGYMAN
(Turning to THE BRIDE) Mary, wilt thou have this gentleman to be thy wedded husband, to live together in the holy state of aseptic matrimony? Wilt thou love him, serve him, protect him from all adulterated victuals, and keep him hygienically clothed; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live? If so——
THE BRIDE
(Instantly and loudly) I will.
THE CLERGYMAN
Not so fast! First, there is the little ceremony of the clinical thermometers. (He takes up one of the thermometers.) Open your mouth, my dear. (He Inserts the thermometer.) Now hold it there while you count one hundred and fifty. And you, too. (To THE BRIDEGROOM.) I had almost forgotten you. (THE BRIDEGROOM opens his mouth and the other thermometer is duly planted. While the two are counting, THE CLERGYMAN attempts to turn back one of THE BRIDE'S eyelids, apparently searching for trachoma, but his rubber gloves impede the operation and so he gives it up. It is now time to read the thermometers. THE BRIDEGROOM'S is first removed.)
THE CLERGYMAN
(Reading the scale) Ninety-nine point nine. Considering everything, not so bad. (Then he removes and reads THE BRIDE'S.) Ninety-eight point six. Exactly normal. Cool, collected, at ease. The classical self-possession of the party of the second part. And now, my dear, may I ask you to hold out your tongue? (THE BRIDE does so.)
THE CLERGYMAN
Perfect.... There; that will do. Put it back.... And now for a few questions—just a few. First, do you use opiates in any form?
THE BRIDE
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Have you ever had goitre?
THE BRIDE
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Yellow fever?
THE BRIDE
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Haematomata?
THE BRIDE
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Siriasis or tachycardia?
THE BRIDE
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
What did your maternal grandfather die of?
THE BRIDE
Of chronic interstitial nephritis.
THE CLERGYMAN
(Interested) Ah, our old friend Bright's! A typical case, I take, with the usual polyuria, oedema of the glottis, flame-shaped retinal hemorrhages and cardiac dilatation?
THE BRIDE
Exactly.
THE CLERGYMAN
And terminating, I suppose, with the classical uraemic symptoms—dyspnoea, convulsions, uraemic amaurosis, coma and collapse?
THE BRIDE
Including Cheyne-Stokes breathing.
THE CLERGYMAN
Ah, most interesting! A protean and beautiful malady! But at the moment, of course, we can't discuss it profitably. Perhaps later on.... Your father, I assume, is alive?
THE BRIDE
(Indicating him) Yes.
THE CLERGYMAN
Well, then, let us proceed. Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
(With a touch of stage fright.) I do.
THE CLERGYMAN
(Reassuringly) You are in good health?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
Yes.
THE CLERGYMAN
No dizziness in the morning?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
No black spots before the eyes?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
No vague pains in the small of the back?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Gout?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Chilblains?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Sciatica?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Buzzing in the ears?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Myopia? Angina pectoris?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
Malaria? Marasmus? Chlorosis? Tetanus? Quinsy? Housemaid's knee?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
You had measles, I assume, in your infancy?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
Yes.
THE CLERGYMAN
Chicken pox? Mumps? Scarlatina? Cholera morbus? Diphtheria?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
Yes. Yes. No. Yes. No.
THE CLERGYMAN
You are, I assume, a multipara?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
A what?
THE CLERGYMAN
That is to say, you have had more than one child?
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
No.
THE CLERGYMAN
(Professionally) How sad! You will miss her!
THE BRIDE'S FATHER
One job like this is en——
THE CLERGYMAN
(Interrupting suavely) But let us proceed. The ceremony must not be lengthened unduly, however interesting. We now approach the benediction.
(Dipping his gloved hands into the basin of bichloride, he joins the right hands of THE BRIDE and THE BRIDEGROOM.)
THE CLERGYMAN
(To THE BRIDEGROOM) Repeat after me: "I, John, take thee, Mary, to be my wedded and aseptic wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, convalescence, relapse and health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part; and thereto I plight thee my troth."
(THE BRIDEGROOM duly repeats the formula, THE CLERGYMAN now looses their hands, and after another dip into the bichloride, joins them together again.)
THE CLERGYMAN
(To THE BRIDE) Repeat after me: "I, Mary, take thee, John, to be my aseptic and eugenic husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, to love, to cherish and to nurse, till death do us part; and thereto I give thee my troth."
(THE BRIDE duly promises. THE BEST MAN then hands over the ring, which THE CLERGYMAN drops into the bichloride. It turns green. He fishes it up again, wipes it dry with a piece of aseptic cotton and presents it to THE BRIDEGROOM, who places it upon the third finger of THE BRIDE'S left hand. Then THE CLERGYMAN goes on with the ceremony, THE BRIDEGROOM repeating after him.)
THE CLERGYMAN
Repeat after me: "With this sterile ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow."
(THE CLERGYMAN then joins the hands of THE BRIDE and BRIDEGROOM once more, and dipping his own right hand into the bichloride, solemnly sprinkles the pair.)
THE CLERGYMAN
Those whom God hath joined together, let no pathogenic organism put asunder. (To the assembled company.) Forasmuch as John and Mary have consented together in aseptic wedlock, and have witnessed the same by the exchange of certificates, and have given and pledged their troth, and have declared the same by giving and receiving an aseptic ring, I pronounce that they are man and wife. In the name of Mendel, of Galton, of Havelock Ellis and of David Starr Jordan. Amen.
(THE BRIDE and BRIDEGROOM now kiss, for the first and last time, after which they gargle with two per cent carbolic and march out of the room, followed by THE BRIDE'S FATHER and the spectators. THE BEST MAN, before departing after them, hands THE CLERGYMAN a ten-dollar gold-piece in a small phial of twenty per cent bichloride. THE CLERGYMAN, after pocketing it, washes his hands with green soap. THE BRIDESMAIDS proceed to clean up the room with the remaining bichloride. This done, they and THE CLERGYMAN go out. As soon as they are gone, the operating table is pushed back into place by an orderly, a patient is brought in, and a surgeon proceeds to cut off his leg.)
X.—TALES OF THE MORAL AND PATHOLOGICAL
X.—Tales of the Moral and Pathological
I.—The Rewards of Science
Once upon a time there was a surgeon who spent seven years perfecting an extraordinarily delicate and laborious operation for the cure of a rare and deadly disease. In the process he wore out $400 worth of knives and saws and used up $6,000 worth of ether, splints, guinea pigs, homeless dogs and bichloride of mercury. His board and lodging during the seven years came to $2,875. Finally he got a patient and performed the operation. It took eight hours and cost him $17 more than his fee of $20....
One day, two months after the patient was discharged as cured, the surgeon stopped in his rambles to observe a street parade. It was the annual turnout of Good Hope Lodge, No. 72, of the Patriotic Order of American Rosicrucians. The cured patient, marching as Supreme Worthy Archon, wore a lavender baldric, a pea-green sash, an aluminum helmet and scarlet gauntlets, and carried an ormolu sword and the blue polka-dot flag of a rear-admiral....
With a low cry the surgeon jumped down a sewer and was seen no more.
II.—The Incomparable Physician
The eminent physician, Yen Li-Shen, being called in the middle of the night to the bedside of the rich tax-gatherer, Chu Yi-Foy, found his distinguished patient suffering from a spasm of the liver. An examination of the pulse, tongue, toe-nails, and hair-roots revealing the fact that the malady was caused by the presence of a multitude of small worms in the blood, the learned doctor forthwith dispatched his servant to his surgery for a vial of gnats' eyes dissolved in the saliva of men executed by strangling, that being the remedy advised by Li Tan-Kien and other high authorities for the relief of this painful and dangerous condition.
When the servant returned the patient was so far gone that Cheyne-Stokes breathing had already set in, and so the doctor decided to administer the whole contents of the vial—an heroic dose, truly, for it has been immemorially held that even so little as the amount that will cling to the end of a horse hair is sufficient to cure. Alas, in his professional zeal and excitement, the celebrated pathologist permitted his hand to shake like a myrtle leaf in a Spring gale, and so he dropped not only the contents of the vial, but also the vial itself down the oesophagus of his moribund patient.
The accident, however, did not impede the powerful effects of this famous remedy. In ten minutes Chu Yi-Foy was so far recovered that he asked for a plate of rice stewed with plums, and by morning he was able to leave his bed and receive the reports of his spies, informers and extortioners. That day he sent for Dr. Yen and in token of his gratitude, for he was a just and righteous man, settled upon him in due form of law, and upon his heirs and assigns in perpetuity, the whole rents, rates, imposts and taxes, amounting to no less than ten thousand Hangkow taels a year, of two of the streets occupied by money-changers, bird-cage makers and public women in the town of Szu-Loon, and of the related alleys, courts and lanes. And Dr. Yen, with his old age and the old age of his seven sons and thirty-one grandsons now safely provided for, retired from the practise of his art, and devoted himself to a tedious scientific inquiry (long the object of his passionate aspiration) into the precise physiological relation between gravel in the lower lobe of the heart and the bursting of arteries in the arms and legs.
So passed many years, while Dr. Yen pursued his researches and sent his annual reports of progress to the Academy of Medicine at Chan-Si, and Chu Yi-Foy increased his riches and his influence, so that his arm reached out from the mountains to the sea. One day, in his eightieth year, Chu Yi-Foy fell ill again, and, having no confidence in any other physician, sent once more for the learned and now venerable Dr. Yen.
"I have a pain," he said, "in my left hip, where the stomach dips down over the spleen. A large knob has formed there. A lizard, perhaps, has got into me. Or perhaps a small hedge-hog."
Dr. Yen thereupon made use of the test for lizards and hedge-hogs—to wit, the application of madder dye to the Adam's apple, turning it lemon yellow if any sort of reptile is within, and violet if there is a mammal—but it failed to operate as the books describe. Being thus led to suspect a misplaced and wild-growing bone, perhaps from the vertebral column, the doctor decided to have recourse to surgery, and so, after the proper propitiation of the gods, he administered to his eminent patient a draught of opium water, and having excluded the wailing women of the household from the sick chamber, he cut into the protuberance with a small, sharp knife, and soon had the mysterious object in his hand.... It was the vial of dissolved gnats' eyes—still full and tightly corked! Worse, it was not the vial of dissolved gnats' eyes, but a vial of common burdock juice—the remedy for infants griped by their mothers' milk....
But when the eminent Chu Yi-Foy, emerging from his benign stupor, made a sign that he would gaze upon the cause of his distress, it was a bone that Dr. Yen Li-Shen showed him—an authentic bone, ovoid and evil-looking—and lately the knee cap of one Ho Kwang, brass maker in the street of Szchen-Kiang. Dr. Yen carried this bone in his girdle to keep off the black, blue and yellow plagues. Chu Yi-Foy, looking upon it, wept the soft, grateful tears of an old man.
"This is twice," he said, "that you, my learned friend, have saved my life. I have hitherto given you, in token of my gratitude, the rents, rates, imposts and taxes, of two streets, and of the related alleys, courts and lanes. I now give you the weight of that bone in diamonds, in rubies, in pearls or in emeralds, as you will. And whichever of the four you choose, I give you the other three also. For is it not said by K'ung Fu-tsze, 'The good physician bestows what the gods merely promise'?"
And Dr. Yen Li-Shen lowered his eyes and bowed. But he was too old in the healing art to blush.
III.—Neighbours
Once I lay in hospital a fortnight while an old man died by inches across the hall. Apparently a very painful, as it was plainly a very tedious business. I would hear him breathing heavily for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then he would begin shrieking in agony and yelling for his orderly: "Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!" Now and then a nurse would come into my room and report progress: "The old fellow's kidneys have given up; he can't last the night," or, "I suppose the next choking spell will fetch him." Thus he fought his titanic fight with the gnawing rats of death, and thus I lay listening, myself quickly recovering from a sanguinary and indecent operation.... Did the shrieks of that old man startle me, worry me, torture me, set my nerves on edge? Not at all. I had my meals to the accompaniment of piteous yells to God, but day by day I ate them more heartily. I lay still in bed and read a book or smoked a cigar. I damned my own twinges and fading malaises. I argued ignorantly with the surgeons. I made polite love to the nurses who happened in. At night I slept soundly, the noise retreating benevolently as I dropped off. And when the old fellow died at last, snarling and begging for mercy with his last breath, the unaccustomed stillness made me feel lonesome and sad, like a child robbed of a tin whistle.... But when a young surgeon came in half an hour later, and, having dined to his content, testified to it by sucking his teeth, cold shudders ran through me from stem to stern.
IV.—From the Chart
Temperature: 99.7. Respiration: rising to 65 and then suddenly suspended. The face is flushed, and the eyes are glazed and half-closed. There is obviously a sub-normal reaction to external stimuli. A fly upon the ear is unnoticed. The auditory nerve is anesthetic. There is a swaying of the whole body and an apparent failure of co-ordination, probably the effect of some disturbance in the semi-circular canals of the ear. The hands tremble and then clutch wildly. The head is inclined forward as if to approach some object on a level with the shoulder. The mouth stands partly open, and the lips are puckered and damp. Of a sudden there is a sound as of a deep and labored inspiration, suggesting the upward curve of Cheyne-Stokes breathing. Then comes silence for 40 seconds, followed by a quick relaxation of the whole body and a sharp gasp....
One of the internes has kissed a nurse.
V.—The Interior Hierarchy
The world awaits that pundit who will study at length the relative respectability of the inward parts of man—his pipes and bellows, his liver and lights. The inquiry will take him far into the twilight zones of psychology. Why is the vermiform appendix so much more virtuous and dignified than its next-door neighbor, the caecum? Considered physiologically, anatomically, pathologically, surgically, the caecum is the decenter of the two. It has more cleanly habits; it is more beautiful; it serves a more useful purpose; it brings its owner less often to the doors of death. And yet what would one think of a lady who mentioned her caecum? But the appendix—ah, the appendix! The appendix is pure, polite, ladylike, even noble. It confers an unmistakable stateliness, a stamp of position, a social consequence upon its possessor. And, by one of the mysteries of viscerology, it confers even more stateliness upon its ex-possessor!
Alas, what would you! Why is the stomach such a libertine and outlaw in England, and so highly respectable in the United States? No Englishman of good breeding, save he be far gone in liquor, ever mentions his stomach in the presence of women, clergymen, or the Royal Family. To avoid the necessity—for Englishmen, too, are subject to the colic—he employs various far-fetched euphemisms, among them, the poetical Little Mary. No such squeamishness is known in America. The American discusses his stomach as freely as he discusses his business. More, he regards its name with a degree of respect verging upon reverence—and so he uses it as a euphemism for the whole region from the diaphragm to the pelvic arch. Below his heart he has only a stomach and a vermiform appendix.
In the Englishman that large region is filled entirely by his liver, at least in polite conversation. He never mentions his kidneys save to his medical adviser, but he will tell even a parlor maid that he is feeling liverish. "Sorry, old chap; I'm not up to it. Been seedy for a fortnight. Touch of liver, I dessay. Never felt quite fit since I came Home. Bones full of fever. Damned old liver always kicking up. Awfully sorry, old fellow. Awsk me again. Glad to, pon my word." But never the American! Nay, the American keeps his liver for his secret thoughts. Hobnailed it may be, and the most interesting thing within his frontiers, but he would blush to mention it to a lady.
Myself intensely ignorant of anatomy, and even more so of the punctilio, I yet attempted, one rainy day, a roster of the bodily parts in the order of their respectability. Class I was small and exclusive; when I had put in the heart, the brain, the hair, the eyes and the vermiform appendix, I had exhausted all the candidates. Here were the five aristocrats, of dignity even in their diseases—appendicitis, angina pectoris, aphasia, acute alcoholism, astigmatism: what a row of a's! Here were the dukes, the cardinals, nay, the princes of the blood. Here were the supermembers; the beyond-parts.
In Class II I found a more motley throng, led by the collar-bone on the one hand and the tonsils on the other. And in Class III—but let me present my classification and have done:
CLASS II
Collar-bone Stomach (American) Liver (English) Bronchial tubes Arms (excluding elbows) Tonsils Vocal chords Ears Cheeks Chin
CLASS III
Elbows Ankles Aorta Teeth (if natural) Shoulders Windpipe Lungs Neck Jugular vein
CLASS IV
Stomach (English) Liver (American) Solar plexus Hips Calves Pleura Nose Feet (bare) Shins
CLASS V
Teeth (if false) Heels Toes Kidneys Knees Diaphragm Thyroid gland Legs (female) Scalp
CLASS VI
Thighs Paunch Oesophagus Spleen Pancreas Gall-bladder Caecum
I made two more classes, VII and VIII, but they entered into anatomical details impossible of discussion in a book designed to be read aloud at the domestic hearth. Perhaps I shall print them in the Medical Times at some future time. As my classes stand, they present mysteries enough. Why should the bronchial tubes (Class II) be so much lordlier than the lungs (Class III) to which they lead? And why should the oesophagus (Class VI) be so much less lordly than the stomach (Class II in the United States, Class IV in England) to which it leads? And yet the fact in each case is known to us all. To have a touch of bronchitis is almost fashionable; to have pneumonia is merely bad luck. The stomach, at least in America, is so respectable that it dignifies even seasickness, but I have never heard of any decent man who ever had any trouble with his oesophagus.
If you wish a short cut to a strange organ's standing, study its diseases. Generally speaking, they are sure indices. Let us imagine a problem: What is the relative respectability of the hair and the scalp, close neighbors, offspring of the same osseous tissue? Turn to baldness and dandruff, and you have your answer. To be bald is no more than a genial jocosity, a harmless foible—but to have dandruff is almost as bad as to have beri-beri. Hence the fact that the hair is in Class I, while the scalp is at the bottom of Class V. So again and again. To break one's collar-bone (Class II) is to be in harmony with the nobility and gentry; to crack one's shin (Class IV) is merely vulgar. And what a difference between having one's tonsils cut out (Class II) and getting a new set of false teeth (Class V)!
Wherefore? Why? To what end? Why is the stomach so much more respectable (even in England) than the spleen; the liver (even in America) than the pancreas; the windpipe than the oesophagus; the pleura than the diaphragm? Why is the collar-bone the undisputed king of the osseous frame? One can understand the supremacy of the heart: it plainly bosses the whole vascular system. But why do the bronchial tubes wag the lungs? Why is the chin superior to the nose? The ankles to the shins? The solar plexus to the gall-bladder?
I am unequal to the penetration of this great ethical, aesthetical and sociological mystery. But in leaving it, let me point to another and antagonistic one: to wit, that which concerns those viscera of the lower animals that we use for food. The kidneys in man are far down the scale—far down in Class V, along with false teeth, the scalp and the female leg. But the kidneys of the beef steer, the calf, the sheep, or whatever animal it is whose kidneys we eat—the kidneys of this creature are close to the borders of Class I. What is it that young Capt. Lionel Basingstoke, M.P., always orders when he drops in at Gatti's on his way from his chambers in the Albany to that flat in Tyburnia where Mrs. Vaughn-Grimsby is waiting for him to rescue her from her cochon of a husband? What else but deviled kidneys? Who ever heard of a gallant young English seducer who didn't eat deviled kidneys—not now and then, not only on Sundays and legal holidays, but every day, every evening?
Again, and by way of postscript No. 2, concentrate your mind upon sweetbreads. Sweetbreads are made in Chicago of the pancreases of horned cattle. From Portland to Portland they belong to the first class of refined delicatessen. And yet, on the human plane, the pancreas is in Class VI, along with the caecum and the paunch. And, contrariwise, there is tripe—"the stomach of the ox or of some other ruminant." The stomach of an American citizen belongs to Class II, and even the stomach of an Englishman is in Class IV, but tripe is far down in Class VIII. And chitterlings—the excised vermiform appendix of the cow. Of all the towns in Christendom, Richmond, Va., is the only one wherein a self-respecting white man would dare to be caught wolfing a chitterling in public.
XI.—THE JAZZ WEBSTER
XI. The Jazz Webster
ACTOR. One handicapped more by a wooden leg than by a wooden head.
ADULTERY. Democracy applied to love.
ALIMONY. The ransom that the happy pay to the devil.
ANTI-VIVISECTIONIST. One who gags at a guinea-pig and swallows a baby.
ARCHBISHOP. A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
ARGUMENT. A means of persuasion. The agents of argumentation under a democracy, in the order of their potency, are (a) whiskey, (b) beer, (c) cigars, (d) tears.
AXIOM. Something that everyone believes. When everyone begins to believe anything it ceases to be true. For example, the notion that the homeliest girl in the party is the safest.
BALLOT BOX. The altar of democracy. The cult served upon it is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
BREVITY. The quality that makes cigarettes, speeches, love affairs and ocean voyages bearable.
CELEBRITY. One who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
CHAUTAUQUA. A place in which persons who are not worth talking to listen to that which is not worth hearing.
CHRISTIAN. One who believes that God notes the fall of a sparrow and is shocked half to death by the fall of a Sunday-school superintendent; one who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. The theory that, since the sky rockets following a wallop in the eye are optical delusions, the wallop itself is a delusion and the eye another.
CHURCH. A place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
CIVILIZATION. A concerted effort to remedy the blunders and check the practical joking of God.
CLERGYMAN. A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.
CONSCIENCE. The inner voice which warns us that someone is looking.
CONFIDENCE. The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place.
COURTROOM. A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds in favor of Judas.
CREATOR. A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh. Three proofs of His humor: democracy, hay fever, any fat woman.
DEMOCRACY. The theory that two thieves will steal less than one, and three less than two, and four less than three, and so on ad infinitum; the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
EPIGRAM. A platitude with vine-leaves in its hair.
EUGENICS. The theory that marriages should be made in the laboratory; the Wassermann test for love.
EVIL. That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
EXPERIENCE. A series of failures. Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again next time.
FAME. An embalmer trembling with stage-fright.
FINE. A bribe paid by a rich man to escape the lawful penalty of his crime. In China such bribes are paid to the judge personally; in America they are paid to him as agent for the public. But it makes no difference to the men who pay them—nor to the men who can't pay them.
FIRMNESS. A form of stupidity; proof of an inability to think the same thing out twice.
FRIENDSHIP. A mutual belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks, hobgoblins and imbecilities.
GENTLEMAN. One who never strikes a woman without provocation; one on whose word of honor the betting odds are at least 1 to 2.
HAPPINESS. Peace after effort, the overcoming of difficulties, the feeling of security and well-being. The only really happy folk are married women and single men.
HELL. A place where the Ten Commandments have a police force behind them.
HISTORIAN. An unsuccessful novelist.
HONEYMOON. The time during which the bride believes the bridegroom's word of honor.
HOPE. A pathological belief in the occurrence of the impossible.
HUMANITARIAN. One who would be sincerely sorry to see his neighbor's children devoured by wolves.
HUSBAND. One who played safe and is now played safely. A No. 16 neck in a No. 151/2 collar.
HYGIENE. Bacteriology made moral; the theory that the Italian in the ditch should be jailed for spitting on his hands.
IDEALIST. One who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
IMMORALITY. The morality of those who are having a better time. You will never convince the average farmer's mare that the late Maud S. was not dreadfully immoral.
IMMORTALITY. The condition of a dead man who doesn't believe that he is dead.
JEALOUSY. The theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.
JUDGE. An officer appointed to mislead, restrain, hypnotize, cajole, seduce, browbeat, flabbergast and bamboozle a jury in such a manner that it will forget all the facts and give its decision to the best lawyer. The objection to judges is that they are seldom capable of a sound professional judgment of lawyers. The objection to lawyers is that the best are the worst.
JURY. A group of twelve men who, having lied to the judge about their hearing, health and business engagements, have failed to fool him.
LAWYER. One who protects us against robbers by taking away the temptation.
LIAR. (a) One who pretends to be very good; (b) one who pretends to be very bad.
LOVE. The delusion that one woman differs from another.
LOVE-AT-FIRST-SIGHT. A labor-saving device.
LOVER. An apprentice second husband; victim No. 2 in the larval stage.
MISOGYNIST. A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
MARTYR. The husband of a woman with the martyr complex.
MORALITY. The theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99% of them are wrong.
MUSIC-LOVER. One who can tell you offhand how many sharps are in the key of C major.
OPTIMIST. The sort of man who marries his sister's best friend.
OSTEOPATH. One who argues that all human ills are caused by the pressure of hard bone upon soft tissue. The proof of his theory is to be found in the heads of those who believe it.
PASTOR. One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay.
PATRIOTISM. A variety of hallucination which, if it seized a bacteriologist in his laboratory, would cause him to report the streptococcus pyogenes to be as large as a Newfoundland dog, as intelligent as Socrates, as beautiful as Mont Blanc and as respectable as a Yale professor.
PENSIONER. A kept patriot.
PLATITUDE. An idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.
POLITICIAN. Any citizen with influence enough to get his old mother a job as charwoman in the City Hall.
POPULARITY. The capacity for listening sympathetically when men boast of their wives and women complain of their husbands.
POSTERITY. The penalty of a faulty technique.
PROGRESS. The process whereby the human race has got rid of whiskers, the vermiform appendix and God.
PROHIBITIONIST. The sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.
PSYCHOLOGIST. One who sticks pins into babies, and then makes a chart showing the ebb and flow of their yells.
PSYCHOTHERAPY. The theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow, and is certainly a damned fool.
QUACK. A physician who has decided to admit it.
REFORMER. A hangman signing a petition against vivisection.
REMORSE. Regret that one waited so long to do it.
SELF-RESPECT. The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.
SOB. A sound made by women, babies, tenors, fashionable clergymen, actors and drunken men.
SOCIALISM. The theory that John Smith is better than his superiors.
SUICIDE. A belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives.
SUNDAY. A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.
SUNDAY SCHOOL. A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
SURGEON. One bribed heavily by the patient to take the blame for the family doctor's error in diagnosis.
TEMPTATION. An irresistible force at work on a movable body.
THANKSGIVING DAY. A day devoted by persons with inflammatory rheumatism to thanking a loving Father that it is not hydrophobia.
THEOLOGY. An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing.
TOMBSTONE. An ugly reminder of one who has been forgotten.
TRUTH. Something somehow discreditable to someone.
UNIVERSITY. A place for elevating sons above the social rank of their fathers. In the great American universities men are ranked as follows: 1. Seducers; 2. Fullbacks; 3. Booze-fighters; 4. Pitchers and Catchers; 5. Poker players; 6. Scholars; 7. Christians.
VERDICT. The a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars.
VERS LIBRE. A device for making poetry easier to write and harder to read.
WART. Something that outlasts ten thousand kisses.
WEALTH. Any income that is at least $100 more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband.
WEDDING. A device for exciting envy in women and terror in men.
WIFE. One who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.
WIDOWER. One released on parole.
WOMAN. Before marriage, an agente provocateuse; after marriage, a gendarme.
WOMEN'S CLUB. A place in which the validity of a philosophy is judged by the hat of its prophetess.
YACHT CLUB. An asylum for landsmen who would rather die of drink than be seasick.
XII.—THE OLD SUBJECT
XII.—The Old Subject
Sec. 1.
Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later. For another thing, they die earlier.
Sec. 2.
The man who marries for love alone is at least honest. But so was Czolgosz.
Sec. 3.
When a husband's story is believed, he begins to suspect his wife.
Sec. 4.
In the year 1830 the average American had six children and one wife. How time transvalues all values!
Sec. 5.
Love begins like a triolet and ends like a college yell.
Sec. 6.
A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.
Sec. 7.
Man's objection to love is that it dies hard; woman's is that when it is dead it stays dead.
Sec. 8.
Definition of a good mother: one who loves her child almost as much as a little girl loves her doll.
Sec. 9.
The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little bit jealous. The way to lose him is to keep him a little bit more jealous.
Sec. 10.
It used to be thought in America that a woman ceased to be a lady the moment her name appeared in a newspaper. It is no longer thought so, but it is still true.
Sec. 11.
Women have simple tastes. They can get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.
Sec. 12.
Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.
Sec. 13.
How little it takes to make life unbearable!... A pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh!
Sec. 14.
The bride at the altar: "At last! At last!" The bridegroom: "Too late! Too late!"
Sec. 15.
The best friend a woman can have is the man who has got over loving her. He would rather die than compromise her.
Sec. 16.
The one breathless passion of every woman is to get some one married. If she's single, it's herself. If she's married, it's the woman her husband would probably marry if she died tomorrow.
Sec. 17.
Man weeps to think that he will die so soon. Woman, that she was born so long ago.
Sec. 18.
Woman is at once the serpent, the apple—and the belly-ache.
Sec. 19.
Cold mutton-stew; a soiled collar; breakfast in dress clothes; a wet house-dog, over-affectionate; the other fellow's tooth-brush; an echo of "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"; the damp, musty smell of an empty house; stale beer; a mangy fur coat; Katzenjammer; false teeth; the criticism of Hamilton Wright Mabie; boiled cabbage; a cocktail after dinner; an old cigar butt; ... the kiss of Evelyn after the inauguration of Eleanor.
Sec. 20.
Whenever a woman begins to talk of anything, she is talking to, of, or at a man.
Sec. 21.
The worst man hesitates when choosing a mother for his children. And hesitating, he is lost.
Sec. 22.
Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.
Sec. 23.
No man is ever too old to look at a woman, and no woman is ever too fat to hope that he will look.
Sec. 24.
Bachelors have consciences. Married men have wives.
Sec. 25.
Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn't they'd be married, too.
Sec. 26.
Man is a natural polygamist. He always has one woman leading him by the nose and another hanging on to his coat-tails.
Sec. 27.
All women, soon or late, are jealous of their daughters; all men, soon or late, are envious of their sons.
Sec. 28.
History seems to bear very harshly upon women. One cannot recall more than three famous women who were virtuous. But on turning to famous men the seeming injustice disappears. One would have difficulty finding even two of them who were virtuous.
Sec. 29.
Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.
Sec. 30.
Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him in a very handy form.
Sec. 31.
The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all men are just as easy to fool.
Sec. 32.
The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her.
Sec. 33.
A man may be a fool and not know it—but not if he is married.
Sec. 34.
All men are proud of their own children. Some men carry egoism so far that they are even proud of their own wives.
Sec. 35.
When you sympathize with a married woman you either make two enemies or gain one wife and one friend.
Sec. 36.
Women do not like timid men. Cats do not like prudent rats.
Sec. 37.
He marries best who puts it off until it is too late.
Sec. 38.
A bachelor is one who wants a wife, but is glad he hasn't got her.
Sec. 40.
Women usually enjoy annoying their husbands, but not when they annoy them by growing fat.
XIII.—PANORAMAS OF PEOPLE
XIII.—Panoramas of People
I.—Men
Fat, slick, round-faced men, of the sort who haunt barber shops and are always having their shoes shined. Tall, gloomy, Gothic men, with eyebrows that meet over their noses and bunches of black, curly hair in their ears. Men wearing diamond solitaires, fraternal order watchcharms, golden elks' heads with rubies for eyes. Men with thick, loose lips and shifty eyes. Men smoking pale, spotted cigars. Men who do not know what to do with their hands when they talk to women. Honorable, upright, successful men who seduce their stenographers and are kind to their dear old mothers. Men who allow their wives to dress like chorus girls. White-faced, scared-looking, yellow-eyed men who belong to societies for the suppression of vice. Men who boast that they neither drink nor smoke. Men who mop their bald heads with perfumed handkerchiefs. Men with drawn, mottled faces, in the last stages of arterio-sclerosis. Silent, stupid-looking men in thick tweeds who tramp up and down the decks of ocean steamers. Men who peep out of hotel rooms at Swedish chambermaids. Men who go to church on Sunday morning, carrying Oxford Bibles under their arms. Men in dress coats too tight under the arms. Tea-drinking men. Loud, back-slapping men, gabbling endlessly about baseball players. Men who have never heard of Mozart. Tired business men with fat, glittering wives. Men who know what to do when children are sick. Men who believe that any woman who smokes is a prostitute. Yellow, diabetic men. Men whose veins are on the outside of their noses. Now and then a clean, clear-eyed, upstanding man. Once a week or so a man with good shoulders, straight legs and a hard, resolute mouth....
II.—Women
Fat women with flabby, double chins. Moon-faced, pop-eyed women in little flat hats. Women with starchy faces and thin vermilion lips. Man-shy, suspicious women, shrinking into their clothes every time a wet, caressing eye alights upon them. Women soured and robbed of their souls by Christian Endeavor. Women who would probably be members of the Lake Mohonk Conference if they were men. Gray-haired, middle-aged, waddling women, wrecked and unsexed by endless, useless parturition, nursing, worry, sacrifice. Women who look as if they were still innocent yesterday afternoon. Women in shoes that bend their insteps to preposterous semi-circles. Women with green, barbaric bangles in their ears, like the concubines of Arab horse-thieves. Women looking in show-windows, wishing that their husbands were not such poor sticks. Shapeless women lolling in six thousand dollar motorcars. Trig little blondes, stepping like Shetland ponies. Women smelling of musk, ambergris, bergamot. Long-legged, cadaverous, hungry women. Women eager to be kidnapped, betrayed, forced into marriage at the pistol's point. Soft, pulpy, pale women. Women with ginger-colored hair and large, irregular freckles. Silly, chattering, gurgling women. Women showing their ankles to policemen, chauffeurs, street-cleaners. Women with slim-shanked, whining, sticky-fingered children dragging after them. Women marching like grenadiers. Yellow women. Women with red hands. Women with asymmetrical eyes. Women with rococo ears. Stoop-shouldered women. Women with huge hips. Bow-legged women. Appetizing women. Good-looking women....
III.—Babies
Babies smelling of camomile tea, cologne water, wet laundry, dog soap, Schmierkase. Babies who appear old, disillusioned and tired of life at six months. Babies that cry "Papa!" to blushing youths of nineteen or twenty at church picnics. Fat babies whose earlobes turn out at an angle of forty-five degrees. Soft, pulpy babies asleep in perambulators, the sun shining straight into their faces. Babies gnawing the tails of synthetic dogs. Babies without necks. Pale, scorbutic babies of the third and fourth generation, damned because their grandfathers and great-grandfathers read Tom Paine. Babies of a bluish tinge, or with vermilion eyes. Babies full of soporifics. Thin, cartilaginous babies that stretch when they are lifted. Warm, damp, miasmatic babies. Affectionate, ingratiating, gurgling babies: the larvae of life insurance solicitors, fashionable doctors, Episcopal rectors, dealers in Mexican mine stock, hand-shakers, Sunday-school superintendents. Hungry babies, absurdly sucking their thumbs. Babies with heads of thick, coarse black hair, seeming to be toupees. Unbaptized babies, dedicated to the devil. Eugenic babies. Babies that crawl out from under tables and are stepped on. Babies with lintels, grains of corn or shoe-buttons up their noses, purple in the face and waiting for the doctor or the embalmer. A few pink, blue-eyed, tight-skinned, clean-looking babies, smiling upon the world....
XIV.—HOMEOPATHICS
XIV.—Homeopathics
1.
Scene Infernal.
During a lull in the uproar of Hell two voices were heard.
"My name," said one, "was Ludwig van Beethoven. I was no ordinary musician. The Archduke Rudolph used to speak to me on the streets of Vienna."
"And mine," said the other, "was the Archduke Rudolph. I was no ordinary archduke. Ludwig van Beethoven dedicated a trio to me."
2.
The Eternal Democrat.
A Socialist, carrying a red flag, marched through the gates of Heaven.
"To Hell with rank!" he shouted. "All men are equal here."
Just then the late Karl Marx turned a corner and came into view, meditatively stroking his whiskers. At once the Socialist fell upon his knees and touched his forehead to the dust.
"O Master!" he cried. "O Master, Master!"
3.
The School of Honor.
A trembling young reporter stood in the presence of an eminent city editor.
"If I write this story," said the reporter, "it will rob a woman of her good name."
"If you don't write it," said the city editor, "I'll give you a kick in the pantaloons."
Next day the young reporter got a raise in salary and the woman swallowed two ounces of permanganate of potassium.
4.
Proposed Plot For a Modern Novel.
Herman was in love with Violet, the wife of Armand, an elderly diabetic. Armand showed three per cent of sugar a day. Herman and Violet, who were Christians, awaited with virtuous patience the termination of Armand's distressing malady.
One day Dr. Frederick M. Allen discovered his cure for diabetes.
5.
Victory.
"I wooed and won her," said the Man of His Wife.
"I made him run," said the Hare of the Hound.
XV.—VERS LIBRE
XV.—Vers Libre
Kiss me on the other eye; This one's wearing out.
Transcriber's Notes and Errata 'oe' ligature has been converted to individual letters 'o' and 'e'. One instance of a letter 'r' with caron above has been rendered as plain 'r'. [Dvorak] The following words (number of instances in parentheses) are found both in hyphenated and unhyphenated forms. to-morrow (7) tomorrow(1) vestry-room (2) vestryroom (1) wood-wind (3) woodwind (1) stone cutters (1) stonecutters (1) The following typographical errors have been corrected. Error Correction get gets striken stricken lavendar lavender Judus Judas hynotize hypnotize
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