24 Apropos of the fiftyseven varieties of Salomes now gyrating before the public I quote these lines by a poet who does not sign his name. Looking over the first volume of He drew the bold, bad Salomee, As she danced to beguile Poor Herod, the king of Judee. In a manner remarkably free, Half modern, half ancient Chaldee. It is all very well in Judee With a holy man's head for a fee; But the monarch was simple, you see, And the saint was dished up to the three. Yes, Herod was "pinched" to agree What a lesson to men Is the good prophet, then, Done up by an impudent she! A FRENCH CARICATURE OF DICKENS The Chap-Book was the first "magazinelette" of its day. Its editors, Messrs. Stone and Kimball, set the pace. Many others followed, but they were miles behind in wit and wisdom. After gaining a wide circulation in its miniature size it enlarged to the size of the House Beautiful, and that was its undoing. Up to the day of its death, however, the Chap-Book was a unique publication. I wish that we had something like it to-day. It was at times flippant, but it was never dull, and one can excuse a lot for the sake of brightness. In the Chap-Book there was sure to be some clever criticism and not too much of it, some striking verse, a witty essay and a discovery. The names of the men and women who are now wellknown writers that were seen in their vigorous youth in the pages of the Chap-Book are legion. The only other periodical ranking with it in this particular was the Critic; but the Critic, with all its brilliant writers, was never quite as original, or should I say bold? as the Chap-Book. It was more serious, on the whole, and more scholarly, as any list of its contributors will show. It is of the Critic as a weekly that I speak. 22 I quite agree with an editorial in the New York Times that "music, as an aid to digestion, is not to be despised when it is soft and remote, but that a blaring band in a restaurant is a nuisance." And yet most of the music in restaurants is of the blaring kind, and most of the people who eat in restaurants are of the blaring kind. Of course the majority of these people are not epicures. They do not choose their eating place because of the quality of its food, but rather because of its quantity and the surroundings in which it is served. They are in the main noisy folk and they like noise -blaring bands, high-pitched voices, "loud" dressing, and "loud" decorations. Your true epicure eats his dinner where there is no music, or if any it must be soft and low. He likes to talk as he eats, for talk at meals is the true aid to digestion, and he does not want his talk drowned by noisy bands playing cake-walks or waltzes. Such restaurateurs as the founder of the house of Delmonico, or the less well-known Sieghortners of Lafayette Place, would have died of indigestion if forced to eat against such music as is served to customers in most of our fashionable eating places. Their surroundings were simple, but their food was of the best, as we who remember it can testify. Like Delmonico, Sieghortner was a Swiss. He looked more like a wellfed priest than a cook, for he was smooth-shaven and always dressed in black broadcloth. I remember once being on a Sound steamer where I was to join the late "Uncle Sam" Ward, an epicure of international fame, for we were both bound for the same country house. I had not seen Mr. Ward for several years but I picked out a certain man who, I thought, must be he. At the same time I saw Sieghortner coming down the deck. If that is "Uncle Sam," I said to myself, he will nod to Sieghortner. As the old man came along I saw the face of my suspect light up and in a moment the two men were shaking hands like old friends. Then I knew that I had found the famous lobbyist, who was also the inventor of many dishes and many drinks. 2 The greatest scientific shock that we have received since the late Charles Darwin told us that we were descended from monkeys comes from his son, Francis. In an address delivered at Dublin this savant looked his audience squarely in the eye and declared that plants must be classed as animals! He said that he could prove that plants have memory, can develop habits (good ones, let us hope) and that they have moods the same as other people. Apparently they have. "temperaments" also, for he went so far as to say that they have a nervous system very much like that of animals, and that in them "there exists a faint copy of what we call consciousness in ourselves." I have always known. that there was such a thing as a "sensitive plant," for it is quite common, but a nervous plant is entirely new to me. It seems a pity that there should be such things as nervous plants, for they seem to live such quiet lives with nothing to do but grow and flower, if they happen to be the flowering kind. 22 This is one of the best portraits of Mr. Kipling that I have seen-certainly one of the very best photographs of a much-beportraited "celebrity." The famous author has been famous for so many years that it is hard to realize he has not yet celebrated his forty-third birthday. The request to omit flowers at funerals is quite common, but never until recently did I hear of the request to omit presents at a wedding. At the wedding of Colonel Edward Turner of the Royal Artillery to Miss Clara Philip of Kingston-on-Thames, there were no wedding-presents by request of the bride and bridegroom. When one receives an invitation to a wedding, it is usually couched in these words: "Mr. and Mrs. request the honor of your presence at the wedding of their daughter," etc. The "presence" in this case is safely interpreted as "presents" and the hint acted upon. It may be that the fact that wedding-presents are exhibited and that lists of the gifts with the donors' names are printed in the newspapers induces people who cannot afford to make expensive presents to strain a point and make them. In England the custom has become such a nuisance that Colonel Turner determined to make a decided stand against it. If he has started a permanent reform of this abuse, a statue in a public square is the least recognition that can be given him. The next reform should be in the giving of Christmas presents. If one cut out all the perfunctory presents he makes he would save himself a lot of time and money. It inkstands, particularly in these days of typewriting and stenography. A dozen cigarette-cases he might manage; this would give him one for every change of the day-you know that Englishmen wear as many suits of clothes in a day as an American wears in a week. The duplicating of canes, clocks, candlesticks, etc., was of small moment. A newly married couple is supposed to have an insatiable appetite for clocks, so that a dozen more or less hardly counts. used to be that an enterprising silversmith of our own Bowery made a specialty of buying duplicate weddingpresents, but he has been out of the business for a long time. Usually givers of wedding-presents make arrangements with the jeweler or silversmith from whom they buy them to allow the recipients to exchange them if they desire. An embarrassment goes with this plan, as the price of the gift becomes known to the recipient. Sometimes the giver is pleased when this discovery is made, at others he is chagrined. I know of an instance where an ornate piece of silver was taken back to the silversmith without instructions from the giver. It had been marked, so the receiver argued with the salesman, that another monogram could be substituted and that he, the receiver, might in turn give. it to a friend who was going to be married in a distant city. The salesman took it to the manager for final verdict, and the word came back that the monogram had been changed so often that the name-plate was worn too thin for any further changing! The recipient raised his eyebrows and whistled softly as he left the store, while the gentlemanly salesman looked at his counter-mate and winked. 22 Sarasate was a disappointment to me. From what I had heard of him and from what he looked like, I expected a violinist all fire and flame. On the contrary his performance was to me cold and technical. He looked as wildly passionate |