The So-called Human Race Part 49

"Thinking as One Walks."--Doc Evans.

"Meaning," conjectures Fenton, "that if one is bow-legged one is likely to think in circles." Or if one limps, one is likely to come to a lame conclusion. Or if-- Roll your own.

_THE PHILOSOPHY OF BALDNESS._

_One by one the hairs are graying, One by one they blanch and fall; Never stopping, never staying-- W. t. h. and d. i. all!_

_W. R._

A DEAD SHOT.

[From the Mt. Carmel, Ill., Republican.]

The Mount Carmel Gun club held its weekly shoot this afternoon, the chief feature being the demonstration of expert marksmans.h.i.+p by Mr.

Killam of the Du Pont Powder Co.

IT WOULD PUT 'EM ON THE STAGE.

Why does not some pianist give us a really popular recital programme?

Frezzample:

Moonlight Sonata.

The Harmonious Blacksmith.

Mendelssohn's Spring Song.

Old Favorites:

Recollections of Home.

Silvery Waves.

Monastery Bells.

Etincelles.

Waves of the Ocean.

Gottschalk's Last Hope.

Clayton's Grand March.

The Battle of Prague.

The Awakening of the Lion.

There is an encouraging growth of musical understanding and appreciation in this country. Even now you hear very many people say, "I liked the scherzo."

"He sat down in a vacant chair," relates a magazine fictionist. It is, everything considered, the safest way. Much of the discord in the world has been caused by gentlemen--and ladies as well--who sat down in chairs already occupied.

A Kenwood pastor has resigned because some members of his flock thought him too broad. The others, we venture, thought him too long.

"Prof. Hobbs Will Make Globe Trot"--Michigan Daily.

Giddap, old top!

Vacation Travels.

It is a great pleasure to be free, for a time, from the practice of expressing opinion; free to read the newspapers with no thought of commenting on the contents; free to glance at a few hectic headlines, and then bite into a book that you have meant to get to for a long time past, to read it slowly, without skipping, to read over an especially well done page and to put the book aside and meditate on the moral which it pointed, or left you to point. Unless obliged to, why should anybody write when he can read instead? One's own opinions (hastily formed and lacking even the graces of expression) are of small account; certainly they are of less account than Mr. Mill's observations on Liberty, which I have put down in order to pen a few longish paragraphs. (I would rather be reading, you understand; my pen is running for the same reason some street cars run--to hold the franchise.) And speaking of Mill, do you remember the library catalogue which contained the consecutive items, "Mill on Liberty" and "Ditto on the Floss"?

One can get through a good many books on a long railway journey. My slender stock was exhausted before I reached Colorado, and I am compelled to re-read until such time as I can lay in a fresh supply. At home it is difficult to find time to read--that is, considerable stretches of time, so that one may really digest the pages which he is leisurely taking in. Fifty years ago there were not many more books worth reading than there are to-day, but there was more time to a.s.similate them. A comparatively few books thoroughly a.s.similated gave us Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Not long ago my friend the Librarian was speaking of this short cla.s.sic. "Did you ever," said he, "read Edward Everett's address at Gettysburg?" "No," said I, "and I fear I shall never get to it." "It is stowed away among his collected orations," said he. "Not half bad. Unfortunately for its fame, Mr.

Lincoln happened along with a few well chosen remarks which the world has preferred to remember."

Another advantage of a long railway journey is the opportunity it affords to give one's vocal cords a (usually) well-merited rest. It is possible to travel across the continent without saying a word. A nod or a shake of the head suffices in your dealings with the porter; and you learn nothing from questioning him, as he has not been on that run before. Also, business with the train and Pullman conductors may be transacted in silence, and there is no profit in asking the latter to exchange your upper berth for a lower, as he has already been entreated by all the other occupants of uppers. When the train halts you do not have to ask, "What place is this?"--you may find out by looking at the large sign on the station. Nor is it necessary to inquire, "Are we on time?"--your watch and time-table will enlighten you. You do not have to exclaim, when a fresh locomotive is violently attached, "Well, I see we got an engine"--there is always somebody to say it for you. And you write your orders in the dining car. There is, of course, the chance of being accosted in the club car, but since this went dry the danger has been slight. And conversation can always be averted by absorption in a book, or, in a crisis, by pretending to be dumb.

Not everybody can travel three or four days without exchanging words with a fellow traveler. Mr. George Moore, for example, would be quite wretched. Conversation is the breath of his being, he says somewhere. I understand that Mr. Moore has another book on press, ent.i.tled "Avowals."

Avowals! My dear!... After the "Confessions" and the "Memoirs" what in the world is there left for the man to avow?

What a delightful fictionist is Moore! And never more delightful than when he is writing fiction under the appearance of fact. No one has taken more to heart the axiom that the imaginary is the only real. As my friend the Librarian observed, the difference between George Moore and Baron Munchausen is that Moore's lies are interesting.

Travelers must carry their own reading matter under government owners.h.i.+p. The club car library now consists of time-tables, maps, and pamphlets setting forth the never to be forgotten attractions of the show places along the way. These are all written by the celebrated prose poet Ibid, and, with a bottle of pseudo beer or lemon pop, help to make the club car as gay a place as a mortician's parlor on a rainy afternoon.

The treeless plateau over which the train rolls, hour after hour, is the result of a great uplift. It was not sudden; it was slow but sure. This result is arid and plateautudinous, in a manner of speaking--not the best manner. It makes me think of democracy--and prohibition. To this complexion we shall come at last. To be sure, the genius of man will continue to cut channels in the monotonous plain; erosion will relieve the dreary prospect with form and color, but it bids fair to be, for the most part, a flat and dry world, from which many of us will part with a minimum of regret. There will remain the inextinguishable desire to learn what wonders science will disclose. Perhaps--who knows?--they will discover how to ventilate a sleeping car.