Part 10 (1/2)

ACADEMY NOTES.

Sir: If there is a school of expression connected with the Academy I nominate for head of it Elizabeth Letzkuss, princ.i.p.al of the Greene school, Chicago.

Calcitrosus.

Members of the Academy will be pleased to know that their fellow-Immortal, Mr. Gus Wog, was elected in North Dakota.

We regret to learn that one of our Immortals, Mr. Tinder Tweed, of Harlan, Ky., has been indicted for shooting on the highway.

TO MARY GARDEN--WITH A POSTSCRIPT.

So wonderful your art, if you preferred Drayma to opry, you'd be all the mustard; For you (ecstatic pressmen have averred) Have Sarah Bernhardt larruped to a custard.

So marvelous your voice, too, if you cared With turns and trills and tra-la-las to dazzle, You'd have (enraptured critics have declared) All other singers beaten to a frazzle.

So eloquent your legs, were it your whim To caper nimbly in a cla.s.sic measure, Terpsich.o.r.e (entranced reviewers hymn) Would swoon upon her lyre for very pleasure.

If there be aught you _cannot_ do, 'twould seem The world has yet that something to discover.

One has to hand it to you. You're a scream.

And 'tis a joy to watch you put it over.

_Postscriptum._

If there be any test you can't survive, The present test will mean your crucifying; But I am laying odds of eight to five That you'll come thro' with all your colors flying.

It is chiefly a matter of temperament. And more impudence and a.s.surance is required to crack a safe or burglarize a dwelling than to cancel a s.h.i.+pment of goods in order to avoid a loss; but one is as honest a deed as the other. Or it would be better to say that one is as poor policy as the other. For it is not claimed that man is an honest animal; it is merely agreed that honesty profits him most in the long run.

ACADEMY JOTTINGS.

J. P. W.: ”I present Roley Akers of Boone, Ia., as director of the back-to-the-farm movement.”

C. M. V.: ”For librarian to the Immortals I nominate Mrs. Bessie Hermann Twaddle, who has resigned a similar position in Tulare county, California.”

This world cannot be operated on a sentimental basis. The experiment has been made on a small scale, and it has always failed; on a large scale it would only fail more magnificently. People who are naturally kind of heart, and of less than average selfishness, wish that the impossible might be compa.s.sed, but, unless they are half-witted, or are paid agitators, they recognize that the impossible is well named.

Self-interest is the core of human nature, and before that core could be appreciably modified, if ever, the supply of heat from the sun would be so reduced that the n.o.blest enthusiasm would be chilled. The utmost achievable in this sad world is an enlightened self-interest. This we expect of the United States when the peace makers gather. Anything more selfish would be a reproach to our professed principles. Anything less selfish would be a reproach to our intelligence.

I SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR, IT WENT RIGHT THROUGH MISS BURROUGHS' HAIR.