The Genial Idiot: His Views and Reviews by John Kendrick Bangs (little red riding hood ebook .TXT) 📕
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- Author: John Kendrick Bangs
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And bewails the early closing of the bar
That prevents the little nips he seeks each morn
On the sea-shore where the fatling boarders are.
Spends his mornings, nights, and eke his afternoons,
Scheming plans to get more milk from out the well,
And a hundred novel ways of cooking prunes.
And the merry visaged cows are chewing cud;
And the profits that the plumber’s business yields
Come a-tumbling to the earth with deadly thud.[140]
The soft message of Dame Nature, grand and clear,
That the winter-time is gone with storm and sleet,
And the soft and jolly summer-tide is here.
How’s that? Pretty fair?”
“Well, I might consent to be a cousin to a poem of that kind. I’ve read worse and written some that are quite as bad. But you know, Mr. Idiot, even so great a masterpiece as that won’t make a book,” said the Poet.
“Of course it won’t,” retorted the Idiot. “That’s only for the summer. Here’s another one on winter. Just listen:
Is a-smiling broadly—aye, from ear to ear—
As he reaches out his hand and fondly grabs
All the shining, golden shekels falling near.
And the birdling to the sunny southland flies;
While the frowning summer landlord stands aloof,
And to solemncholy meditation hies.[141]
And the coal-man is as happy as can be;
While the hulking, sulking, grizzly seeks his lair,
And the ice-man’s soul is filled with misery.
And the furnace is as hungry as a boy;
While the plumber, as he gloats upon the leaks,
Is the model that the painter takes for ‘Joy.’
The glad message of Dame Nature, grand and clear:
That the summer-time has gone with all its heat,
And the crisp and frosty winter days are here.
You see, Mr. Poet, that out of that one idea alone—that cataloguing of the things of the four seasons—you can get four poems that are really worth reading,” said the Idiot. “We could call that section ‘The Seasons,’ and make it the first part of the book. In the second part we could do the same thing, only in greater detail, for each one of the months. Just as a sample, take the month of February. We could run something like this in on February:[142]
As pattering feet wade deep in slush
That every Feb.
Doth flow and ebb.”
“I see,” said the Poet. “It wouldn’t take long to fill up a book with stuff like that.”
“To make the appeal stronger, let me take the month of July, which is now on,” resumed the Idiot. “You may find it even more convincing:
The rhubarb-pie—
The lightning in the sky—
Thermometers so spry—
That leap up high—
The roads all dry,
The hoboes nigh,
The town a-fry,
The mad ki-yi
A-snarling by,
The crickets cry—
All tell us that it is July.
Eh?”
“I don’t believe anybody would believe[143] I wrote it, that’s all,” said the Poet, shaking his head dubiously. “They’d find out, sooner or later, that you did it, just as they discovered that Will Carleton wrote ‘Paradise Lost,’ and Dick Davis was the real author of Shakespeare. Why don’t you publish the thing over your own name?”
“Too modest,” said the Idiot. “What do you think of this:
Goes a-sporting through the State,
And he kisses babes from Quogue to Kalamazoo;
For he really wants to win
Without spending any tin,
And he thinks he has a chance to kiss it through.”
“That’s fair, only I don’t think you’ll find many candidates doing that sort of thing nowadays,” said the Poet. “Most public men I know of would rather spend their money than kiss the babies. That style of campaigning has gone out.”
“It has in the cities,” said the Idiot. “But back in the country it is still done, and the candidate who turns his back on the[144] infant might as well give up the race. I know, because a cousin of mine ran for supervisor once, and he was licked out of his boots because he tried to do his kissing by proxy—said he’d give the kisses in a bunch to a committee of young ladies, who could distribute them for him. Result was everybody was down on him—even the young ladies.”
“I guess he was a cousin of yours, all right,” laughed the Doctor; “that scheme bears the Idiot brand.”
“Here’s one on the opening of the opera season,” said the Idiot:
To the lovely taradiddles
Of old Wagner, Mozart, Bizet, and the rest.
Now the trombone is a-tooting
Out its scaley shute-the-chuteing
And the oboe is hoboing with a zest.
Not a single minute shirking—
Making gowns with frills and fal-lals mighty queer,[145]
For the Autumn days are flying,
And there’s really no denying
That the season of the opera is near.”
Mr. Brief took a hand in the discussion at this moment.
“Then you can have a blanket verse,” he said, scribbling with his pencil on a piece of paper in front of him. “Something like this:
And the Idiot still is talking
In his usual blatant manner, loud and free,
With his silly jokes and rhyme,
It is—well it’s any time
From Creation to the jumping-off place that you’ll find at the far end of Eterni-tie.”
“That settles it,” said the Idiot, rising. “I withdraw my proposition. Let’s call it off, Mr. Poet.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Brief. “Isn’t my verse good?”
“Yes,” said the Idiot. “Just as good as mine, and that being the case it isn’t worth doing. When lawyers can write as good[146] poetry as real poets, it doesn’t pay to be a real poet. I’m going in for something else. I guess I’ll apply for a job as a motorman, and make a name for myself there.”
“Can a motorman make a name for himself?” asked the Doctor.
“Oh yes,” said the Idiot. “Easily. By being civil. A civil motorman would be unique.”
“But he wouldn’t make a fortune,” suggested the Poet.
“Yes he would, too,” said the Idiot. “If he could prove he really was civil, the vaudeville people would pay him a thousand dollars a week and tour the country with him. He’d draw mobs.”
With which the Idiot left the dining-room.
“I think his poems would sell,” smiled Mrs. Pedagog.
“Yes,” said Mr. Pedagog. “Chopped up fine and properly advertised, they might make a very successful new kind of breakfast food—provided the paper on which they were written was not too indigestible.”
[147] XIIIHE DISCUSSES THE MUSIC CURE
GOOD-MORNING, Doctor,” said the Idiot, as Capsule, M.D., entered the dining-room, “I am mighty glad you’ve come. I’ve wanted for a long time to ask you about this music cure that everybody is talking about, and get you, if possible, to write me out a list of musical nostrums for every-day use. I noticed last night, before going to bed, that my medicine-chest was about run out. There’s nothing but one quinine pill and a soda-mint drop left in it, and if there’s anything in the music cure, I don’t think I’ll have it filled again. I prefer Wagner to squills, and, compared to the delights of Mozart, Hayden, and Offenbach, those of paregoric are nit.”
[148] “Still rambling, eh?” vouchsafed the Doctor. “You ought to submit your tongue to some scientific student of dynamics. I am inclined to think, from my own observation of its ways, that it contains the germ of perpetual motion.”
“I will consider your suggestion,” replied the Idiot. “Meanwhile, let us consult harmoniously together on the original point. Is there anything in this music cure, and is it true that our medical schools are hereafter to have conservatories attached to them, in which aspiring young M.D.’s are to be taught the materia musica in addition to the materia medica?”
“I had heard of no such idiotic proposition,” returned the Doctor. “And as for the music cure, I don’t know anything about it; haven’t heard everybody talking about it; and doubt the existence of any such thing outside of that mysterious realm which is bounded by the four corners of your own bright particular cerebellum. What do you mean by the music cure?”
“Why, the papers have been full of it[149] lately,” explained the Idiot. “The claim is made that in music lies the panacea for all human ills. It may not be able to perform a surgical operation like that which is required for the removal of a leg, and I don’t believe even Wagner ever composed a measure that could be counted on successfully to eliminate one’s vermiform appendix from its chief sphere of usefulness; but for other things, like measles, mumps, the snuffles, or indigestion, it is said to be wonderfully efficacious. What I wanted to find out from you was just what composers were best for which specific troubles.”
“You’ll have to go to somebody else for the information,” said the Doctor. “I never heard of the theory, and, as I said before, I don’t believe anybody else has, barring your own sweet self.”
“I have seen a reference to it somewhere,” put in Mr. Whitechoker, coming to the Idiot’s rescue. “As I recall the matter, some lady had been cured of a nervous affection by a scientific application of some musical poultice or other, and the general[150] expectation seems to be that some day we shall find in music a cure for all our human ills, as the Idiot suggests.”
“Thank you, Mr. Whitechoker,” said the Idiot, gratefully ratefuly. “I saw that same item and several others besides, and I have only told the truth when I say that a large number of people are considering the possibilities of music as a substitute for drugs. I am surprised that Dr. Capsule has neither heard nor thought about it, for I should think it would prove to be a pleasant and profitable field for speculation. Even I, who am only a dabbler in medicine and know no more about it than the effects of certain remedies upon my own symptoms, have noticed that music of a certain sort is a sure emollient for nervous conditions.”
“For example?” said the Doctor. “Of course, we don’t doubt your word; but when a man makes a statement based upon personal observation it is profitable to ask him what his precise experience has been, merely for the purpose of adding to our own knowledge.”
[151] “Well,” said the Idiot, “the first instance that I can recall is that of a Wagner opera and its effects upon me. For a number of years I suffered a great deal from insomnia. I could not get two hours of consecutive sleep, and the effect of my sufferings was to make me nervous and irritable. Suddenly somebody presented me with a couple of tickets for a performance of ‘Parsifal,’ and I went. It began at five o’clock in the afternoon. For twenty minutes all went serenely, and then the music began to work. I fell into a deep and refreshing slumber. The intermission came, and still I slept on. Everybody else went home, dressed for the evening
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