John Kendrick Bangs

“ So why should I be jealous of the brownstone-house dwellers? I am a philosopher, gentlemen. I tell you, philosophy is the thief of jealousy, and I had the good-luck to find it out early in life.”
“There is much in what you say,” said Confucius. “But there’s another side to the matter. If a man is an aristocrat by nature, as I was, his neighborhood never could run down. Wherever he lived would be the swell section, so that really your last argument isn’t worth a stewed icicle.”
“Stewed icicles are pretty good, though,” said Baron Munchausen, with an ecstatic smack of his lips. ”

“ There are no tailors bills to pay—we are ourselves nothing but memories, and a memory can clothe himself in the shadow of his former grandeur—I clothe myself in the remembrance of my departed clothes, and as my memory is good I flatter myself I’m the best-dressed man here. The fact that there are ghosts of departed unpaid bills haunting my bedside at night doesn’t bother me in the least, because the bailiffs that in the old life lent terror to an overdue account, thanks to our beneficent system here, are kept in the less agreeable sections of Hades. ”

“ A shoemaker, my dear Confucius, is somewhat different from a poet.”
“Certainly,” said Doctor Johnson. “Very different—in fact, different enough to make a conundrum of the question—what is the difference between a shoemaker and a poet? One makes the shoes and the other shakes the muse—all the difference in the world. Still, I don’t see how we can exclude the poets. It is the very democracy of this club that gives it life. We take in everybody—peer, poet, or what not. ”

“ Here Phidias, to show his contempt for butter as raw material in sculpture, seized a wooden toothpick, and with it modelled a beautiful head of Minerva out of the pat that stood upon the small plate at his side, and before Burns could interfere had spread the chaste figure as thinly as he could upon a piece of bread, which he tossed to the shade of a hungry dog that stood yelping on the river-bank. ”

“ I’ve heard my ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy uttered by a famous tragedian in tones that would make a graveyard yawn at mid-day, and if there was any way in which I could get even with that man I’d do it.”
“It seems to me,” said Blackstone, assuming for the moment a highly judicial manner—“it seems to me that Shakespeare, having got you into this trouble, ought to get you out of it.”
“But how?” said Shakespeare, earnestly. “That’s the point. Heaven knows I’m willing enough.”
Hamlet’s face suddenly brightened as though illuminated with an idea. ”

“ HAMLET MAKES A SUGGESTION
It was a beautiful night on the Styx, and the silvery surface of that picturesque stream was dotted with gondolas, canoes, and other craft to an extent that made Charon feel like a highly prosperous savings-bank. Within the house-boat were gathered a merry party, some of whom were on mere pleasure bent, others of whom had come to listen to a debate, for which the entertainment committee had provided, between the venerable patriarch Noah and the late eminent showman P. T. Barnum. ”

“ If they should catch in one of the pedals, where would I be?”
“In the hospital shortly, methinks,” said Queen Elizabeth.
“Well, I shouldn’t wear skirts,” snapped Xanthippe. “If a man’s wife can’t borrow some of her husband’s clothing to reduce her peril to a minimum, what is the use of having a husband? When I take to the bicycle, which, in spite of all Socrates can say, I fully intend to do, I shall have a man’s wheel, and I shall wear Socrates’ old dress-clothes. If Hades doesn’t like it, Hades may suffer.”
“I don’t see how Socrates’ clothes will help you,” observed Ophelia. ”

“ I think a ladies’ day would be great sport. I’ll write a poem to read on the occasion.”
“Then I oppose it with all my heart,” said Doctor Johnson. “Why do you always want to make our entertainments commonplace? Leave occasional poems to mortals. I never knew an occasional poem yet that was worthy of an immortal.”
“That’s precisely why I want to write one occasional poem. I’d make it worthy,” Shakespeare answered. “Like this, for instance:
Most fair, most sweet, most beauteous of ladies,
The greatest charm in all ye realm of Hades. ”

“ I’ll make a strong effort to please.
“You draw a very blue picture, it seems to me,” said Shakespeare, sadly.
“Well, it’s true,” said Carlyle. “The world isn’t at all what it used to be in any one respect, and you fellows who made great reputations centuries ago wouldn’t have even the ghost of a show now. I don’t believe Homer could get a poem accepted by a modern magazine, and while the comic papers are still printing Diogenes’ jokes the old gentleman couldn’t make enough out of them in these days to pay taxes on his tub, let alone earning his bread.” ”

“ There’s nothing original about that.”
“True; but she made a suggestion to me about this house-boat which I think is a good one. She says the women are all crazy to see the inside of it,” said Raleigh.
“Thus proving that immortal woman is no different from mortal woman,” retorted Confucius. “They want to see the inside of everything. Curiosity, thy name is woman.”
“Well, I am sure I don’t see why men should arrogate to themselves the sole right to an investigating turn of mind,” said Raleigh, impatiently. “Why shouldn’t the ladies want to see the inside of this club-house? ”

“ The Scotchman nodded assent, and the Greek sculptor went on.
“I am not vindictive myself, Homer,” he said. “Nobody has hurt me, and, on the whole, I don’t think sculpture is in such a bad way, after all. There’s a shoemaker I wot of in the mortal realms who can turn the prettiest last you ever saw; and I encountered a carver in a London eating-house last month who turned out a slice of beef that was cut as artistically as I could have done it myself. What I object to chiefly is the tendency of the times. ”

“ Why should I be jealous of him?”
“I am sure I don’t know why anybody anywhere should be jealous of anybody else anyhow,” said Diogenes. “I never was and I never expect to be. Jealousy is a quality that is utterly foreign to the nature of an honest man. Take my own case, for instance. When I was what they call alive, how did I live?”
“I don’t know,” said Doctor Johnson, turning his head as he spoke so that Boswell could not fail to hear. ”

“ To say that this man shall not enter because he is this or that or the other thing would result in our ultimately becoming a class organization, which, as Confucius himself says, we are not and must not be. If we put out the poet to please the sage, we’ll soon have to put out the sage to please the fool, and so on. We’ll keep it up, once the precedent is established, until finally it will become a class club entirely—a Plumbers’ Club, for instance—and how absurd that would be in Hades! ”

“ It was Story-tellers’ Night at the house-boat, and the best talkers of Hades were impressed into the service. Doctor Johnson was made chairman of the evening.
“Put him in the chair,” said Raleigh. “That’s the only way to keep him from telling a story himself. If he starts in on a tale he’ll make it a serial sure as fate, but if you make him the medium through which other story-tellers are introduced to the club he’ll be finely epigrammatic. He can be very short and sharp when he’s talking about somebody else. Personality is his forte.” ”

“ You must know that the mortals would pay more for one of your statues than they would for a specimen of any modern sculptor’s art; yes, even if yours were modelled in wine-jelly and the other fellow’s in pure gold. So why repine?”
“You’d feel the same way if poets did a similarly vulgar thing,” retorted Phidias; “you know you would. If you should hear of a poet to-day writing a poem on a thin layer of lard or butter, you would yourself be the first to call a halt.” ”

“ It’s better business to let ’em live, I say. Suppose Nero gave a London audience that little musicale he provided at Queen Elizabeth’s Wednesday night. How many purely mortal beings, do you think, would have come out alive?”
“Not one,” said Shakespeare. “I was mighty glad that night that we were an immortal band. If it had been possible to kill us we’d have died then and there.”
“That’s all right,” said Nero, with a significant shake of his head. “As my friend Bacon makes Ingo say, ‘Beware, my lord, of jealousy.’ You never could play a garden hose, much less a fiddle.” ”

“ The members learn there that there are other authors than themselves. Poets’ Clubs are a good thing; they bring poets into contact with each other, and they learn what a bore it is to have to listen to a poet reading his own poem. Pugilists’ Clubs are good; so are all other class clubs; but so also are clubs like our own, which takes in all who are worthy. Here a poet can talk poetry as much as he wants, but at the same time he hears something besides poetry. We must stick to our original idea.”
“Then let us do something to abate the nuisance of which I complain,” said Confucius. ”

“ It requires absolute genius to avoid the temptation. You are great enough to make Hades rhyme with bicycle if you choose to do it—but no, you succumb to the temptation to be commonplace. Bah! One of these modern drawing-room poets with three sections to his name couldn’t do worse.”
“On general principles,” said Raleigh, “Johnson is right. We invite these people here to see our club-house, not to give them an exhibition of our metrical powers, and I think all exercises of a formal nature should be frowned upon.”
“Very well,” said Shakespeare. ”

“ If you could make a cherry-tree grow out of a deer’s head, I fail to see why you could not personally grow a tail, or anything else you might happen to need for the attainment of your ends.”
“I was not so anxious to get the accent as all that,” returned the Baron. “I don’t think it is necessary for a man to make a monkey of himself just for the pleasure of mastering a language. ”

“ If they choose to write poems on the paper instead of boring people to death with letters, as most of us do, that’s their own affair.”
“Well, they’re very wasteful,” said Demosthenes.
“We can meet that easily enough,” observed Cassius. “Furnish each writing-table with a slate. I should think they’d be pleased with that. It’s so much easier to rub out the wrong word.”
“Most poets prefer to rub out the right word,” growled Confucius. “Besides, I shall never consent to slates in this house-boat. The squeaking of the pencils would be worse than the poems themselves.” ”

“ Homer’s idea is a good one, and Samson was wise in backing it up. The poets need to be concentrated somewhere where they will not be a nuisance to other people, and where other people will not be a nuisance to them. Homer ought to have a place to compose in where the vingt-et-un players will not interrupt his frenzies, and, on the other hand, the vingt-et-un and other players should be protected from the wooers of the muse. I’ll vote to have the Poets’ Corner, and in it I move that Cassius’s slate idea be carried out. ”

“ Where one’s tail is no one can ever say, but that it exists simultaneously with its owner I believe. The abhorrence man has for snakes is directly attributable to his abhorrence for all things which have deprived him of something that is good. If Adam’s tail had not tempted him to swing on the forbidden tree, we should all of us have been able through life to relax from business cares after the manner of the monkey, who is happy from morning until night. ”

“ If she comes you’ll have to appoint a tasting committee before I’ll touch a drop of punch or eat a speck of salad.”
“We might recommend the appointment of Raleigh to look after the fair Lucretia and see that she has no poison with her, or if she has, to keep her from dropping it into the salads,” said Confucius, with a sidelong glance at Raleigh. “He’s the especial champion of woman in this club, and no doubt would be proud of the distinction.”
“I would with most women,” said Raleigh. “But I draw the line at Lucretia Borgia.” ”

“ Under Barnum’s management you’d get enough activity in one season to last you through all eternity.”
“You can count on me,” said Barnum, rising. “Let me know when you’ve got your plan laid out. I’d stay and make a contract with you now, but Adam has promised to give me points on the management of wild animals without cages, so I can’t wait. By-by.”
“Humph!” said Shakespeare, as the eminent showman passed out. “That’s a gay proposition. When monkeys move in polite society William Shakespeare will make a side-show of himself for a circus.” ”

“ When I look about me and see Jupiter, the arch-snob of creation, and Mars, a little tin warrior who couldn’t have fought a soldier like Napoleon, with all his alleged divinity, I thank the Fates that they enabled me to achieve immortality through mortal effort. ”

“ Ladies’ day is becoming a dreadful bore, and if we don’t hurry up the billiard-room will be full.”
“Well, I move we get up a petition to the council to have it,” said Dryden.
“I agree,” said Confucius, “and I’ll sign it. If there’s one way to avoid having ladies’ day in the future, it’s to have one now and be done with it.”
“All right,” said Shakespeare. “I’ll sign too.”
“As—er—Shixpur or Shikespeare?” queried Johnson.
“Let him alone,” said Raleigh. “He’s getting sensitive about that; and what you need to learn more than anything else is that it isn’t manners to twit a man on facts. ”