Judge — October 1, 1910 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ey ' hh ** Mercy! why do you smoke cigarettes ?"" “Well, it's dis way. I'm savin’ de cork tips to make a ‘ife preserver.” Juliet beneath the balcony. Each syllable is the string of a piano in tune with a hi monic in my own telephone voice co-vibrat- ing therewith. All the harmonics of my telephone voice are thus sounded by the vibrations of this fresh ** Hallo."" The com- bination of that word’s co-vibrations builds up the quality of my telephone voice and echoes it back to me. I am Mark Antony surrendering the dominion of the world to pursue Cleopatra. There is something ig- noble in such fickleness. There is guilt in such forgetfulness of the sweetness of “* Two—oh—thr-r-e-e—o-h "’ for the sake of the thrill I derive from ‘ Hallo."" I am worse than thst man who could not be true to eyes of blue when eyes of brown revealed their hue. I am, it is evident, false only to a voice; but the guilt is as great as are any of those lover's perjuries at which, they say, Jove laughs. The telephone voices of the metropolis demoralize us as dread- fully as did those sirens who turned suilors into swine. There is the d quieting thought, too, that while she fell in love with my telephone voice, she loved it only until the next Romeo of the booth poured his soul into her ear. ** Tshould like to speak to Mr. Smi So much I manage to say in the fluted sound one attains by combining the sim- ple diapason of the telephone voice with its octav For I have fallen beneath her spell. When she says she will give me Mr. Smith, I feel that in a subtle sense she has made me the precious gift of herself. I have wooed her with my best telephone voice. I have gone courting in the panoply of my vocal ef- fects, and I have won my bride. It has all happened in an ether of sighs, yet,it is real because the telephone voice is no less magical than Aladdin's lamp. The soul of my voice kisses the soul of hers. Long, long ago—two minutes at least —I had pledged my accents to ‘Two JUDGE phone voice has matured since then. The callow in it has developed. This is real pas- sion. I played at love until now. But this is not the party I wanted! This is not ** Two—oh—thr-r-e-e—oh"’ at all, I am beneath the balcony once more, pouring the music of my honey vows into the ear of Juliet. I must play Romeo again. We are in Capulet’s orchard now. “* Two—oh-h-h—th-r-r-r-r-e-e—o-h-h-h."” It is but my formula. The accents of my telephone voice repeat it idly, but the soul of my telephone voice repeats in the vibi tion of each syllable sweet Romeo's plaint, “Night's candles are burnt out and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops; I must be gone and live, or stay and die." And she has caught my mood. “* Two—oh—thr-r-r-e-e—oh-h-! She re- peats the conventional numerals, meaning all the time what Juliet sai lark that sings so out of tune, st harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. I will not be harsh. I have that infidelity to make me guilty—that temporary gast of passion for that other voice, with its sweet “Hal-l-o-o."" Bah! it is but the whim of HE WAS A MAN OF FEW WORDS the hour or the passing fancy of Romeo for Rosaline—his best is Juliet's. “* Two—oh-—thr-r-r-e-e-—o-h."” It is love Country—"' Say, young feller how is it thet th clouds hereabouts always looks so white and clean” City—" You know we have sky-scrapers ”” itself I am expressing, and I receive ardor in her reply. ‘* T-h-r-r-r-r-e-e-e—oh, Already we have a vision of the catastrophe afar off. We are both doomed to descend together into the tomb. The trilling of that numeral—how vividly poetical! I shall not get that number. Romeo and Juliet must die. In calling those numbers our telephone voices have exchanged an infinity of joys and sorrows. We have gone from a rapture of anticipation to a depth of despair. “Oh-h-h-h!”’ we repeat in unison, and our telephoned accents, by their very vehemence, express that fullness of worship which gives this tragedy its perfect beauty. AsI lay down the receiver and leave the booth, I re- peat with Romeo, *‘ All this is but a dream."* Thus, through the medium of my tele- phone voice, do I enact the great themes of the great souls. I need no such large and varied vocabulary as the pablic speaker must acquire. I speak in numbers—no mournful numbers like those suitable to Longfellow’s hint that life is but a fadingdream. They are passionate num- bers, transformed by my telephone voice into the apostrophes of poets to the di- vinities they adored. I love my tele- phone voice. Nor dol grieve that the objects of my telephone worship never see me. I love to think of them as languishing for these accents of mine— for my ‘Oh’? with its adoration, my trill of the figure three, so expressive of that sentiment for which Ophelia per- ished. And nine! How I thrill to the sound of nine spoken first in my purest telephone emotion and echoed next in her more spiritualized receptivity to the impressions of sincerity I seek to con- vey. I never hear a telephone voice say Nine"? without crying ° Hallo!’ and —to adapt the words of poor Juliet — halloing is such sweet sorrow that [{ could say ‘*Hallo’’ till it be morrow before I d ever get the number I want. — oh — thr-r-r-e-e —oh h-h,"” but that was a lad’s love, the first flaming fancy of a youth of twenty for a woman old enough to be his mother. My tele- PUTTING TEMPTATION OUT OF THE WAY. “* Did Mrs. Spenditt visit Monte Carlo while abroad ?"" “* T judge so. She didn’t try to smuggle in any diamonds when she came back.”* ME ROOSEVELT of course would be delighted to have everybody take an inlook into the Outlook.