Judge — May 29, 1915 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

‘OUR poetry’s no doubt sublime, your muse is never jaded, and when it comes to building rhyme, you have Bill Shakespeare faded. We'll gladly take your word for that and load you with no curses, if you won't break a lung or slat by reading out your verses. A poet is a harmless lad if he takes what he’s written and hides it in his liver pad or in his shirt or mitten; but when he springs a manuscript and reads four hundred stanzas, we say, ‘This singer should be whipped from Gotham clear to Kansas.'’ Oh, take your poetry, sweet bard, examine and inspect it, then plant the blamed stuff in the yard, where none will resurrect it. You have a lovely tenor voice, they tell me, gentle Willie—a voice to make the world rejoice and drive Caruso silly. But let the old world jog along without your golden singing, until it asks you for a song, a bunch of nosegays bringing. For all men hate the guy inspired who ported, is liked wherever he may dwell, and he is sought and courted. But you will notice, if your eyes are not by folly blinded, he isn't like those tiresome guys who always are ‘‘reminded.’’ He is not like that turgid chap, of whom there's no evasion, who always has a yarn on tap, whatever the occasion. He is not free with ancient wheeze, with joke that’s bent and hoary; you have to beg him on your knees to tell ‘that corking story."’ Don't put your gift upon parade, don’t in the ring unloose it, till every man and every maid shall urge you to produce it. Dealing in Futures “It is my firm belief,’ announced Jasper Knox, the sage of Piketown-on-the-Blink, “that in the dim and misty future there is a faint possibility of some hitherto unknown inventive genius accidentally stumbling upon a scientific formula, the compounding of which, superinduced by a liberal and proper administration of the same to teeth- ing infants, will impart to those necessary household adjuncts a sense of propriety which will enable them to comprehend the utter folly of keeping their overworked father awake half of the night, when the high cost of living demands that he be up and doing when the cuckoo clock proclaims the advent of another day of toil.’” His Opinion “In some instances the o| ist is of less real value to the community than the pessimist,’’ remarked Grout P. Smith. “While the former may possess a big wish- bone, the latter usually has the larger back- bone. And that's what counts, after all, Deacon Hackamore!"’ The Bud Letters By BURGES JOHNSON rhs atnet Rime met eens tnule to Cite pow ZS tw cary. Lent uth aw Rand tidy éefine tote ? Hart tenors ig It would just be some men’s luck, after they had saved up for a rainy day, to lose their rain check. sings a ballad graphic, as though he had his larynx wired for continental traffic. They hate the gent of nerve untold who waits no invitation, but spreads his face till they behold his works in operation. You'll make your victims shriek and run, you'll never gain their pardons; the world, at best, is overrun with tinhorn Mary Gardens. Oh, don’t depend on voice afire to earn your bed and fodder, for music lovers don't admire a ten-cent Harry Lauder. Whate’er the gift you may possess, oh, do not flaunt it boldly, or men will say you cause distress and look upon you coldly. You may be great at anecdotes and have a bushel handy, but men who dread to lose their goats won't say you are a dandy. The man who tells a story well, domestic or im- BY THE TIME YOU'VE ROLLED HALF THE LAWN comichooks.