Judge — June 4, 1921 — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

Spirit Voices By Pernttox Maxweut Illustration by the Author HAD a dream and in it found myself hunched upon the receiver of my desk tele phone. I was a pigmy in a world of gargantuan but fa miliar objects. My position on the instrument was distinctly uncomfortable, but finding my face on a level with the trans mitter I cried a question into its carbon depths Who lives insid: “If anyone is at home, I chal lenge him to forth!” I made the demand in good faith, and presently came a response, but not before the turbaned head of a woman. grave, mystic, her eyes looking through and beyond me, rose from behind the funneled mouthpiece which she used as a megaphone. “Who are you?” I wanted to know. “Tam the symbol of moder. nity,” she chanted with crystal clear resonance. “I am she who carries the vocal endear ments of lovers over leagues of space. I am the indifferent messenger who orders the sal vation or the destruction men in business and in war. I am the pleading voice of neg- lected wives seeking the where- bouts of erring husbands, the herald of arriving babes, the re porter of departing souls. I am love and hate, purity and evil, religion and sin; the rier of commerce, trumpeter of industry, bellman of politics % I am the invisible bridge that spans the distance between the field of wheat and the market where it is sold, the cord which binds the hill of precious metals to the jeweler’s shop.” A hideous buzzing smote my car. “Hello!” I cried, and again “Hello set off the wire!” shouted a raucous T asked come “Tue male “And listen Mame, I seen him at the movies las’ night,’’ intervened a very mezzo-soprano. “Central, I was talking to—"' I be gan, but again the silver-throated one: “Tam Ariel and Mercury; twin sister to the wind; the unseen envoy of woe and gladness. Swifter than railroads, straighter to destination than aeroplanes, safer than ships, L am the willing servant in a thread of wire. Born of vibration, nurtured by electricity, simplest of mechanisms, I am inexplicable. The accurate counterpart of every human voice, first among the seven modern wonders of the world, I am indispensable, universal, unique. Iam the soul of the telephone!” HEAD OF ME, TURBANED FROM BEHIND KOsE THe “Here's your party,"’ broke in the girl operator. “Hell!” said I The woman with the mystic face dis- solved. There was a click as I rose up balancing myself on the metal hook and grasping the curving edge of the trans- mitting tube. ! “Hello!”’ I cried into the funnel, “Hello, hello!” A gum-laden voice inquired: “What number didya want?” I awoke with a laugh at the futility of the poetic in a mechanical world. The line to Mount Olympus is eternally dis- connected. Those Gentle Hypocrites Browne—Have you ever noticed two women struggling to see which one will have the pleasure of paying the other's carfare? Towne—Yes, and they are really just about as keen over it as one man would be paying another's coal bill. A WOMAN, GRAVE, MYSTIC, HER BYES LOOKING THROUGH AND BEYOND FUNNELED MOUTHPIECE.” Curves By Raceuw M. HOMPSON ECAUSE of woman's baffling curves So many men strike out. The strongest batter needs his nerves, Because of woman's badung curves. With a seductive form that serves To put all poise to rout, Because of woman's baffling curves So many men strike out Her Handy Reference Maud—The cook under consideration demanded such high wages that I calmly asked her to let me have a list of pc for whom she had worked. Beatrix—Y es? Maud—And she handed me the tele phone-book Pegasus Needs No Oats Poets are born, not paid. a a ce a