Life — November 5, 1885 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

262 TO MARY ANDERSON. HRICE nineteen times hail and welcome, thou sporadic and multitudinous girl !! I discharge the Gatling gun of tumultuous jubilation ; I explode the celebrant dynamite of earthquaking hallelujahs ! Thou art a beauty-encumbered Entity, O thou sun-clad and * sky-kissing (not man-kissing) Cosmos !!! Thou dost show thyself before the footlights, and lo! the gleaming bald-head by the bass violin cracks open like a wounded watermelon with a horizontal, caver- nous, many-scented fissure, and emits a glad, Titanic uproar. I hail thee! I pat thee on the head! thou canst stir up the gallery with thy subtle art (even when some of them are sound asleep), thou canst create a pause in the mastication of peanuts, and substitute there- fore the loud-clapping tumult and the sweeping, beer-scented breath of popular applause ! parallax! thou heaven-born multiplication-table! thou mysterious grindstone!! I, the unspeakable Ego., the sublimated parenthesis of catastrophic Force—I, the Ego., from the depths of my absolute and inalienable self—I holler forth a rejoicing at thy coming (not to say thy metaphysical approach), My voice quakes like a hurricane in a beegum; I fire my- self off like an old musket loaded with buckshot ! I shout, I yawp, I gallop around on all-fours and kick at horse-flies; I slap the cat off the rug; I unbutton my suspenders and climb a lamppost ; I roar like a sewing-machine till the whole earth (likewise the other side of the river) is filled with the reverberant echo of thy commendation. Halt Witman (Poet Lariat). LITERARY NOTES. T NNYSON'’S recent poem in the Irish brogue is thought to have been written at the Queen’s command for the purpose of propitiating the Home Rulers. BATTENBERG was recently hissed by the Scotch at Bal- moral, and threatens to write a book about the Highlands through revenge. Dr. JOHN L. SULLIVAN is writing a lengthy poem to be called the “ Bostoniad.” The hero of the work will be the Marquis of Beansbury, and the rhythm will be gauged with a gas meter, THE author of “ The Buntling Ball” is said to bea full- blooded Arkansas negro with a head shaped like a nail keg. “Tue twilight of the poets” is when they have their MSS. rejected. AN enterprising firm expects to publish a pair of Thack- eray’s old trousers, that were recently found in a London pawnshop. KiNG ALFONSO is writing a pretty ballade entitled, “ O, Give Me Back My Caroline!” THE Sultan is preparing a work to be called, * Reduced to Straits.” AM. > LIFE: 6¢ JN His Power,” at Wallack's Theatre is, in the language of the immortal bard, a fizzle. The day for sensa- tional productions, of the good old antediluvian type, has passed away. The heavy villain “ with all the outward char- acteristics of a gentleman,” the innocent and persecuted wife, and the patient hero, who are only waiting for the last act to live happily ever afterwards, are as hackneyed as Shem, Ham and Japheth, with, unfortunately, none of the pleasing probabilities of a watery grave, which enlivened those gentle- men. “In His Power,” however, has done some good work. It has introduced to American metropolitan audiences Mr. Kyrle Bellew, an actor who in London is universally re- spected for his personal beauty. Mr. Bellew is indeed sweetly pretty, and if he does not shortly figure, in pictorial glory, on the outside of cigarette wrappers, it will simply be because the market is at present glutted with dramatic beauty. Kyrle Bellew (whose real name is something ponderous with a wealth of gutterals in it) was much admired at the Savage Club, London, for the tenacity with which he wore a gold bangle on his right wrist. Inspired by the rollicking vivacity of the classical composition, “He wore a penny flower in his coat, la-di-da,” a bard at the Savage Club wrote a pleasing tribute to Mr. Kyrle Bellew, to be sung to that melody : He is Ouida-esque, supernal, Kyrle Bellew, Kyrle Bellew, With a dash of London Journal, Kyrle Bellew, Kyrle Bellew, and so on with eloquent and graphic fervor. . . . IG. SALVINI'S third season in the United States was commenced last Monday at the Metropolitan Opera House, in “Othello.” The magnificent acting of the Italian tragedian met with the appreciation which it deserved, but the lugubrious effect of a performance in which the leading actor spoke a foreign language could be readily noticed. Sig. Salvini, some months ago, played in Russia, with the support of a Russian company, which he understood far less than he does his English assistants. He himself seems to see the incongruity of these entertainment, for in his repertoire this season he has included a play called “ Le Vieux Caporal,” in which for three acts he has nothing to say, as a deaf and dumb semi-paralytic. Sig. Salvini’s support at the Metro- politan Opera House is unsatisfactory. . . . QUESTION which is at present troubling historical students possesses a special interest to the dramatic profession. ‘Fhe problem to be solved was suggested by the comicbooks.com