Chapter IV (6)

Such incidents seem to argue a genuine vein of fellow feeling, of sympathy, for the Dog, though, I must insist, this sympathy never degenerates into a maudlin sentimentality. After all is said and done, there is never entirely absent a grain of contempt from my estimate of a mere dog, even of the Dog of the House. It is enough to admit that there is commingled with this contempt a certain something of more benevolent hue, a something which I must leave it to others to explain.

_A Hunting-ground of Ignorance_

Espapia Palladino is dead, and of course the usual amount of nonsense is being written about her. The woman certainly had some telekinetic power, and she certainly pieced it out with humbug, as is generally done when the power happens to exist in a low order of person. And as most persons are of a low order, the power is so pieced out in most cases. The same is of course true regarding telepsychic power.

But that behind the frauds and mistakes there is something genuine yet to be accounted for, is doubted by hardly anybody who knows anything about the subject. If writing about it, and all other subjects, could only be restricted to those who know something about them, how much better off we should all be!

And if dishonesty were only restricted to the inferior type of person! One of the committee who made out Palladino an unmitigated fraud, told us that he signed the report with mental reservations, and that he passed his hands under the table which she held suspended by her finger-tips on top of it, and found it absolutely disconnected with the floor!

_Maximum Price-fixing in Ancient Rome_

"Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." The prototype of the aeroplane is found in the myth of Daedalus' wings; the possibilities of the submarine--some of them--are illustrated in Lucian's story of the sea monster; and maximum prices, in sober Roman history.

The Emperor Diocletian, at the beginning of the fourth century, made a serious effort to lower the high cost of living, by law. He was apparently one of that school of amateur economists which holds that the business man's greed is the root of the evil. In his opinion there were any number of people who were expert in the art of running up the rates and charging the poor ultimate consumer, whether civilian or soldier, all that the traffic would bear. And his eye was on them. A part of the preface to the edict which was to abolish all the difficulties at one stroke, reads thus:

Who is so dull of heart that he does not know that on
merchandise prices have become more than exorbitant, and that
unbridled greed can not be mitigated by abundance of supplies
or rich harvests? And so to the greed of those who, though men
of the greatest wealth so that they could abundantly supply
even nations, still seek private gain. To their greed, O
people of our provinces, our care for common humanity urges us
to put an end. Who does not know that, wherever the common
safety of all demands that our armies be led, there the prices
of merchandise are forced up, not four times or eight times,
but without limit?

A system of maximum retail prices was to be the cure-all:

We have decided not to determine exact prices for commodities:
for it does not seem just to do this when at times many
provinces glory in the good fortune of low prices; but we have
decided to establish a maximum of prices, so that when there
is any scarcity greed may be checked.

If the emperor could have looked down the ages to the year 1918, he would have found that a maximum price of ten cents for sugar is very likely to become the regular price everywhere. He did not know this; but that his law would only be effective if supported by a penalty for disobedience, he knew right well. He decided on a penalty--a penalty which would appear adequate, probably even to the thorough-going Germans:

It is our pleasure that, if anyone in his audacity opposes
this statute, he be subjected to capital punishment.

Not only price-raising, but hoarding and speculating were also held to be opposition to the law. The final statement of the edict makes this clear:

And from the penalties of this statute, that man is not free
who, possessing the necessities of life, should think that he
ought to withdraw them from trade for a time after this
statute is in force.

But the emperor did not confine himself to fixing maximum prices for food. His was a more ambitious attempt than any of its modern counterparts. He fixed prices for liquors, and cloth goods and shoes. He fixed maximum wages for workmen in all sorts of trades, and even for men in the professions. In some cases pay was by the day, and in some, by the job. The record does not show that union men were paid more than non-union men.

But this economic Utopia, though supported by all the power of an autocratic government, was not for long. One slight miscalculation ruined the whole scheme. The maximum price, or maximum wage, was put quite low in the first place, and yet in any given case was precisely the same in every province of the empire. In London the barber would shave you for two denarii (less than one cent), and in Alexandria you need pay no more. Prunes from Damascus must be sold there and in Cologne for the same price. Under such artificial conditions legitimate business could not succeed. The result is briefly told by a church father:

Then was there much blood shed for trifles; and nothing was
put up for sale, because of fear, and much worse was the
scarcity, until the law was repealed of necessity, after the
death of many.

_Darwin on His Own Discoveries_

In connection with the article in this number on John Fiske, we are fortunate in being able to give a letter from Darwin to Dana which is just appearing in the current _American Journal of Science_. To our readers, comment would be superfluous.

Charles Darwin to J. D. Dana
DOWN, BROMLY, KENT, NOV. 11, 1859.

_My dear Sir_: I have sent you a copy of my Book (as yet only
an abstract) on the Origin of species. I know too well that
the conclusion, at which I have arrived, will horrify you, but
you will, I believe & hope, give me credit for at least an
honest search after the truth. I hope that you will read my
Book, straight through; otherwise from the great condensation
it will be unintelligible. Do not, I pray, think me so
presumptuous as to hope to convert you; but if you can spare
time to read it with care, & will then do what is far more
important, keep the subject under my point of view for some
little time occasionally before your mind, I have hopes that
you will agree that more can be said in favour of the
mutability of species, than is at first apparent. It took me
many long years before I wholly gave up the common view of the
separate creation of each species. Believe me, with sincere
respect & with cordial thanks for the many acts of scientific
kindness which I have received from you,

My dear Sir
Yours very sincerely
(Signed) CHARLES DARWIN

_Reflections of an Old-Maid Aunt._

In the elaborately efficient curricula of our modern colleges, although there are courses of instruction in almost every branch from Book-agenting to Motherhood, and from Sewing to Integral Calculus, there is one of endeavor which is, as yet, hopelessly uncharted. I speak of the art, or, of course, it should be science, of being an old-maid aunt!

It seems a simple matter to the casual observer and, perhaps, that is why no one has thought necessary to study the subject and offer a course. We remember how successfully it was done in our youth by those delightful old ladies who came for visits and taught us to knit and were almost sure to have some sort of confection concealed somewhere about their person or room. We remember how they implanted the idea that certain words were beyond the vocabulary of any lady, and that a child's whole duty in life was to be polite in such matters as "Sir" and "Ma'am", to be obedient to any of the species, Grown-People, and to be ready at all times to help in the search for spectacles. Their lot was easy enough and the very suggestion that they needed to be instructed in their capacity of aunt, would be ridiculous!

It is no wonder then, with that picture in view, that I launched forth upon a visit to my small nephew and nieces with no premonitions of the shoals which lay ahead. After five days in the presence of the strenuous regime which surrounds and enfolds the modern child, I have returned once more to the quiet back waters of old-maidenhood and to contemplation. And now a sadder and a wiser aunt, I offer some suggestions which might help another unwary one before she breaks into the complicated existence of the newly developed genus, Child.

In the first place, don't use that obnoxious word "DON'T". Its use you will find, or more likely be told, curbs the child's free spirit and destroys his personality. If, thereof you find him with a redpepper as a toy, don't try to take it from him, for being stronger than he you may succeed and thereby put a dent in his tender young willpower! Just trust that if he should get it into his eyes or mouth the result will not be fatal, and feel confident that thereafter he will seek some other form of toy! Or should you find him standing on a chair, before a blazing fire, reaching for something on the mantel piece, don't remove him forcibly at once and try to convince him that he should never get there again. No! Rather divert his mind to something else in the room so that he will get down of his own accord, and leave the desired object until there is nobody present to divert him! For do you not see that if you tell him that there are things in the world which he cannot do, you will bind his free and birdlike soul and sadden his little life? Be comforted, though, for, perhaps, when he does fall the fire will be out, or the chair will tip the other way!

In the second place don't be surprised to hear him cry, nay rather howl lustily, all the while he is being fed. Of course you think at once that he must surely be ill; in your memories of childhood such an occurrence meant only some dread disease. But before you send a hurried call for the doctor, take a look at the food. You will find that a sad and terrible change has come over the stomachs of children! No longer can they digest oatmeal when accompanied by its time-honored companions, sugar and cream, but must eat it plain in a luke warm state. Other cereals have also lost these erstwhile friends, in spite of the alluring but deceptive impression which you may have gotten from advertisements, and are eaten, or rather absorbed, for the doing has lost its gusto, plain. So don't pity the child when you see him eating a teaspoonful of sugar just before he goes to bed, for that is his theoretical dole of sweetness for the day. Just hope that somewhere in the background is a friendly cook who is not yet aware of the fact that children have lost their powers of digestion!

And most important of all, don't offer him any sort of refreshment, most particularly not the innocent-looking but deadly animal cracker! When Mrs. Noah, for it must have been she who invented that confection for the small voyage-wearied Ham, Shem, and Japheth, made the first animal crackers, she probably thought that she was doing a great thing and that children throughout the age would call her blessed. And so they have until now a fearful discovery has been made: animal crackers are absolutely indigestible! We shudder as we think of the menageries we ourselves have consumed! To what heights of perfection might our excellent health have risen, were it not for those wolves lurking in the form of sheep or elephants or overgrown curly-tailed dogs! To what size might our present too rotund forms have grown, were it not for those deadly processions marched hither and yon and then eaten in never varying order, head; tail, when present; feet; and then two bites on the body. Farewell, Animal Cracker, you are discovered at last! No more shall you with your treachery delight and entertain innocent little children, unless some fathers, defiant of the new laws of nature and the edicts of scientific mothers, procure you on the sly!

And so it goes. No! The duties of an old-maid aunt cannot be entered upon lightly. It would really be a charitable act for some one to study the subject and offer a course for those of us the numbers of whose nephews and nieces continue to increase. And we in the meantime can only hope that the pendulum of change will not delay too long in swinging back to the old-fashioned child, about whom, inside and out, we have a little knowledge if it is only empirical!

_An Obscure Source of Education_

Obviously a great deal of education, moral as well as intellectual, and even physical, is coming from the war, and it obviously comes in part from an immensely increased amount of reading on informing subjects, even in the newspapers. But the call for this reading contains a farther, and relatively obscure, source of education worth thinking of. We can no longer risk wasting our time, as it is to be feared most of us have done, by picking up to read the first thing that strikes our fancy. The greatly increased mass of material has forced upon us the habit of selecting what we read. The usefulness and importance of that habit hardly need dwelling upon to the constituency of this REVIEW.

_Heart-to-Heart Advertising_

I am all things to all advertisers. I like to submit myself to the experiments of some alert young psychologist, in response to whose plan (scientifically conceived, artfully presented), I greatly desire to eat, to see, to hear, to know, to do, to possess, that which he brings to my attention. Being a person trained to jejune classification, I automatically pigeon-hole the "appeal," and my mind therefore offers to advertisements a hospitable retreat under Ambition, or Culture, or Physical development, or the Senses, or Vanity.

The last quality and the first are not always distinguishable, the one from the other. When a page of insinuating text and startling illustration assures me that the reading of a specified set of books will enable me,--a person temperamentally shy and physically inconspicuous--to convince judges and jurors, and to combine into a glorious whole the abilities of St. Chrysostom, Abelard, Shylock, Daniel Webster, and a Confederate veteran, I am disposed to feel that though hitherto I have been unappreciated, it now rests with me (and the set of books) to alter, even to change, the opinion of my personal public. I glow, too, under the conviction that correspondence courses can transform me into a trained nurse, an O. Henry, a Thomas Nast. My vanity makes the conventional years of hospital service, or a "born" ability to tell a story, or to caricature, seem superfluous in an equipment for success. And I am sure I could raise wheat and apples in the north and oranges and pecans in the south, even though I should bring to my enterprise no capital, no experience, no commonsense.

But while I yield readily and sympathetically to the magazine advertisement, my heartiest response is given to the letter that altruistically offers me counsels of perfection. There is a certain lack of privacy about the magazine advertisement; but the letter advertisement is confidential, even sometimes secretive. True, my name is frequently misspelled, my sex is changed, and the ink and type are glaringly different in the heading and in the letter proper. But these are trifling vagaries: it is my own letter, and the writer knows me intimately. He says this plainly. And he proves it by offering me the book, or the beautifier, or the investment which I had not even known I wanted, but which I do want instantly, and with an intensity that falls short only of cutting from the lower corner of the page the slanting coupon that will procure me farther information.

It is this intimacy of attitude on the part of the writers of form-letters that gives me keenest pleasure. I like the way in which a kindly, tolerant young person--youth will always out--assures me that my manner of life and my personal predilections are as an open book to him. I like the first-aid flavor of his opening paragraph. I like most of all the jaunty soul-brother way in which he dallies with his point.

"The writer of this letter has been pondering a good deal", begins one of these experts in the personal appeal, "on the sort of letter he would like to get from So-and-So." And at the conclusion of his clever page, he inquires ingenuously (or artistically): "Is this the sort of letter _you_ like to get from So-and-So?" Bless the boy! of course it is.

And I do enjoy the letter that is designed to make me leap from my seat with the first line: "Tomorrow may be too late!" or, "This idea was worth $100 to one person--it may prove even more valuable to you;" or, "Shakespeare died in 1616!"

Again, the subject may be approached obliquely: "You have read of course, the interesting story in the _Sunday Morning Sunshine_, entitled "Sparkles." You'll remember how Dorothy--" And about the middle of page two I find that the reason why the heroine was a heroine was because she had a piece of furniture, the duplicate of which I am granted an opportunity to purchase, if I act quickly, at greatly reduced rates.

But although the letter-writing section of psychological advertisers gives me keen pleasure, they also give me some anxiety. It seems to me that they waste a good deal of good effort. The reason for this failure to conserve, lies, I think, in the lack of an ingredient that would fuse all of this experimental psychology and engaging personality into a practical working whole. And by "working" I mean money getting: for of course advertisers have their reason for being, in the persuading of somebody to buy something, or to subscribe to something. The ingredient which I miss is businesslike accuracy. Of course I realize that these are merely form-letters, that the mailing list is compiled from any available source. But the advertisers wish each person who receives a letter to feel that it was written for him or her personally, and they take a great deal of trouble to perfect the atmosphere. It is not artistic, or professional, therefore, to destroy the illusion by the address or the opening sentence. It was a disgusted gentleman who received a letter which began thus:

"Dr. John Doe
Professor of Latin
University of Utopia

Dear Sir:

A friend of yours--she prefers that we should not use her
name--tells us that you are the best dressed woman in your
city. Our new line of evening frocks...."

And women often receive letters such as the following:

"Miss Margaret Roe, etc., etc.

Dear Madam:

As a man who knows a good pipe from a bad one, will you grant
us an opportunity to show you...."

Undoubtedly these charming highly imaginative specialists in advertising give great pleasure. But when business houses month after month send advertising letters which set forth the glories of something glaringly impossible of enjoyment by the person to whom the letter is addressed, then that person is likely to reflect that squandered postage, and inefficient management, must be paid for in the price or quality of the thing advertised.

The literary value of a personal form-letter is not affected, however, by the question of practical usefulness. Nothing could lessen my pleasure in a recent letter that shows me how I may realize the "chummy comradeship of Emerson's nature poems," and the "dainty art of Shelley and Keats." The writer also tells me that he knows what my principal problem is. And the opening sentence of the same letter seems to explain why I enjoy all advertisements:

"To that 'marvellous interestingness of life' which Arnold
Bennett says literature reflects, is due the fundamental
liking for good reading of some kind...."

_The Curse of Fall Elections_

We have received the usual number of exhortations to do our duty in preparing for the fall elections. Thank you. We will do the best we can, but on account of the war we are already late in getting into the country for the summer, and our doctor orders us away as soon as we can go.

Many of the people who exercise any influence for good are gone already, while most of those whose influence is evil--who live by politics are here and will stay here or within easy reach, to attend to business.

Moreover all those whose laziness, incapacity and crankiness prevent their having money enough to get away--the whole Bolshevik crowd of socialists, synadicalists and anarchists, remain here under the influence of those who live by politics.

If there ever was an invention of the devil, it is fall elections.

Elections should be held early in April, before so many good people go away, and after they have had half the year at home to do their best in.

_Larrovitch_

Our habitual readers may be surprised at our serving them a book notice. But the circumstances leading to this one are peculiar.

In its thirty-six years, the Authors Club has published but two books: _The Liber Scriptorum_, and _Feodor Vladimir Larrovitch, An Appreciation of His Life and Works_, which has recently appeared. The name of Larrovitch was mentioned in the last Casserole; we are now able to describe the permanent tribute to his personality which the Authors has made.

The volume consists of papers read at the Larrovitch centenary celebration (April 26th, 1917--postponed from April 1st) together with others since contributed. The contents page notes a sonnet by Clinton Scollard, Prolegomenon by Prof. Franklin H. Giddings, a personality sketch by Wm. George Jordan, translations and an article on "The Truth and False About Larrovitch" by Richardson Wright, translations of three Larrovitch poems by George S. Hellman, translations of Larrovitch letters by Thomas Walsh, a paper on his recollection of the great Russian by Dr. Titus Munson Coan, who, it will be recalled was one of the original "Friends of Russian Freedom," bibliography and bibliographical notes by Arthur Colton, whose name is already well known to readers of the UNPOPULAR REVIEW; and a table of references in English, French, German, Spanish and Russian compiled by Dr. Gustave Simonson. There are twelve illustrations in the volume, showing Larrovitch manuscripts, portraits at various ages, portraits of Larrovitch's parents, the room at Yalta in which the author died, and his grave. The book was designed by William Aspenwall Bradley of the University Press, and executed by Munder of Baltimore, making it a unique piece of typographical excellence.

That the Authors should have picked out this Russian from all the writers whirling in the vortex of literature, is explained in the preface and the dedication. The book is dedicated to the lasting sympathy between the American people and the Russian. And the preface states that the path to peace along which nations can walk to mutual understanding, is the path of the arts--the path of music and painting and literature. This is indeed true.

_Our Index_

The example of our "Father Parmenides," is always good, and we shall imitate it in the particular set forth in this extract from _The Atlantic_ for last December:

Following a convention, unquestioned and well-nigh universal,
the _Atlantic_ has for sixty years published semi-annually in
December and June an index designed for the convenience of
readers who bind their magazines. This index with title-page
occupies six pages; and while of great service to a couple of
thousand subscribers and to a few hundred libraries, it is to
eighty-odd thousand readers [These figures make us feel very
small.] merely a dead and cumbersome weight. This month,
therefore, we are breaking sharply with tradition, ... we are
printing the index in its usual form, but in a small edition,
and as a separate pamphlet, and hold ourselves ready to send
it to _any reader who applies for a copy within thirty days of
the publication of this magazine_.

This change will involve the saving of a paper-wastage....

All paper saved tends to lower the price, which has already reached a height obstructive to the diffusion of knowledge.

_A New "OUIJA Board" Book_

By PATIENCE WORTH

HOPE TRUEBLOOD

_A Mid-Victorian Novel by a Pre-Victorian Writer_

By the author of "The Sorry Tale"

Edited by C. S. Yost

$1.50 net

In this new novel of mid-Victorian days with its pervading sense of dark mystery, "Patience Worth" abandons her archaic dialect, and writes in modern English.

"Whether in the body or in the spirit, the author of the
present volume is singularly gifted with imagination,
invention and power of expression. 'Hope Trueblood' is much
superior to 'The Sorry Tale,' partly because it is written in
good English and partly because it displays far greater
ingenuity of imagination ... a work approximating absolute
genius."--_N. Y. Tribune_.

"A novel that George Eliot might not have been ashamed to own
up to."--_N. Y. Sun_.

"From the very first there is established an atmosphere true
to type and convincing. 'Hope' is one of the most radiant
children we've met in a book in many a day. 'Patience Worth'
has arrived."--_Chicago Daily News_.

HENRY HOLT & COMPANY 19 WEST 44th STREET NEW YORK

End of Project Gutenberg's The Unpopular Review, Number 19, by Various