n-a.1 i ' - t c -
10
THE COURIER.
unftjiuw
r-
?
It !
lw
m
i
81
55 J F
L) J
6 -:
.s
i :
L? M
t
r
JE rj
.
if li
II li
Si a
is
!H
en are supposed to typify. It is not
certain whether the florist or nature
herself has rebelled; but the hybrid or
chids, the frowsy chrysanthemums, the
blue roses those scentless pretenders to
the throne must go; their reign is
over. Spring styles in flowere! What
a parody to fling in the face of Mother
Earth! One might as sensibly adver
tize the newest style in sun and moon
and stars! as well 'juggle with that
"old, old fashion, death."
But hark ye sweet wooing south
wind, they are coming back, those old
sweethearts of yours. Pinks, blue gen
tians, bleeding-hearts and wide-eyed
pansies. Wee, modest things, with no
splendor of exclusive style; but for all
that the real darlings of the wood and
glade, fresh with the dew of heaven,
golden with the taste of the Bun.
It k only the edge of a very thin
wedge, perhaps; but it may mean better
things for you and me. Possibly they
will have a message for ub, those tender
long-exiled blossoms. All the time
while Mother Earth has held them close
to her throbbing heart, I doubt not Bhe
has entrusted them with a message for
us. She has whispered to them where
we may find a balm, patent to calm the
fever of our reetiveness. But will we
hear? Have our feet not been led too
far astray along the crooked way of
doubt and disbelief f Are we not too
dated by the sophistry of false prophets
to understand?
Yes! That is right! Smile your large,
dalm, married smile of tolerance for your
matetoss spinster friend and tell her she
Is morbid. Advise her to play golf, get
a ('bo" or do any impossible thing to
make a raving maniac of her. You will
scarcely need to be told I have not beeu
reading my Bible, which mother has
placed so conspicuously on the table
nearby! Having been somewhat under
the weather since I wrote you last, I
have been devouring the novels which
the writers of today seem to conceive
and run off in the thousands by machin
ery, and shoot by machinery into the
oatBtretched hands of the waiting pub
lic. I have literary indigestion, and the
market offers me no relief, but only
throws more material in my way, trust
ing to the known absence of will on my
part of a gourmand to dispose cf it My
last venture was a plunge into Henry
James' "Sacred Fount"
If any one will arise and tell me what
he means! What has he against us
that he should deliberately lure us into
a mystic maze and leave us there, with
out one single Bilken thread of connect
ed thought to lead us out?
Perchance he got mad at our fathers,
but it is unworthy of him to wreck his
vengence on vs. You Bhould read what
Carolyn Wells says about it I enclose
her poem cut from The Critic, lest you
should not have seen it It is too clev
er for you to miss.
For iartancr, gentle Critic ,
to your pages I repair,
There's ditcuaMon on the carpet,
there's dhrrnrioo in the air ;
Tie a most mysterious screed
coaceraing which I am in doubt ,
Can you tellwhat Henry James'
latest novel k about?
Can you help me as I blindly
aad precariously mount
To the dizzy hctehte of diction crag
gag round "The Sacred Founts
Aad are you of a certainty what
could have been amiss
With the ttkra-iaaer consciousness
of pretty Mrs. Bras?
Or what the average ineptitude
of ecstasy may mean
When the torch of an analogy
fights visions crystalline?
Aad why the intellectually
istim-tr agree
Exemption from intense obsessions
useless teem to be?
Now themystifyiag marvel
of this analytic chat
Is that the very speakers don't know
what they're driving at.
The characterless characters
arebsautiftillyftoe
In their psychologic amplitude
of action and design ,
But when Mrs. Briss was silent
this is what I want to know
Why for several soulful seconds
did she fairly hold the blow
In sustained detachment quavering
while she focussed the intense
Ification of abysmal
and maniacal suspense?
I'm really very fond of James ,
I willingly agree
For doing parlor tricks with words
his equal may not be .
Tis nothing short of marvellous ,
the way he slings his ink ,
But in this latest book he has
out-Jamesed himself, I think .
The mad gush of "The Sacred Fount"
is ringing in my ear,
Its dictional excitements
are obsessing me. I fear,
For its subtle lascination
makes me read it, then, alack,
I find I have the James-jams ,
a very bad attack I
Forgive me, Eleanor! It is positively
inexcusable to waste postage on such
ravings as this embodies. Why are peo
ple bo merciless toward their friends? I
impose on you just because, bb Gertrude
inelegantly expresses it, "I know you'll
stand for it When I refused straw
berries at dinner tonight, mother said
she thought I needed a tonic; I believe
I do.
If you read the newspapers, you know
what to take for that "tired feeling."
Yours as always,
Penelope.
LINCOLN LETTER.
Lincoln, Nebr.,
June 18, 1901.
Dear Penelope:
I have just finished reading a letter
from a'friend in Ohio, a young woman
engaged in newspaper work, and for the
life of me I cannot decide whether this
letter makes me want to laugh or to cry.
In the interim of making the decision I
will copy a few paragraphs for you here
and there: you will then understand
why my emotions are mixed.
"Dear Eleanor: It's almost time to
go home, but 1 want to Bay hello and a
few other things to you first. I tell you
this newspaper business is exciting!
There is an element of uncertainty
about it from the beginning to the end
of every week that is fascinating, yet
exasperating. I may work like a galley
6lave digging up a page or two of club
material, and it is literally dug up by
the roots at this season of the year when
most of the clubs are taking a vacation,
1 may spend the little golden mo
ments when I would so much rather
read a novel in wading through the
daily papers searching for items con.
cerning women and their achievements,
'only to find at the end of the week that
an unexpected full-page advertisement
has come in and must be run, and my
precious club stuff must wait. Since it
is the advertisement that brings in the
money while the club matter does noth
ing but elevate the mind, it is well that
it should go. A sort of "survival of the
fittest" principle must underlie this ex
perience. I may Bpend all my substance
in car fare and wear blisters on my ped
al extremities racing after society items
only to find that they, too, must be sac
rificed to the money-bringing "ad."
But such is life, and it's worth some
thing, after all, to know that one is sav
ing the nation at the rate of twenty-five
hours out of every twenty-four.
This is the day when we stop to take
breath before buckling down to another
week's work. Bather it is the half day
of partial rest, for Friday mornings are
busy times when the looe9 ends of news
must be picked up, and we have to dis
cover in a very definite way exactly
were we are at. Then when finally the
pages are put together, we are liable to
discover to our horror that there are
several mistakes in the spelling which it
k too late to correct. All these and
many other thrilling experiences come
in the life of a newspaper worker, yet
there is no other life half so fascinating
and attractive."
There is something pathetic, yet com
pelling admiration, in my friend's enthu
siasm. It iB so young much younger,
in fact, than the young woman herself;
for her hair shows many touches of gray
and her face bears evidence ot years of
battle with a world both stern and
cold. In this age of labor-selling it is
refreshing to see an example of labor
giving, ot devotion to an ideal with no
expectation of financial reward other
than an income sufficient for very mod
est living expenses. Omar Khayyam
esque, kit not? with this differeLce,
however: my friend does not shut her
self up in a castle to ponder on the inex
plicable problems of heaven and earth;
her mission is among men, and her aim
is to counteract in part the feverish
sensationalism of the daily papers with
a sheet which k like a wood-violet in a
mass of paper poppies. I wish you
could see that paper, Penelope! I will
try to secure a copy for you. Not a
column in its ten pages has a tendency
to increase the morbid feverkhness of
our everyday life. Not a column of ac
cidents, of murder, of suicide or of scan
dal in this dittle paper. In the face
of the flaunting headlines of our city
dailies, this sheet is like a golden shower
at the close of a hot and weary day.
1 have wondered many times if the
papers or the readers are to blame for
the flood of printed supersensational
km whether the editors create the de
mand or merely supply it. Whichever
may be true it is strange that the public
does not tire of the monotony of the
daily papers week after week. With a
trifling change ot stage-setting the trag
edy of life goes on. A change in dates,
locations and names, and the columns
of murders and accidents might remain
otherwise unchanged. Yet the papers
reflect a faithful picture of our twen
tieth century life, existence, I should
say, for few of us are living a life in its
truest sense. A friend once wrote to
me: "Existence is not life. Existence
is measured by extent alone, but life is
measured by content." I wondered
when reading the letter whether the ac
cent Bhould be placed on the first or
second syllable of "content," but con
cluded that it would apply in either
case.
Not only do mortals refuse to live
sensibly, one minute at a time, but they
also deny themselves the time to die
natural deaths. A fiabh of the revolver
a draught from the bottle snatched
on the run from some druggist's shelf,
and another soul is projected into eter
nity. Yet when we reflect on the joylessnees
of our human existence, our maddening
rush from the cradle to the grave, with
nerves strung to the highest tension,
when we remember the iack of harmony
between men and their surroundings
and their seeming indifference to this
lack I only wonder that the list of
tragedies is not larger from day to day.
This subject of harmony is one which
is worthy of our most serious consider
ation, not alone in its relation to the
science of music, but to overy human
life. It is conceded by psychologists
that harmony of surroundings, both ani
mate and inanimate, k essential to the
perfect development of overy human be
ing. And the greater the talent, the
natural ability, the more necessary this
harmony becomes. It is an unconscious
need, often, a need which bring an un
conscious irritation and diminution of
mental powers, the possession of this
mysterious something as unconsciously
tending toward the fullest development
of those powers. And generally speak
ingin exact proportion to a man's men
tal ability is his sensitiveness to out
ward impressions and to the harmony
between himself and his surroundings,
A few rare spirits have the faculty of
putting themselves in harmony, tempo
rarily, with any surroundings. Tact,
this faculty is sometimes called; I be
lieve it contains also an element of un
selfishness, the willingness to sacrifice
one's personal comfort for the purpose
of imparting that courage and hopeful
ness which come alone through sympa
thy and genuine harmony of thought
How few of ub are willing to disturb our
personal lines of thought a single min
ute for the purpose of giving sympathy
and encouragement to a fellow-thinker!
"I am gentle and amiable when you
come my way: a6k me to go yours and 1
am a raging lion!" is the motto of too
many of us by far. "When I am not
thinking deeply about my own af
fairs I want to give my mind a vacation,
and will not trouble it with yours!" Ob,
for the touch in humanity of the spirit
of the Chrkt ! for just one soul to which
the injunction "Bear ye one another's
burdens" appeals as a privilege instead
of a command!
Unselfishness is rapidly becoming a lost
art Our national and individual inde
pendence is the partial cause of this fact.
Human beings were originally depend
ent on each other for sympathy and for
inspiration as well as for material help.
But when our fellow-beings so vigor
ously resent this dependence being
placed upon them, when they are indi
vidual exemplifications of the laissez
faire doctrine, an unhealthy and aggres
sive form of independence is forced
upon us, and we not only refuse to bear
our neighbor's burden, but lose no op
portunity of piling our own upon his
shrinking shoulders.
Faithfully yours,
Eleanor.
First Pub., June 2-3
Notice of Chattel Mortgage Sale.
Notice Is hereby given that by virtue of a
chattel mortgage dated on the 15th day or Oc
tober, 1900, and duly Hied In the ofnee of the
county clerk, Lancaster county, Nebraska, on i
the 15th day of October, 19C0, and executed by v
Milton H. Spere to Henry F. Peters and as- V
signed by him before maturity to George T. '
KInne and now owned by said George T. Kinnc.
to secure the payment of the sum of seentecn
hundred and twenty-fh e dollars, and upon which
there is now due fifteen hundred and thirty-tlie
dollars. Default having been made in the pay
ment of .said sum and no suit or other proceed
ings at law having been instituted to recover
said debt or any part thereof, therefore I w ill
sell the property therein described.
One rubber tire surrey, two seats, 1 Columbus
surrey.trimmed in whipcord, I ball-bearing rul
ber tire buggy, top trimmed in whip cord, 1 red
gear rubber tire buggy, leather top, 1 red gear
road wagon, rubber tire, .open, 1 top bugg
leather top, new. 1 black pacing marc, 7 jears
old, weight 1050 lbs., sound, has white legs,
named Bessie, one bay horse set en years old,
named Hay Pat, 1050 lbs., sound, 1 bay horse
named Prince, 8 years old, sound. 1100 lbs., 1
sorrel mare 7 years old, weight 900 lbs., no
name, sound, 1 bay marc 6 years old, weight 1()
lbs, no name, 1 bay mare, white feet, 6 years old
sound, weight 1100 lbs., at public auction at
Milton H. Spere's barn, between I3thandllth
on K su, city of Lincoln, county of Lancaster,
state of Nebraska, on the 13 of July, 1901, at one
o'clock P. M. of said dav.
GEORGE T. KINNE.
CHEAPER THAN EVER
(J..
loraflo and JJtafy
Daily Tune JSthto
SeptJOth, J90J..
..VIA THE..
GREAT
ROCK ISLAND
ROUTE
Round Trap Rates
From Missouri River Points to Denver,
Colorado Springs and Pueblo,
fel K nIy ' to9 1 O Jnno 18 to30
qJX) Sept. 1-10 tylV July 10-Aug.3l
Similar reduced Ratos on samo dates to
other Colorado and Utah Tourist Points.
Bates from other points on Rock Island
Route proportionately lower on samo
dates of salo. Return limit Oct. 31, 1901.
THE SUPERB TRAIN,
Colorado IiMy?
Leaves Kansas City daily at 6:30 p. m.,
Omah at 5:20 p. m., St-Joe at 50 p. m.,
arriving Denver 1 1 :00 a. m., Colorado Sp'gs
C Mamtou ) 10 :35 a. ra Pueblo 1 1 :50 a . m .
Write for details and Colorado literature.
E. W. Thompson, a. G. P. A.
Topeka, Kans.
John Sebastian, Q. P. A., Chicago.
aSgBpSfefc!.
