we often wonder whether people are really as human as they appear, or is it only our imagination? everybody, we suggest, thinks of others as being excessively human, with all the frailties and crotchets appertaining to that curious[pg 237] condition. but each of us also (we are not dogmatic on this matter) seems to regard himself as existing on a detached plane of observation, exempt (save in moments of vivid crisis) from the strange whims of humanity en masse.
for example, consider the demeanour of people at a theatre while waiting for the curtain to go up. to note the censoriousness with which they study each other, one concludes that each deems himself (herself) singularly blessed as the repository of human correctness.
incidentally, why is it that one gets so thirsty at the theatre? we never get thirsty at the movies, or not nearly so thirsty. the other evening we drank seven paper cups full of water in the intermissions of a four-act play.
the presence of people sitting behind one is the reason (we fancy) for a great deal of the queer antics that take place while one is waiting for the curtain to rise, particularly when it is twenty minutes late in going up as it was at a certain theatre the other evening. people behind one have a horrible advantage. one knows that they can hear everything you say, unless you whisper it in a furtive manner, which makes them suspect things far worse than any one would be likely to say in a philadelphia theatre, except, of course, on the stage. the fact that you know they can overhear you, and intend to do so, leads one on to make the most out[pg 238]rageous, cynical, and scoffish remarks, particularly to denounce with fury a play that you may be enjoying quite passably well. all over the house you will hear (after the first act) men saying to their accompanying damsels, “how outrageously clumsy that act was. i can't conceive how the director let it get by.” now they only say this because they think it will make the people behind feel ashamed for having enjoyed such a botch. but does it? the people in the row behind immediately begin to praise the play vigorously, for the benefit of the people behind them; and in a minute you see the amusing spectacle of the theatre cheering and damning by alternate rows.
here and there you will see a lady whispering something to her escort, and will notice how ladies always look backward over a lily shoulder while whispering. they want to see what effect this whispering will have on the people behind. there is a deep-rooted feud between every two rows in an audience. the front row, having nobody to hate (except possibly the actors), take it out in speculating why on earth anybody can want to sit in the boxes, where they can see nothing.
what the boxes think about we are not sure. we never sat in a box except at a burlicue.
and then a complete essay might be written on the ads in the theatre program—what high-spirited ads they are! how full of the savour and luxurious[pg 239] tang of the beau monde! how they insist on saying specialité instead of specialty!
well, all we meant to say when we began was, the heroine was only fair—by which we mean to say she was beautiful and nothing else.[pg 240]
musings of john mistletoe
it was old john mistletoe, we think, in his “book of deplorable facts,” discussing the congenial topic of “going to bed” (or was it in his essay on “the concinnity of washerwomen?”) said something like this:
life passes by with deplorable rapidity. post commutatorem sedet horologium terrificum, behind the commuter rideth the alarm clock, no sooner hath he attained to the office than it is time for lunch, no sooner hath lunch been dispatched than it is time to sign those dictated letters, no sooner this accomplished, 'tis time to hasten trainward. the essential thing, then, is not to let one's experiences flow irrevocably past like a river, but to clutch and hold them, thoughtfully, long enough to examine and, in a manner, sieve them, to halt them in the mind for meditation. the relentless fluidity of life, the ease with which it vanisheth down the channel of the days, is the problem the thoughtful man must deal with. the urgent necessity is to dam the stream here and there so we can go swimming in it.
time is a breedy creature: the minutes propagate hours, the hours beget days, the days raise huge families of months, and before we know it we are crowded out of this sweet life by mere surplus of time's offspring. this is a brutish malthusianism [pg 241]which must be adamantly countered. therefore it is my counsel that every man, ere he retire for the night and commit his intellect to inscrutable nothingness, do let it hop abroad for a little freedom. life must be taken with a grain of saltation: let the spirit dance a measure or two ere it collapse. for this purpose it is my pleasure, about the hour of midnight, to draw a jug of cider from the keg and a book from the shelf. i choose some volume ill written and stupidly conceived, to set me in conceit with myself. i read a few pages, and then apply myself to the composition of verses. these done, i burn them, and go to bed with a cheerful spirit.
