INVOLUNTARY SONNET TO THE WORKERS FOR "LITTLE VERSES AND BIG NAMES" Mesdames: YOUR compilation is a book I would have taken pride to figure in, if it had not, unfortunately, been beyond my powers, by hook or crook, to write in verse, or, rather, what might look like verse if printed so as to begin each line with capitals. I hate like sin thereby, of course,-in thinking that I would as your most meritorious charity, which I would gladly further if I could. -JAMES BRANCH CABELL. TO SARAH BERNHARDT HE art of acting is a vagrant art; TH Its triumph's writ in water on the sands A perfect product of the brain and heart, But you, O lady of the Golden Voice, pain, Whose slightest smile bids ev'ry man rejoice, Within whose tears a thousand woes are pent, Will live this æon through, and live againYour perfect art its perfect monument. -CHANNING POLLOCK. A STORY IN NATURAL HISTORY It was a of brightch up was a morning of bright sunshine and a lit tle bird sat on the branch and caroled up to the skies and rejoiced in the sunshine and in his song. And there came along, creeping towards the bush, a bad, wicked snake, and the snake looked at the little bird and the little bird looked at the snake. And when a little bird has looked at a snake it cannot take its eyes off the snake until the snake has turned its head away; and the snake kept getting nearer and nearer to the bush. And the little bird said to himself, "What shall I do to make the snake turn away his head? I will tell the snake a whopper, so he said, "Mr. Snake, Mr. Snake, there's a beautiful landscape just behind your tail"; but the snake did not care anything at all about beauty or landscapes, and he kept getting nearer and nearer to the bush. 99 And then the little bird tried again; "Mr. Snake, Mr. Snake, there's a man standing close beside you with a great big club"; but the snake didn't scare worth a confederate dollar and he kept getting nearer and nearer to the bush. And then the little bird, with a last effort for liberty and for life, threw away his conscience altogether, and he told an awful whopper. "Mr. Snake, Mr. Snake, there's a really interesting young woman standing close behind you." Now, the snake said to himself, "There are a thousand chances to one that the little bird is lying, but there are ten thousand chances to one that if I do not see a really interesting young woman now I never shall." So he turned his head and the little bird flew away, rejoicing. And there was no really interesting young woman there. And why not? "Because," said the bold bad bachelor who told me the story, "there never was a really interesting young woman anywhere." -GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM. CROSS WAYS MAY your "Little Verses and Big Names" prove to be a safe and sane "Cockhorse" for carrying these little children of the future past "Banbury" and all other crosses. -BRIGADIER GENERAL ANSON MILLS. |