The Portland daily press., 1878-12-07
Y0rick's Drawer.

times' keep comparatively few people from
going to see what they really want to see.
A compromise is made. The pleasures we
are not inclined to are discarded. We no
longer 60 to places because it is "the proper
thing' to 60, but because we are interested.
Those OF US who do not care for music sternly
economize in the matter of concerts. When
money was plenty we spent much for show
and went to musical entertainments because
it was the fashion. But we really like Buff
falo Bill and 60 to see him now, regardless
of expense. As with amusements so with
other matters. We cease to buy books and
pictures if we do Lot happen to love them,
but we smoke as many cigars as ever or eat
as many pounds of chocolate creams. Artists
lollipop trades are brisk. People can 10 lon
ger afford to buy both the things they like
and the things they pretend to like.
The announcement that the Boston
Literary World will hereafter be Issued fort
nightly instead of monthly will be welcome
news to many of us. 1t is as though dear
friend who visited us but seldom should
promise to come twice as often. The LITER
ary World gives Us the freshest literary sos-
sip as well as pleasant chat about books aud
well considered criticisms of their merits and
faults. Its lists of notable papers in the Eng
lish and American periodicals are of the
greatest convenience to students. OF late it
has been publishing table of pseudonyms.
In the table Yorick finds blank against
"Toby Candor." He need not tell Maine
people that "Toby Candor'' is Mr.. W. S.
Whitman of Augusta, so long the Maine cor
respondent of the Boston Journal.
1t is fashion nowadays with some, an
affectatien with many, to complain of the alb.
breviation of language, the use of condensed
forms of speech. The complaint comes chiefly
from professional dealers in words. Words
are their only stock-in-trade, and they seem
to fear cessation Of demand, that their
goods will get shop-worn, and they be left
''long' of them. Perhaps they are fastening
to ''unload,' and that accounts for their YER
bosity. They are certainly making griev-
GUS outcry.
The other day one of the loquacious peo-
pie broke into print and gave with many ex-
pressions of modification an illustration of
the vile habit of condensed speech. As he
was walking in the street his ears-long ones,
doubtless-were vexed by this inquiry, put
by one man to another: 'Theatre t'night ?"
The answer was eyes" The man of the
offended ears was horriied and at once went
to newspaper Office and doubtless bored the
editor until that worthy gave him column
or two for the sake of quiet. The columns
were filled for the most part with objurgatory
epithets. The men of brief speech were con-
demned as careless, as lazy, as disrespectful
to each other and to the English language.
The purist apparently would have one ask,
'Do you intend to go to the theatre to-
night?" and the other to reply 81 do intend
to 60 to the theatre Notwithstanding az
ter the Ollendorf method. Now what is the
benefit of all those words? The use of Ian
guage, the dictionaries say, is to express
thought. 1t seems to Yorick that the idea is
plainly conveyed by "Theatre t'night ?''
Does not "Go'n't snow?" give ones mean
ioS HuisO 40 WOh do 1O yOu tuluh IL Is SOlUS
to snow?" Why waste time and breath on
trivial inquiries? If the thought is royal
then it is well TO robe it in purple garments
and deck it with gems. Yorick for one
would not lose word from the opening SEN
tences of "The Stones of Venice" or from
De Quincey's stately description Of ths litera-
ry style of Sir Thomas Browne, or from Ra-
leigh's magnificent apostrophe to Death. A
ceremonial inquiry or an expression of court
esy may well too be put in robes OF state.
But royal dress i'll becomes Shacabacs, or gar
lands of flowers Nick Bottoms, or starched
shirts Christopher Slys of ideas.
There are writers who naturally object to
the fashion of curtalment of speech, for they
deal in language, not in ideas. They peddle
husks for living. Their fg-leaves do not
cover nakedness of thought, out conceal the
want of it. These men cannot be blamed for
resisting the drift toward brevity of express
sion. What would become OF Waller Pater
should people compel him to express his
thought in brief language? To search for
that thought now is like hunting for Gratia-
Nv 81 tdlA Vi WhCdt III luC uuSuol VI CQaII,
How long could Sidney Lanier keep on sing
ing? Those who object to short cuts to an
idea, to running across lots to get at fleet
ing thought, should read the Ahbe Blanchet's
apologize of 'The Academy of Silence" and
see how much expression can be condensed.
Perhaps they will then acknowledge the
truth of the old saying, mostly in use by big
men when talking to little women, that "the
best things are put up in small packages
Since the 2nd of December we have had the
highest authority for shortcut English. 1t is
now the Kings English, or the Queens; for
did not Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and
Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., &c., tel
egraph to her daughter; Delighted at recep-
ton. Say sup
Is it Carlyle who has preached through
silence? Well, Carlyle is a good man to err
with.
-Yorick sometimes finds in old book-shops
things as quaint and curious as Poe's volume
of forgotten lore. A few days ago he chapced
upon copy of "The Farmers Almanack for
1926. particularly intended for the State of
Maine, and calculated for the meri dian Of
Portland" 1t was published in this city by
William Hyde, who perhaps knows more of
astronomy now than he did when he dis
coursed, fifty years ago, so learnedly about the
planets. In those days, if we may believe
the Almanack (and in its notice to Patrons
and Correspondents it says with some empha-
sis of type: "Strict accuracy is our aim) Cali
fornia did not monopolize the big trees. An
account is given of "holow sicamore tree
on the land of Abraham Miller, in the town
ship of Seal, county OF Scioto, Ohio" into the
trunk of which ''13 men advanced on horse
back, and sat there with perfect ease."
The farmers Calendar, to which particu-
lar attention was called, was made up then,
as is the fashion now, of suggestions as to
the framing of COW houses, and the making
of butter, and the fattening of pigs, and of
moralizing more or less dreary. The Farm
er tells on one page how to make cider ''good
49, l..