The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-01-11


To the regions below,
She has gone down herself for lover.
Carlyle once said, speaking of his robust
youth: 81 never knew had stomach un-
til was Thirty years old.'' 1t may be seri-
ously doubted if his ignorance was shared by
those who provided for his bodily wants. At
thirty dyspepsia seized him and his stomach
made itself known. He misused it and it
complained. AS long as it was in health it
made no sign. May it not be too that those
people who are so uneomfortably conscious Of
the state of their souls have bad ones?
And that the healthy soul is one that gives
no trouble and leaves us unconscious of its
existence? That is something for the theolo.
gians to think over.
To see the title of famous poem on a
concert programme, attributed to the man
who set the words to music, is to see ridicu-
lous and annoying thing. The annoyance is
caused by the omission of the authors name,
the rid;cule is at the expense of the unfortu-
nate who has usurped the place Of the author
Thus, we see "Break, Break, Break-Mar-
ston," and never hint of Tennyson; or ga
Musical Observation-Disclosures aud not an
intimation that Mrs. Browning had any
thing to do with the song in honor of the
Great God Pan. OF course there is no in
tent to deceive-that gees without telling.
But the pretentiousness OF the thing is OBJ
jectionable. 1t is as though Bellows's New
England Sunday scene should be taken to
one of our art stores to be framed and should
then appear labelled "The Village Elms-
Hale;'' or as though the latest illustrated
edition of notable poem should be publish
ed as sThe Flood of Years-Linton;'
Custom is pleaded as excuse. Let us do
away then with the custom, which has moth
ing to recommend it. What possible objec-
ton can there be to writing "Break, Break,
Break-words by Tennyson, music by Mar
ston"? That association of names is proper
enough. 1t cannot be that the words are of
no consequence. If they are Of no conse-
quence, and the air is everything, we may as
well sing; Glug, Gug, Glug, from thy old
stone jug o Gin-though in that case it
might be well to have livelier music.
-Bookish people, oil those having knowl.
edge of art or those who have travelled much
are sometimes great prigs. An instance in
point. IL one of the art stores in city that
shall be nameless, stood during the holiday
season, a cast of that famous sculpture, the
Venus ofMilo. A lady who greatly admir-
ed the cast wanted to buy it, but wished her
husband to see it before the purchase was
| made. So she sent him to the store one day
and he asked for the statuette. No sooner
did his eyes fall upon the miniature of
Lady of Milo than be exclaimed; ''Hoh! I
don't want that, it's broken" He had MOTTO
ed that the arms we're gone.
AS he went out of the shop one standing
near by lifted up both hands and said in hor-
rifed tones, "What brute that man isv'
Au contraire what fool the last speaker
was. he happened to have some knowl-
edge, perhaps much, OF art or its history,
and knew the story of the statue; and so
he looked with contempt upon the man who
knew nothing of it, and who, seeing it for the
| first time, promptly noticed its great blem-
ish. Very likely the man of "culture' had
brought himself to believe that the Venus
looked better without arms. The other, who
was accustomed to see women with arms,
and liked them that way, hadn't had his
taste vitiated, and promptly expressed his
dissatisfaction. And it is quite possible that
In wit, in Judgment, in courage, in honesty,
in charity, in strength, in all the qualities
that 60 to make up manliness, he was the
equal of the man who called him brute be-
cause be wanted his statues in good repair.
Could the priggsh one meet the man who
chseled that statue he might discover that
the sculptor couldn't read. What shock
that would be to him! Quite possibly Co
lumbus knew nothing of the most famous
picture of his time, the Cenacolo of Leonardo
da Vinci. Must he therefore be called
bruteP 1t is DR.. Holmes who suggests that
the Hebrew patriarchs had small libraries, if
any, and he adds: "Yet think, if we could
ask in Abraham to dine with us men of let
ters next Saturday, we should feel honored
by his company"
speaking of sculpture, is it generally
known that ''to sculp," an expression COM
monty supposed to be the coinage of the
American newspaper humorist and of kind