The Washington times., 1917-03-06

scription Of Hermione's salon. The
Russian was picturing q students
circle In Moscow"
"A circle II q slothful, dull living
side by side in common, to which is
attached q serious significance and q
show OF rational activity; the circle
replaces conversation by debate,
trains you In fruitless discussion,
draws you away from solitary, useful
labor, develops In you the itch for
authorship-deprives you, in fact, Of
all freshness and virgin vigor OF soul.
The circle-why, it's vulgarity and
boredom under the name OF brother
hood and friendship A concatena-
tion Of Observation-Disclosures and cavil-
ings under the pretense Of openness
and sympathy; In the circle-thanks
TO the right OF every friend, at all
hours and seasons, to poke his un-
washed fingers into the very Utmost
soul of his comrade-no one has O
single spot in his soul pure and un-
defiled; In the circle they fall down
before the shallow, vain, smart talk
er and the premature wiseacre, and
worship the rhymster with no poetic
gift, but full OF subtle ideas"
r. p. suggests that we quit writing
about the war In Europe, saying that
what our readers want from us 10
agreeable nonsense.
We have readers and readers. We
long ago gave up trying to please all
of them. We please ourself, and
some people get sore and some like
1t. And we fnd that In the long
run we please more readers by for
getting our readers entirely while we
write and pleasing ourself than we
do when we get overly anxious to
please readers.
A Reader Is q very human sort of
animal. II he detects you making too
frantic q bid to please him II arouses
In his breast q certain opposition: he
determines that you will have 20 shoto
him. He says 50 himself: Does this
gink suppose that I'll fall for thdtP'
The feeling Is natural. It does the
Reader, as q species, credit. He
would rather hear what a writer
thinks than what the writer believes
the Reader wishes the writer to
think.
As to keeping on the war, we would
be obliged to some one who would
show US how to do 1t.
In order to keep of the war nova
days, one would have to keep on the
earth.
At least two or three times a week
we make up our mind to give this
column a rest from the war. But we
seldom succeed entirely.
We drag out all the time-worn gags
and wheezes. the stock properties of
the business. and look them over.
There is the antique quip based on
the high cost Of living. for instance.
Can you do anything with II without
suggesting the war? We can't
Even limericks and jingles and puns
sadly receive a certain impression from
what is happening in the world.
Even archy and Hermione take Il
up in a serious way. II we don't watch
them closely.
You might think we could write
poems about spring and keep away
from the war. But even that is not
SO easy as 1t looks. The spring poem
crop is beginning to be harvested al
ready. Out OF about 10 forwarded to
US since the middle Of February at
least 30 have wandered into the war.
Then there are fashions. Colyum-
-
Some of the funniest things that have
ever been written have been written
by colyumists about fashions. But 20
and look at the fashions yourself.
They have all been affected by the
war.
Prohibition and drunkenness have
always been good for a certain
amount OF copy. Some OF the most
refined and yet telling witticisms in
the world have been pulled by news
paper men who were writing about
prohibition or about inebriety. But
how can one write about liquor these
days and refuse to recognize the Pc
culiar relationship of the temperance
question to the war situation?
There are the Jokes about Rastus.
All the stories that start nowadays:
"a coIored man named Rastus, a prod.
uct of the Georgia cotton country who
had lust come North for the first
tIme"-all these stories are now con.
nected with the war.
The broad field OF conjugal infelic-
ity, in past years SO productive of
delight when titled with the imple-
ment of philosophical humor, yields
little OF the old familiar fruit these
days; some one has sowed IL with
dragons teeth. The war has got into
the Court OF Domestic Relations.
I sent my soul through the Invisible.
Some letter of that after-life to spell,
And by and by my. soul returned and
said:
"BilI sherman's ghost has nothing
new to add"
DON MARQUIS.