 |
unearths some literary gems.
From Iole, by Robert W. Chambers:
***“He calls it the house beautiful, you know.”“Why not the beautiful house?” asked Wayne, still more coldly.“Oh, he gets everything upside down.”***A thrill passed completely through Wayne, and probably came out on the other side.***“And, as it is the little things that are the most precious, so nothing, which is less than the very least, is precious beyond price.”***“Art is an art.” With which epigram he slowly closed his eyes....“Art,” continued the poet, opening his heavy lids with a large, sweet smile, “Art is above Art, but Art is never below Art. Art, to be Art, must be artless. That is a very precious thought—very, very precious. Thank you for understanding me—thank you.”***“You ask me what is Art. I will tell you; it is this!” And the poet, inverting his thumb, pressed it into the air. Then, carefully inspecting the dent he had made in the atmosphere, he erased it with a gesture and folded his arms.***A mechanical smile struggled to break out, but it was not the smile, any more than glucose is sugar.***A wan young man whose face figured only as a by-product of his hair whispered “Hush!”***“Verse is a necklace of tinted sounds strung idly, yet lovingly, upon stray tinseled threads of thought.”***“Let me cite, as an example, those beautiful verses of Henry Haynes,” he replied gravely.TO BE OR NOT TO BEI’d rather be a Could Be,If I can not be an Are;For a Could Be is a May Be,With a chance of touching par.I had rather be a Has BeenThan a Might Have Been, by far;For a Might Be is a Hasn’t BeenBut a Has was once an Are!Also an Are is Is and Am;A Was was all of these;So I’d rather be a Has BeenThan a Hasn’t, if you please.[I suspect Chambers made that poem--and its purported author--up; the only famous Henry Haynes I find is an entertainer who came later. Bernard Shaw in this book is represented by an offstage playwright* called Barnard Haw, so maybe "Henry Haynes" is a spoof on Heinrich Heine or someone? I also learned that this verse is widely misattributed to Milton Berle (who was born several years after this book was published). Though that may have happened in the usual way, I suppose in this case Berle himself might be to blame, as he was notorious for appropriating material.][*Well, of course the playwright usually remains offstage, but this one is doubly offstage.]***[Bonus: This is another book that includes Wodehousian bickering-telegram business. Iole was published in 1905, when I believe PGW was literarily still in short pants, that is to say mostly writing school stories--so I bet Chambers anticipated him.]
|
