Lost and Found

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Charles Dickens, during one of his visits to Paris, had his watch stolen from him at the theatre. This watch had been given to him by the Queen, and was, therefore, very much prized by him. On returning to his hotel, Dickens found a small parcel waiting him, to which was pinned the following note:–

Sir,–I hope you will excuse me, but I assure you I thought I was dealing with a Frenchman and not a countryman. Finding out my mistake, I hasten to repair it as much as lies in my power, by returning you herewith the watch I stole from you. I beg you to accept the homage of my respect, and to believe me, my dear countryman, your humble and obedient servant,

A PICKPOCKET.

— The Dickensian, September 1906

| Crime · Literature

The Consensus

Mrs. H.A. Deming spent a year assembling lines from 38 English and American poets into this mosaic verse, published originally in the San Francisco Times in the 19th century:

“Life”

Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour? [Young]
Life’s a short summer–man is but a flower. [Dr. Johnson]
By turns we catch the fatal breath and die; [Pope]
The cradle and the tomb, alas! how nigh. [Prior]
To be better far than not to be, [Sewell]
Though all man’s life may seem a tragedy; [Spencer]
But light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb– [Daniel]
The bottom is but shallow whence they come. [Sir Walter Raleigh]
Thy fate is the common fate of all; [Longfellow]
Unmingled joys here no man befall; [Southwell]
Nature to each allots his proper sphere, [Congreve]
Fortune makes folly her peculiar care. [Churchill]
Custom does often reason overrule, [Rochester]
And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool. [Armstrong]
Live well; how long or short permit to Heaven. [Milton]
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven. [Bailey]
Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face– [French]
Vile intercourse where virtue has no place; [Somerville]
Then keep each passion down, however dear, [Thompson]
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear. [Byron]
Her sensual snares let faithless pleasure lay, [Smollett]
With craft and skill to ruin and betray; [Crabbe]
Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise; [Massinger]
We masters grow of all that we despise. [Crowley]
Oh, then, renounce that impious self-esteem. [Beattie]
Riches have wings and grandeur is a dream. [Cowper]
Think not ambition wise because ’tis brave, [Sir William Davenant]
The paths of glory lead but to the grave; [Gray]
What is ambition? ‘Tis a glorious cheat, [Wills]
Only destructive to the brave and great. [Addison]
What’s all the gaudy glitter of a crown? [Dryden]
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down. [Francis Quarles]
How long we live, not years, but actions tell; [Watkins]
That man lives twice who lives the first life well. [Herrick]
Make, then, while yet ye may, your God your friend, [William Mason]
Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend. [Hill]
The trust that’s given guard, and to yourself be just, [Dana]
For live we how we may, yet die we must. [Shakespeare]

| Literature · Poems

The Grabber

In his early days as a news reporter, James Thurber’s editor told him to “write dramatic, buttonholing leads to your stories.”

So, typing up a murder case, Thurber wrote:

“Dead. That’s what the man was when they found him with a knife in his back at 4 p.m. in front of Riley’s Saloon at the corner of 52nd and 12th Streets.”

The same thing can happen at the end of a news career.

| Literature

Everybody’s a Comedian

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In the ‘Old India House’ may still be seen a quarto volume of Interest Tables, on the fly-leaf of which is written, in Charles Lamb’s round, clerkly hand,–
‘A book of much interest.’–Edinburgh Review
‘A work in which the interest never flags.’–Quarterly Review
‘We may say of this volume, that the interest increases from the beginning to the end.’–Monthly Review

— Charles Carroll Bombaugh, Gleanings for the Curious From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, 1890

| Literature

City Life

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New Yorker founder Harold Ross was so pleased with the magazine’s dandified mascot, Eustace Tilley, that he bought a listing in his name in the New York City telephone directory.

He was triumphant when the city sent Tilley a personal property tax bill.

(Staff writer Brendan Gill described Ross as “aggressively ignorant.” When Robert Benchley referred to Andromache in one manuscript, Ross scribbled “Who he?” Benchley wrote back, “You keep out of this.”)

| Literature

An Exercise in Analysis

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Gertrude Stein’s writing could be impenetrable:

“Out of kindness comes redness and out of rudeness comes rapid same question, out of an eye comes research, out of selection comes painful cattle.”

Editor A.J. Fifield once sent her this rejection slip:

I am only one, only one, only one. Only one being, one at the same time. Not two, not three, only one. Only one life to live, only sixty minutes in one hour. Only one pair of eyes. Only one brain. Only one being. Being only one, having only one pair of eyes, having only one time, having only one life, I cannot read your MS three or four times. Not even one time. Only one look, only one look is enough. Hardly one copy would sell here. Hardly one. Hardly one.

| Literature

“Courting in Church”

A young gentleman happened to sit at church in a pew adjoining one in which sat a young lady for whom he conceived a sudden and violent passion, and was desirous of entering into a courtship on the spot; but the place not favoring a formal declaration, the exigency of the case suggested the following plan: he politely handed his fair neighbor a Bible opened, with a pin stuck in the following text:

‘And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.’

She returned it, pointing to the verse in Ruth:

‘Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, seeing I am a stranger?’

He returned the book, pointing to the following:

‘Having many things to write unto you, I would not with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.’

A marriage soon after resulted from this Biblical interview.

— Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, February 1867

| Literature · Religion

In for a Penny …

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Prosper Mérimée is best known as the author of Carmen, the novella that inspired Bizet’s opera. But he began his career as an unknown writer in Paris in the 1820s, where a passing fad for Spanish literature led him to commit a modest hoax — he published Le Théâtre de Clara Gazul, a collection of plays supposedly written by a Spanish actress.

The effort worked: The plays were well received and launched Mérimée’s career. But some admirers wondered — if Clara Gazul doesn’t really exist, who is the fetching Spanish lady in the book’s frontispiece?

It’s Mérimée in drag.

| Hoaxes · Literature

A Poor Review

In 1936, John Steinbeck’s puppy made confetti of half the manuscript of Of Mice and Men. “I was pretty mad but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically,” he wrote to a friend. “I didn’t want to ruin a good dog for a manuscript I’m not sure is good at all.”

He redid two months’ work and decided the puppy had been right. “I’m not sure Toby didn’t know what he was doing when he ate the first draft,” he wrote. “I have promoted Toby-dog to be lieutenant-colonel in charge of literature.”

| Literature

The Poison Pen

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Voltaire was stirring up trouble even after he died. According to a tradition in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was fatal to publish his complete works:

  • Beaumarchais, the first editor to produce such a collection, lost a million francs in stock speculations and died suddenly in 1798.
  • Desser published a 10-volume octavo edition and died shortly afterward of phthisis, and his friend who financed the project died in poverty of the same disease.
  • Cérioux and his wife published a 60-volume edition and were ruined financially by it.
  • Dalibon and René, editors of two separate editions, were forced to take jobs as workmen in printing plants.
  • Touquet died suddenly at Ostend in 1831, and his partner, Garnery, was ruined and died.
  • Deterville, who began as a wealthy publisher, went blind (!).
  • Daubrée accused a woman of stealing a book; she assassinated him.

Over the course of 70 years, it is said, at least eight publishers went bankrupt publishing complete editions of Voltaire’s writings.

See Curse of the Ninth.

| Literature