University of California Berkeley CRITICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN ABOO AW CAB A. ON BOOK OR A EDITED BY DBS . 0- TJ 2M I TJ & MINGO CITY GREAT PUBLISHING HOUSE OF SAM SLICK ALLSPICE 13 VERACITY STREET, 13 1880. CRITICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN ABOO AND OABOO ON BOOK OR EDITED BY MINGO CITY GREAT PUBLISHING HOUSE OP SAM SLICK ALLSPICE VERACITY STREET, 1880. 1880. PREFACE OF THE EDITOR. The " Critical Dialogue between Aboo and Caboo on a New Book, " which I have just published, and now ush- er into the literary world, was discovered, at West-End, in manuscript, lying on the knotted root of an old, reclining willow-tree. It probably had been lost by some musing rambler, whose steps had wandered along the sandy and shelly shore of the Lake Pontchartrain, bordered with rustling reeds and rushes. The lost manuscript, when found, was carefully wrapped up in a blue, silk handkerchief. The discoverer, after having opened and perused it, was astonished at not seeing, below the last line, the signature of the author. At first, he knew not what to do with it and was tempted to destroy it. But, having read it over again, he was more deeply impressed, and, searchingly, wond- ered who could have written it. He thought that it must be a representative Creole, a Franco-American, a vigorous offspring of the latin race. The more he pondered, the more he felt puzzled. I happened, myself, to be that very day an idler also, in the environs of West-End, and met with the above mentioned loiterer, who spoke to me of his discovery. He then read the mysterious manuscript, and read it with such an oratorical stress, that the startled echoes 676266 responded from the sombre depth of the neighboring swamp. I at once proposed to publish it and assume upon my- self the whole responsibility. He fain complied with my request and proposition. Thus has it been rescued from probable destruction by him, and brought to light by me, with the hope that it will be welcomed by the intelligent, candid and unbiased Headers, who are more fond of simple truth than of complicated and tortuous errors, painfully wrought into whimsical and derisive stories more or less dramatized to impressionnate literary cox- combs and blue-stockings. The subject of this " Critical Dialogue, " is the last work of the Dignissime George William Cable, " The Grandissimes,' ? which work is but a sequel of the " Old Creole Days.'' They were given as novels and they have been taken for HISTORY. The most historical and honor- able Creole families are therein pasquinaded. Both works, in their tone and wording, remind us of Moliere's " Precieuses Ridicules." They are written in the spiteful mood and style, in which would write an old, prudish maid, chatting about her younger and more beautiful rivals ; or, rather, in the pedantic phraseology of a sunday school-master, who pedagogues before a ravished audience of gaping girls and boys. But, if this be the style of these two books, what, then, is the spirit which informs and makes them so en vogue.? The bold and impertinent spirit is that of a scoffer, a banterer, a ridiculer. Now, since the ridiculer knows so well how to evade 5 the penalties of the Laws, how is he to be met and punished ? " A ridiculer is the best champion to meet another ridiculer. He must turn on him his own weapons, and pay him in his own coin.' 7 This has been done by the unknown author of the manuscri})t discovered at West-End, lying on the desert shore, where it might have been reached by the waves and washed away, like a floating reed or rush, never to be seen again by any strolling poet or philosopher. Bantering is the prostitution of genius, literature and art ; it is a loathsome plague. Banterers are lazars that should be banished from all social intercourse. " Writers of this class alienate themselves from human kind, they break the golden bond which holds them to society ; and live among us like a polished banditti. A bad book never sells unless it be addressed to the passions ; the severest criticism will never impede its circulation, malignity and curiosity being passions stronger and less delicate than taste and truth." And yet some one must have the courage to unmask and denounce the "polished banditti" There was in Louisiana, long ago, a Choctaw Chief on whom had been inflicted the disgraceful name of Mingolabee, le Chef-Menteur, the Great- Liar. The mendacious Choctaw Chieftain was relegated, near the mouth of the Bayou Sauvage, by the gray- haired Sachems of his Tribe, so great was their love for truth, in its virgin purity. Have we not, just now, in the very heart of the good and beautiful City of New Orleans, a Magnissime Mingolabee-Romanticist ? We have. _ 6 - This Precieux Monsieur Delicieux, this Mingolabee Tasimbo, this deplorably untruthful Novelist, has af- flicted us with a new brood of gravely-comical Grandis- simes, Belles Dames and Belles Demoiselles Delicieuse- ment Precieuses Ridicules, whose unmista-^a?>/e features betray their vulgar, jocose, and I may say, outland- ish ancestry. CRITICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN ABOO and CABOO ON A NEW BOOK OK A GRANDISSIMB ASCENSION. ( Agricola Fusilier, who died many years ago, was permitted, it appears, after having resumed his life-like frame, to come out of the realm of Shades, and to walk again on earth, and feel, and speak, as once he had done. Disguising himself, he took the name of Aboo. Being a Spirit, he instantly saw all the sad changes his native State, his dear Louisiana, had undergone ; he saw the thistle growing where whilom grew the cane ; he saw the once blooming gardens overrun with thorny briers ; he saw the spiders spinning their webs in the deserted mansions of pristine luxury ; and, amidst all this desolation, all these ruins, he seemed like the meditative and woeful Genius of all the vanished splendors of a lordly aristo- cracy. He wept bitterly, and wept long. His lamentations attracted the attention and excited the sympathy of one who was n surviving member of his family. Deeply moved and touched, this man, slowly and hesitatingly, approached the weeping ghost and was intuitively recognized and greeted by him. His name was Caboo. Seated, side by side, beneath the gloomy shade of a moss-clad cy- press bending over the rippling waves of the lake Pontchartrain, not far from West-End, they unbosomed themselves in a long and animated conversation. This conversation was couched down on paper, in readable writing, by a stenographer, or reporter, perhaps of one of the New Orleans journals, who chanced to be, just then, at no great distance from them, and who overheard what they had said. The dialogue is now given, in all its uncouth vehemence, as it was mis au net by the unknown stenographer, who had put to it as a preliminary the above explanation. He had inadvertantly let it drop or forgotten it on the root where it was found, as related in the Editor's Preface. ) CRITICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN A.1STD CABOO. Excuse me, Sir ; I hope that I am not an in- truder ; I have heard your moans and sobs : Are you ill ? Can I, in any way, comfort or aid you ? ABOO. I am not ill, but I am indignant and sorrowful. My name is Aboo. CABOO. And my name is Caboo. ABOO. I know you ; we are related ; we are of the same family. CABOO. It seemed to me that a voice had spoken within my bosom ; my heart thrilled with emotion. ABOO. Come near, kinsman; seat thyself, here, on this fallen tree ; I wish to unload my sonl of its burden of almost unspeakable sadness Verily, verily, this Age is an Age of balloon-ascensions, in the literary, as well as in the political, world ; and no hemp nor iron cable could keep down this irresistible tendency to aerial loftiness of aspiration. Each age is characterized by its peculiar idiot - syncrasy CABOO. I see not what you are driving at. I am a practi- cal man. Do not speak en 1'air, as say the French, un- practiced theorician. ABOO. Please, tell me, what is practice but the application of theory ? Is not the practical man the workman of the metaphysician ? Is not speech, is not action the embodi- ment of thought ? Is not art the sensible, the perceptible, the real manifestation of the ideal, in eloquent language, musical sounds, harmonized colors, in all beautiful figures and forms, that the artist may elevate, ennoble, and thereby benefit man and societv ? CABOO. Come to the point. Substantiate your windy bubble. Give a " local habitation " to your " airy nothing." ABOO. Be patient, and heed my words : Some act, with- out thinking ; some think, without acting ; and some think, and act accordingly : Among whom of these shall I rank you, without being guilty of a practical-joke ? CABOO. You mean a capital joke, for capital is derived from, caput, and theoricians are headmost in cogitation and FKEETHINKING too ! They dream of impracti - cable perfection. ABOO. That may be, subordinate practitioner; but, just now, listen to the words of the master theorician. CABOO. Go on, master theorician, but to the point. ABOO. Please do not, by frequent interruptions, confuse my thoughts and prevent my .... CABOO. Your elaborate rounding of periods, eh ? ABOO. Bounding, or broken, peuimporle; only hearken well to what I have to say. CABOO. But do not, I beg you, doom me to endure a long and tedious lesson of unintelligible Esthetics : What is imaginative is not practical. ABOO. Prithee, for a little while, bear with me ; I come to the point : What is not true, not good, cannot be beautiful. By chance, somewhere, the other day, fell, un- happily, into my hands a book grandly entitled " The Grand- issimes," but whose fit title should have been " The Fictions of Ridicule; " which book is neither historical nor romantic, in any true sense of what we term history or romance. It has been, evidently, most submissively, written FOR the preju- diced and inimical North, against the olden customs, habits, manners and idiosyncrasies of the Southern Creole population of Louisiana, therein so slanderously misrepresented ; and yet, in reality, so high-spirited, so genteel and captivating, in its polished civility, noble bearing and dignified character, 10 although the rude storin of misfortune has swept over its once so opulent and princely homes. CABOO. I wonder not at this : I have read " The Grand- issimes," that sensational catchpenny by which the Northern readers have been gulled into foolish admiration. It is not the only swindling publication of that series, nor shall it be the last : It's indeed a novel sort of history ! ABOO. The Grandissime Imaginer of this non-historical, non-romantic, half-comical, half-dramatic, or rather melo- dramatic, and wondrously artistic, elucubration, is, we have been told, a native of Louisiana ; he is, besides, a pert, waggish, flippant, somewhat bold upstart, brazen-faced wit- ling, who supplies the Northern literary market with that sort of adulterated, but gratifying, stuff : How disloyal, how basely unfilial, how despi-ca6/e/ But it recks him not; for he is the bearer of a tsilisrnauic firman, insuring fame and fortune, with the great seal of the Grandissime, Mandarin, Waucanous, Charlemagne Scribner, impressed upon it. Who would dare criticise and denounce what has been written by the white-gloved hand of this impec - cable Exquisite, who has decked his head with a jet-black plume, fallen from the tail of a crow, which remarkable circumstance warns us to distrust this Grandissime TELL-TALE. He cants like a censorious, sanctimonious, grandiloquent expounder of the ism - mythic doctrines, which the heated brain of any domestic, social or political self -constituted Reformist, may dream of, and ex- patiate on, in prosaic verse or poetical prose, ad libitum, et in outer num. CABOO. I am not astonished at the Northern popularity of this petted vender of sublimated calumnies and graphically dramatized stories, contes hlens, conies noirs, a dorrnir debout. ABOO. The new-born, ludicroijs thing of fiction, conic- 11 en Fair, swollen into a marketable bulk, is written in a foppishly quaint, and yet studied, style ; it is written with a malignant spirit, which may be called Cablish, that is to say Devilish, so mischievously altered and confused are dates, events, places, things, names and persons ; and all this to the sole intent, the wicked purpose of slur, travesty and ridicule leeringly sneeringly jeeringly. Undoubtedly, he got his historical information from the babbling lips of some old negresses. reeling on the brink of Eternity. CABOO. It is the finical refinement of disguised puritan- ism, assuming the fanatical mission of radical reform and universal enlightment, utopian dream of a madly infatuated philanthropist. He is, just now, in high feather and prime flush of unexpected success : G'est la lune de miel des reclames K/ctravag antes. ABOO. This Cablishissime romanticist, this ill-natured alien, this polyglot wight, who safely bore and in due time brought forth this now so much admired, fondled and in- dulged progeniture, has an evil eye to detect and seize upon whatever seems to him burlesque, ridiculous or odious ; and he so excels in exaggerating what he sees or seems to see, that we have distorted images of fancy-wrought caricatures, in- stead of life-like pictures, fair resemblances of natural realities. CABOO. That's what I call a crafty gullcatcher ; a sleek, shrewed pedler of novelties ; a Sam Slick of magazine literature. ABOO. And yet, every one is aware that the ' ' Ridiculer's business is not at all with truth," but with shadows of truth, false appearances, fictitious characters, imaginary personages, fantastic visions, in all the wild mirth of teemful malice, and the flaunting exuberance or lightning- volubility of lan- guage, "frenzied mob of reeling words," striving, fighting to hide the charming face of truth. -12 CABOO. Had we but the hissing, whistling, howling drunken "mob" of tortured English words, it might b tolerable ; but we have also the worst patois that ever gratei the human ear, in savage discord of sounds. Never befor were verbs, nouns and adjectives so nmltitudiuously disallied tied together, whipped into forced union. Call not thi "orderly disorder," artistic disheveling, wildness in perfec tion. It's the tumultuous stampede of a startled drove o words toppling, pell-mell, in wild and frightful confusion. ABOO. in his protean, metamorphosic versatility, hs ( mean the AUTHOR, mind you, ) he is now like the gaudy fluttering butterfly, then like the gem-hued, dazzling hum ming-bird, ( but the butterfly is born of a creeping worm an< the humming-bird is a nasty little despoiler of flowers ) ; li< reminds us of the chatty magpie, the cold, sheeny serpent the slime-imbedded alligator, shedding pitiful tears; "as suming all forms, he has none ; " he is every thing, am nothing, by rapid turns of mood and shape : Indeed, Vou douism must have lent its powerful gris-gris. There is ii it all something cabalistic, cablish, qui accable ; something suffocating, strangling, incubus-like ; Bras-Coupe has sun his weird incantations ; all the ebon-faced Sprites are le loose ; and from their gloomy holes issuing, come multitude; of bats, owls, snakes, pole-cats : Pandemonium is not faj hence ! CABOO. If it's not Pandemonium, it's something like it, the vestibule of hell ! An offensive, poisonous stencl seizes our nostrils .... Oh ! for a bottle of Cologne-water ! Half of my life for a bottle of eau de Cologne ! ABOO. I should not be surprised to see, erelong, this great wizard of romanticism, by a sudden touch of his magic wand, unveil to us the beau ideal of Creole life and lowland scenery, animated by the all-imitating music of the 13 unrivaled chanter, hid in the orange groves and flowery boskets, which adorn our dear Louisiana, so wildly beautiful and so beautifully wild ! After the sable, tinsel-robed harlot, we will have the lily- like daughter of light, blushing in all the smiling grace of youth, or all the sweet gravity of pensive age. CABOO. And that would be another catchpenny of this Grandissime Gullcatcher, and a most relishable food for the languishing poetesses and sighing maidens of the snowy cliines, who dream of paradise in the Sunny South.... O sickly-wan beauties, ye need the flame of our glowing sky ! ABOO. After having followed awhile the zigzag flight of his fitful, and oft raving, imagination, we dream that we dream that we are dreaming. CABOO. He must be an opium-eater, or an entranced medium whose mind roams in Dream-Land. ABOO. Even when and while he pleases and charms, he knows how to beswear and spoil the fairest objects, over which he throws a sort of weird tinge, strangely weird indeed, but somehow made altogether unseemly by a skillful play of dubious light or a foul daubing of the brush. He fastens, in a fiendish mood of wanton waggery, some grotesque unreality upon what is real comeliness, poetic beauty, resist- less witchery of artless nature. CABOO. And with what unspeakable relish he thus sullies what is most immaculate, most bloomingly attractive and sweetly bewitching. ABOO. There is, (mind well, I allude to the author, and not to the man), in this prolific and evil-eyed Caricaturist, strikingly harmonized, something of the wasp, the cater- pillar and Darwin's typical ape, transformed into a polichinel puppet ; he stings while flying, befouls as he crawls, and plays wonderful freaks, plumes himself, pranks up, and 12 CABOO. Had we but the hissing, whistling, howling, drunken "mob" of tortured English words, it might be I tolerable ; but we have also the worst patois that ever grated the human ear, in savage discord of sounds. Never before j were verbs, nouns and adjectives so mnltitudiuously disallied, tied together, whipped into forced union. Call not this "orderly disorder," artistic disheveling, wildness in perfec- tion. It's the tumultuous stampede of a startled drove of words toppling, pell-mell, in wild and frightful confusion. ABOO. in his protean, metamorphosic versatility, Ii9 (I mean the AUTHOE, mind you, ) he is now like the gaudy, fluttering butterfly, then like the gem-hued, dazzling hum- ming-bird, ( but the butterfly is born of a creeping worm and the humming-bird is a nasty little despoiler of flowers ) ; he reminds us of the chatty magpie, the cold, sheeny serpent, the slime-imbedded alligator, shedding pitiful tears ; "as- suming all forms, he has none ; " he is every thing, and nothing, by rapid turns of mood and shape : Indeed, Vou- douism must have lent its powerful gris-gris. There is in it all something cabalistic, cablish, qui accable ; something suffocating, strangling, incubus-like ; Bras-Coupe has sung his weird incantations ; all the ebon-faced Sprites are let loose ; and from their gloomy holes issuing, come multitudes of bats, owls, snakes, pole-cats : Pandemonium is not far hence ! CABOO. If it's not Pandemonium, it's something like it, the vestibule of hell ! An offensive, poisonous stench seizes our nostrils .... Oh ! for a bottle of Cologne-water ! Half of my life for a bottle of eau de Cologne ! ABOO. I should not be surprised to see, erelong, this great wizard of romanticism, by a sudden touch of his magic wand, unveil to us the beau ideal of Creole life and lowland scenery, animated by the all-imitating music of the unrivaled chanter,- hid in the orange groves and flowery boskets, which adorn our dear Louisiana,- so wildly beautif and so beautifully wild ! After the sable, tinsel-robed harlot, we will have the lily-like daughter of light, blushing m all the smiling grace of youth, or all the sweet gravity of pei ag CABOO-And that would be another catchpenny of this Grandissime Gullcatcher, and a most relishable food for t languishing poetesses and sighing maidens of the snowy climes, who dream of paradise in the Sunny South ... ( sickly-wan beauties, ye need the flame of our glowing sky ! ABOO -After having followed awhile the zigzag flight < his fitful, and oft raving, imagination, we dream that u that we are dreaming. CABOO.-He must be an opium-eater, or an entrance medium whose mind roams in Dream-Land. ABOO -Even when and while he pleases and charms, h knows how to beswear and spoil the fairest objects, over which he throws a sort of weird tinge,- strangely weird indeed,- but somehow made altogether unseemly by a skill play of dubious light or a foul daubing of the brush. He fastens, in a fiendish mood of wanton waggery, some grotesque unreality upon what is real comeliness, poetic beauty, r< less witchery of artless nature. CABOO.- And with what unspeakable relish he thus sulli what is most immaculate, most bloomingly attractive and sweetly bewitching. ABOO.- There is, (mind well, I allude to the author, and not to the man), in this prolific and evil-eyed Caricaturist, - strikingly harmonized,- something of the wasp, the cate: pillar and Darwin's typical ape, transformed into a polichmel puppet; he stings while flying, befouls as he crawls, and plays wonderful freaks, plumes himself, pranks up, and 14 assumes the comically - grave countenance of a Grandissime Knight of the Quill, who has made awful revelations. He has discovered Bras- Coupe's cabin in the swamp, and all the hor- rors of a semi - barbarian state of society. CABOO. Puffed up with praise, he rises like a balloon to a giddy height of self - conceit and overweening pride Shall I slack the cable until we lose sight of the exultant aeronaut ? ABOO. Alas ! how easy would be, were it less unworthy, a retaliative and astounding recrimination ! It might be with a dagger - pen, or it might be with the still more in - flictive fouel sanglant of indignation, the indignation of love ! CABOO. Why not with a scalping knife, a bloody hatchet, or any other savage instrument of slow and ruthless torture ? You are getting too excited and indignant at what hardly de- serves our serious notice. I would not stoop to crush the venom - swollen, dust - covered insect, suddenly brought to light by his interested fellows ! Let the conspicuous ephe- meron enjoy its glorious sunshine. ABOO. But, know you not, that the smallest insect may kill the towering pine or cedar ; that a spark may set on fire and destroy a whole forest ; that a wicked hoi/ may poison the purest waters ? Jest not ; I am in earnest, terribly in earnest ! The meekest man becomes the fiercest, when too much pro- voked by impudence and audacity. Only for a moment, lend me your attention : There was a young Greek at Athens who used to walk alone in the streets, as if abstracted from every- thing around him. The whole people regarded this strange young man as dove - like, child - like, girl - like ; he appeared to them most bland, most inoffensive ; he always had upon his ruddy lips the sweetest smile; he was called "the dreamer,'' and so called by every jack - a - dandy and jack - a- napes : One day, all on a sudden, lie broke through his long -15 silence and smiling meekness ; lie broke savagely, and with such a wild vehemence that he startled the whole city ! It was a direful burst of noble indignation, a storm of vengeful ire, too long concentrated ; it was a lava -flood of volcanic eloquence; it was lightning, and it was thunder, awe-striking and terrifying ! I tell you, trust not the dormant sea, trust not the "dreamer ": Main force, master power, irresistible impetus, lurks beneath the silent tranquillity of lovely meek- ness : Deep calm broods stormy mightiness. I tell you, those whom you, yes, you, practical men, workmen, jobbers, miscall "dreamers," I dare call " the unacknowledged and unrewarded RULERS of the world." The upper realm belongs to the winged birds ; the nether one to the four - footed spe- cies. Above, the winged birds soar and sing ; below, the unwinged quadrupeds never sing. It is not among the birds, aspiring upward, that you will find the unfledged dwarf who has insulted a noble po ulation, high-bred, high- minded and high-souled, noble, and proud of its French and Spanish descent : To find him, look downward ! CABOO. Kinsman, you are becoming fearful, indeed, and you frighten me. ABOO. What would you feel, -what would you say, were you to see a buzzard, glutted with carrion, lighting heavily upon a consecrated shrine ? Y.ou would shudder and recoil ! What would yon feel, what would you say, were you to be- hold a jackal disinter a cherished .corpse, drag it away, tear it to pieces, and devour its lacerated flesh ? You would stand mute and awe-struck. Say, then, has not this heartless and grim-humoured dwarf done something like the foul buzzard, has he not done something like the hideous jackal ? CABOO. Like an avalanche coming down crashingly from the serene and snowy height, where the fell eagle reigns in dreadful loneliness, your wrathful speech falls upon me, crusliingly : Be more calm, my kinsman. 1C ABOO. O ye, silent tombs, hoary, tile-roofed buildings, mouldering homes, made more sacred by the melancholy tinge of sweetest souvenirs, old Creole days, blest days of hon- esty and hospitality, beautiful things of the Past, you attract my moistened eyes ; you appeal to, and awaken, the deepest emotions and sympathies in my enthusiastic soul ; you have for me the soft and sad eloquence of an autumnal twilight's lingering adieu: And, he, the over -bold, the flippant dwarf, the Magnissime /Scr/6-bler of Charlemagne Scrib-n&i', has attempted to touch ; and touch, only to profane and pol- lute ! He has invaded, violated, ransacked and riffled even the asylum of the dead ! CABOO. Be more calm, O kinsman mine. ABOO. O ye, Sisters Three. TRUTH, GOODNESS, BEAUTY, Three, and yet One ; Sisters enclaspt by Love : Fly not up to Heaven, whence you descended, white-robed and lilly- crowned, to bless with your smiles and to charm with your songs pilgrim-humanity ; tarry yet awhile on earth, in my be- loved Louisiana, that the Land so glowingly depicted by Chateaubriand, France's great genius, and Longfellow, OUR great poet, who has sung, in wild homeric strains, of the Sage and Hero, Hiawatha ; tarry yet awhile, that the Land of my childhood and the Land of my old age may still seem to me, as of yore, a paradise on earth, giving a foretaste of the one above ! CABOO. You are a noble son ! you are a great patriot ! Would that I were like you ! Heed not, mind not what this Mingolabee has written.... He a romancer ! he an artist ! he a poet ! Is it because he has not written a single page that may elevate, ennoble and benefit men and society ? Is it for this that he has grown so famous? He has genius, yes, he has ; but it is the genius of lust, lust of gain. ABOO. Hotbed fame is short-lived. Shiny mushrooms 17 spring up in one night and die the next day.... But, how un- pleasant, will some one say, are these jarring notes which I oome to throw into the smooth stream of such a sweet concert of praise ; unpleasant ? may be ; yet not without the harmo- nious ring of truth. CABOO. Truth may wound, but it wounds to heal. ABOO. Spider-like, how patiently, how industriously, he spun out words into lines, lines into pages, pages into chap- ters, and chapters into a ponderous volume ; and how proudly and gleefully he looked around, after having launched his heavy-laden paper-bark, to see how her elated sails had caught the wooing breeze of publicity .... Alas ! alas ! even New Orleans, the "HYBRID CITY," as scornfully called by him, joined with the North in trumpeting his praise and strewing with flowers and laurel leaves the path that leads to fame ; yes, even New Orleans, without a sense of honor, without a blush of shame ! CABOO. But all these praises, so lavishly bestowed by the Northern press, carry a sting in the tail, the sting of a per- fidious cajoler : Beware of the gift of such a Greek-like donor ! As the book is addressed to the passions of the hyperborean Readers, the hyperborean Press blindly accepted and lauded it as a chef- d'ceuvre. Some critics reviewed it without having had even a view of it ; others glanced at it, turned over five or six pages, cursorily perused them, and penned hastily a notice, in which they proclaimed the author as great as the great Dickens. All were in perfect unison and ENTENTE COR- DIALE to extol the unextollable. I heard that a hardy little band tried to read it through, but fell asleep after having read the opiferous leaves of the first chapter. I speak not of the puffs, profusely given to it by generous friends, interested or stipended parties ; all these reclames poured in like a sum- mer shower on the dry sand ; Charlemagne Scribner beat the 18 drum, blew the trumpet, and boomed awfully, and conscien tiously loo ; and the waves of the two oceans caught tin paean, and triumphantly bore it afar, to unknown and deser regions : But the ablest critics, the true critics, the Grea Masters, have not yet spoken ; and, when they do speak, it wil be to give a telling lesson, and a condign castigation to tin culprit - book. ABOO. In conclusion, let me say that, throughout this fan ciful, distressfully dull, sketchbook of " Grandissimes," tin Grandissimest of whom is the author himself, there is ma lice prepense, deep-rooted guilt. It is an unnatural, Souther] growth, a bastard sprout, un digne pendant de ' ' Uncle Tom' Cabin." And the more it is lauded by the Northern press and thereby made popular, (so have I heard from th lips of many,) the more incriminated it stands befor> the Southern Areopagus of stern criticism. Northern sym pathy and applause, are, impliedly, Southern diffident and condemnation. Would that he could plead in hi favor, as an excuse, ignorance or imbecility ; but tin plea is inadmissible : Both the letter and spirit of his bool betray his deliberate and cherished design. Nothing of th< kind ever survives, to be handed down to remote posterity am crowned with merited glory. Such idle sport and wild mirtl of ill-humor and treasonable eccentricity are doomed to mer- ciless oblivion or blighting reprobation CABOO. To your duties, boys ! The cable snaps asunde: and the drifting bark of papyrus shall soon be wrecked 01 some desert shore, there to lie and rot ! ABOO. Let her lie and rot, in desolate isolation ! CABOO. And yet, what indiscriminate praises have beer bestowed upon it ! Tell me, master theorician, is it not easier much easier, for a cable, or a camel, to pass thro ugh the ey( of a needle than it is for any one but the most gullible o: 19 gulls to ingurgitate the elephant - lies of this Magnissime Ca- ble's erratic genius, shooting, meteor - like, across the bo- real firmament and diffusing its bleak light over the benight- ed region occupied, until now, by semi-barbarians? Stand from under, O ye who wish not to understand and be enlightened by the Great Luminary of Cablishissime civilization, beau- tiful palingenesia, heretofore undreamed of, which will con- summate all fusion and confusion, malting all diverse colors intermarry and blend into one and sole mongrel color, sym- bolical of highest perfection, highest, in sooth, if highest means lowest. ABOO. Behold, the new meteor is as dimly luminous as it is voluminously apparent, and ponderously voluminous. CABOO. I am a practical man ; come to the point ; put down on paper what you have said to-day, and publish it, re- alize it. ABOO. But, kinsman, am I not too acerb, too bitter, too vehement and personal ? You said that he was but an unfor- tunate pigmy-leaser. CABOO. You are not, believe me. You have not assailed the man, the private individual ; you know him not. You have only unmasked and denounced the author , the public man, the unscrupulous falsificator. Say, has any thing, local, do- mestic, personal or social, escaped his raillery and contam- ination ? Whence derives he this privilege of insult and ridicule ? He has exhausted the refined vocabulary of blur- ring and wounding epithets. Write and publish at once. ABOO. But I have smiled .... I am disarmed .... The ruffled pen falls from my relenting hand How sweet it is to smoke the calumet of peace, well stuffed with the red willow's almond - scented rind, and to muse, in trance- ful delight, on all that is true, and good, and beautiful, -20 while sings, in rapturous strains of wild harmony, the inirni table mimic of the Sunny South ! CABOO. Master theorician, you know, I am not a dreamer I am a practical man ; I deal with actual facts And yet who does not, now and then, long for some hours of rest ?. . . , How refreshing it is to lie down on a soft, aromatic couch o: grass, and to listen to the melodious sough of the waving pines, forgetful of journals, magazines, books, brick an mortar, slate and stone, amidst birds, flowers and purling rills, stealing their way through the lonely, peaceful desert !-- What society of men or women can soothe as wild naturt does?....O master theorician, should he, the "poli^hec banditti", retort; he, the Gr.mdissimest of Grandis simes, ignore thou and leave unanswered whatever he write, unless he writes in the FRENCH, as you have done ir the ENGLISH, patois ; he can do it ; he is a polyglot, a many languaged scholar, a poet-romancer, booming like a surge wit turgid gloriousness of renown : Let him show the virgir gold of his exhaustless California. ABOO. Rest assured, O great votary to the actual, that shall follow your wise advice, unheeding every word no written by him in the beautiful patois of Lamartine and Cha- teaubriand. CABOO. I tell you, be not too pin -cable; for this impla- cable Cable might work evil, and work it cablishly ! It is fearful to think of all the mischief a snaky - minded, morbidly -sav- age civilizer might concoct in mid - night watches and gloomy solitude, beneath some hoary, moss - shrouded cypress, where screech legions of frantic owls, not far from Spanish - Fort ! There are evil -spirit haunted places of wild inspira- tion ! Beware ! He is a High -Priest of Negro - Voadouism, and you know what Negro - Voudouism means ? 21- ABOO. But, if I write and publish, he will leap on me like a wounded wild-cat. CABOO. Let him leap, I will feather him with my brist- ling arrows. ABOO. Be not too savage ; think of his mother, if mother he have ; think of his sister, if sister there be ; think of .... CABOO. While writing his book, has he thought of any one of us, feelingly ? I tell you, write and publish . . . Lo, he has already bewildered and bewitched almost all the critics of the press ! They seem to have lost all sense of Es- tethics. If he leaps on you, though he be backed by hell, and lieWs legions, I will hail - stone him into night's dismal dungeon, made darker by clouds of moping owls and bats, most fit abode for one who has hoisted the sooty flag of Ache- ron ! . . . But, hark, meseems I hear a distant, doleful voice ; it is the voice of a veteran crocodile, waxed rueful, and shedding tears, abundant tears, streaming down his scaly cheeks .... Beware of crocodilian tears! Many, indeed, have been beguiled by, and fallen victims to, their feint humanity ! Old Sha,kespeare, the all -knowing and multiform genius, knew well the monstrous hypocrite ! He is the great Chef- Menteur of the swamps and bayous ; and our Mingolabee Romanticist, must have studied and graduated at his marsh- environed Voudou - School of false lore and mock righteous- ness But, hark ! again I hear strange voices, voices of Bull - Frogs, sounding like human voices ; list to them, kins- man mine ; they are singing : 22 FIRST CHORUS. EIGHT BULL-FROGS. FIRST BULL-FROG, (treble). Greet Georgy, greet Georgy, greet Georgy. SECOND BULL-FROG, (barytone). Weep, poor Will ; weep, poor Will ; weep, poor Will. THIRD BULL-FROG, (soprano). Willy, Willy; Willy, Willy; Willy, Willy. FOURTH BULL-FROG, (mezzo voce}. Kable, Keble ; Koble, Kooble ; Kyble, Koible. FIFTH BULL-FROG, (tenor). He's a Novelist, lie's an Artist, lie's a Poet. SIXTH BULL-FROG, (alto}. He is, he is, lie is. SEVENTH BULL-FROG, (counter base). All the Press say so, all the Press say so, all the Press say so. LAST AND BIGGEST BULL-FROG, (fundamental base). Let us cheer him, let us praise him, let us crown him : He'll be our Singer, he'll be our Mingo, he'll be our Great Chief. SECOND CHORUS. INNUMERABLE, SHRILL-VOICED, GEEEN - JACKETED LITTLE FROGS. All hail to thee, All hail, all hail, Grandissime, Brahmin, Mandarin, Wancanous, Georgy, Willy, Tasimbo, Mingolabee ; All hail to thee, All hail, all hail ! WEIRD SOLO BY A ZOMBI-FROG. (STRANGE, VENTRILOQUOUS VOICE.) Savan Missid Kabri, Ki konin tou gri-gri, Prosh kote' For-Pagnol, Li td kouri lekol Avek vie kokodri, Ki td in Gran Zombi ; Kan so\eil td koushd, Dan ti kouin biyin kashd, Li td sorti bayou Pour apprande li Voudou. Savan Missie Kabri, Ki konin tou gri-gri, Sd pa krivin pour frime ; Li I'd Id " Grandissime " ; Tou moune ape parle Anho liv ki li fe ; Sd pa piti Missid, Sila ki yd pdld Savan Missie Kabri, Ki konin tou gri-gri. Kote Bayou Koshon, Ou ganyin plin dijon, Li td dause Kongo Avek Mari Lavo. In soir, yd fe gran bal, Ye iimin plin i'anal, Et yd marid Kabri Avek mamezel Zizi ; Se td pli bel ne'gresse Te ganyin dan lespesse. Prosh kote gran dikane, Yd bati in kabane ; E yd fd plin piti, Ki td samble zombi, Savan Missie Kabri, Li konin tou gri-gri, Li konin tou kishoze, E li santi ddroze. 24 Alon dans Kongo, Epi crid, bravo ! Bravo pour Tasimbo ! Bravo ! bravo pour li, Savan Missid Kabri, Ki konin tou gri-gri ; Se pa krivin pour frime ; Li fe le " Grandissime." CABOO. Now, is not that grand, most grand, grander than the grandest Opera-music ? ABOO. It is as grand as " The Grandissimes. " (After this grand, grandest of grand musical efforts, grandest of grand lyrical paeans, which had been achieved by the Wararon and Grenoui'de choruses, a clap of thunder was heard.... All the bully Wararons and the petty Grenouilles, quick as fright, suddenly dived, with a great splash of water, and disappeared beneath the large-leaved and yellow - blossomed nenuphars of their native swamp, heureux d'etre hors de danger /.... A small cloud was then seen in the direction of lake Catherine ; it grew darker and larger, expanding until it overshadowed the whole sky ; the breeze freshened and waxed into a gale ; the foaming waves of the angry lake swelled and heaved, bearing- on their snow-like crests the weary gulls, whose sinister shrieks boded the coming storm ; rain poured down, as if earth were threatened with a second deluge ; Aboo, Caboo and the stenographer fled for a shelter to the nearest house ; and there, they stood, with drenched garments, in patient expectancy : And behold, clothed in spark-spangled smoke, with its fearfully warning voice, comes rolling the stream-animated monster, the Promethean creation of Fulton's audacious genius.... They leap into the returning train.... They are gone.... And all is over. I bid you farewell, kind and impartial Reader, and wish you the full enjoyment of the most substantial and real happiness, while I will still pursue. dreaming still, " airy nothings " and " ideal visions" of unrealisable bliss, unrealisable because space is too narrow and time is too short to contain what is INFINITE and ETERNAL. ) NOTICE OF THE EDITOR. Whoever, in our Great Age of progress, wishes to speak and to be listened to, or to write and to be read by the many, must speak in a vast public place, or write in a Daily Journal. Our Age has not time, and is not in a mood, to take up a huge volume, or to patiently endure an endless speech, heavily delivered by a fastidious scholar : Hence the necessity, the interest, the power, the sway, the over-ruling and ever-active influence of the Press. What Steam accomplishes in the physical order, the Press, thak/Stim- ulating engine, achieves in the intellectual, moral, political, and even poetical, order. The Journal, and the Pamphlet, its immediate co-ad jutor, may work, and do work, daily, wonders, and yet wonders that are not wondered at. Here is a Spicy Pamphlet, some twenty-four leaves put together, Journal-like, which you may read, as you read a Daily Paper ; and yet, mark ye, it can be bought for, you hardly will believe it for only : 25 CENTS. L UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY