By Irving Browne.
CURRENT TOPICS. M1dsummer. — The "leafy month of June" has come and gone, and it is one of the accumulating pile of regrets in life that we have one less June to live. Only one thing too much has been said in its lavor. "Oh, what is more rare than a day in June!" That's pretty, but not quite true, For in February's chillier moon, A day is rarer by two. i But now midsummer is at hand, when no wise man worketh, unless obliged, but when he letteth the gray furrows of his brain lie fallow for a few weeks. Our peculiar notions about vacation must be pretty well known by this time, for we have reiterated them often enough. They may be summed up in one expressive word : Loaf. Do not work. Indulge in no violent amusement like hunting or tennis. Fishing is toler able if the angler will sit on a bank. But even then we would prefer to lie under a tree, and turn over the pictures in the Dove and Lea edition of Watson's "Complete Angler," and hire some fellow to do the fishing. We would not worry ourselves by lying under various trees, but having found one satisfac tory, lie under that altogether, taking care to select one so ample in shade that it would not be necessary to move around to keep out of the sun. Lie there from not too early in the morning until sundown, and read Hamerton's " Sylvan Year," in which he describes the round of the months in a forest valley of France. Or even more appropriately, read " Mid summer Night's Dream," in Horace Howard Furness' new variorum edition, notes and all. This last issue of the great commentator's unrivaled edition is in some respects the most interesting of all. The pref ace is one of the most exquisite and appreciative pieces of Shakespearian criticism ever put forth. Douglas Jerrold said to Mary Cowden Clarke, the Shakespearian concordancer, "When you go to heaven Shakespeare will give you a kiss, even if your husband should happen to be there." So when Dr. Furness goes hence, surely Shakespeare will be on the lookout for him, and will snatch him away to a
symposium with his friend Ben and a few other con genial spirits, at which there will be a feast of all toothsome and liquorish things except Bacon. Dr. Furness is one of the very few Shakespearian scholars who has a keen sense of humor, and in this volume he exposes two very choice bits of that heavy, matter-of-fact, unimaginative comment which distin guishes most German criticism in respect to Homer and Shakespeare. He says: " Indeed, so alert was poor Wieland not to offend the purest caste, that he scented, in some incomprehensible way, a flagrant impropriety in ' Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence '; a dash in his text replaces a translation of the immodest word ' spinner,' which is paraphrased for us, however, in a foot-note by the more decent word ' spider,' which we can all read without a blush." (Wieland is as modest as an Albany furni ture dealer, who never used the word "leg" to women, but always spoke to them of the " limbs " of a table or chair.) Feodor Wehl, who was present at the famous first production of the comedy at Ber lin, says: " The actor who personates Theseus must have a joyous, gracious bearing. When he threatens Hermia with death or separation from the society of man, in case of her disobedience to her father, he must speak in a roguish, humorous style, and not in the sober earnestness with which the words are usually spoken." We now expect some German ped ant to evolve the theory that Othello was not really black, but that he burnt-corked himself to test Desdemona's sincerity. This volume and those of the before mentioned "Angler" are large and weighty books, but a really luxurious lawyer can have his office boy to hold them for him. After all, the greatest midsummer luxury is to get out of the reach of telegrams. That was a fitting use of electricity when it was turned on to murderers. Let all mes senger boys in midsummer be electrocuted. The only kind of a telegram which we can tolerate may be thus described : — What news from the vibrating wires, Stretching down the dusty street, With hum like invisible choirs, Comes fluttering down to my feet? 351
