November 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



15 



is ; the other's my other name, but Bless is my given name 

 — 'you know me, don't you ? ' " (doubtiwjly). 



P. I. " You bet I do." 



W. I. " Well, I was a-saying. This Buckeye, he says, 

 ' Bloss,' he says, ' a man has to pay for what he learns. 

 And you bet thet's so. Every man has to pay. I don't 

 mind who he is. Every man hivs to pay just the same 1 

 {A pause for /urther reffection on this point.) . . . And if 

 he's a fool he has to pay a damd sight more." 



P. I. " Thet's real true — -yes, sir, thet's so." 



W. I. " You bet it is. I don't care what a man has. He 

 may have five dollars or five hundred thousand — it comes to 

 just the same. Now this man (pointing at me, or in mij 

 direction), he mayn't know what a hundred dollars is." 



P. I. (entJiusiasticalhf). " Thet's so." 



W. I. " No, sir {dreamUtj, having apparently lost the 

 thread of his discourse, irhich mas unfortunate, as he had 

 not made much progress so far). He doesn't kuow any- 

 thing at all about it. . . . Some men never earned a dollar 

 in their lives. I despise that lot ... I don't mind what a 

 man has, so he's earned it. . . , Not if he ain't nary a cent. 

 . . . What is it Burns says 1 ' A man's a man, if he's only 

 in a nutshell, and eh that, and eh that ' " (a quotation not 

 generally known ; I give it as he gave it). " Yes, sir — ' a 

 man's a man for eh that.' " 



P. I. " You bet." [In a subdued voice, as of one moved 

 hij a solemn truth). 



W. I. "What are all them gells about now? — them in 

 tights ? What are they anyway t " 



P. I. " I saw some like them at the op'rer a month ago. 

 They called them paggies (<(uery, pages?) in the bill; but 

 these don't seem quite right." 



W. I. " Paggies 1 {thoughtfuUi/). ... Is that so? (A 

 patise ; then still more thoughtfully) I ii\int to know." 



W. I. " This is all durned rot. That would do for a 

 joss-house " (referring to the phantom scene). 



P. I. "Shall we go?" 



W. I. " I guess we've had about enough." 



P. I. " Shall we go, niarm ? " 



\\'0MAN. " I shall be veil content." 



They rise to go. 



Myself {sotlo voce). " Thank Heaven 1 " (Music sud- 

 denly ceases. W. I., with a drunken man's keen hearing, 

 catches my words, and resents my pious aspiration.) 



W. I. (suspiciously). " Stranger, what are you a-thanking 

 Heaven ibr ? " 



ISIyself (blandly). " For all mercies, past, present, and 

 to come — or go, as the case may be." 



W. I. " I don't know so much about that." 



IMysELF. " About thanking Heaven ? " 



W. I. " A man may thank Heaven. So he may." 



Myself. " So I should imagine." 



Vf. 'I. (effusively). " Say, stranger ! Won't you smile?" 

 (I had been smiling unremittingly; I could not help it. 

 But in Americ;i " smiling," " seeing a man," and " licjuoring 

 up " are all one.) 



IMyself (anxious not to lose Mezieres' fiie acting, and 

 therefore turning to stage). " No, thank you. I have left 

 ofl^ smiling for to-day." 



Exeunt slowly W. I., P. I., and Woman, W. I. saying 

 meditatively, as he passed from behind me, "I don't quite make 

 that stranger out. He seems to me sorter ambiguous like." 



P. I. "Here's your hat." 



W. I. " Thet's so " . . . (contemplating it as one might 

 contemplate a long-lo.st friend) ..." Yes, sir, that's my hat." 



Woman. " An' your gra' coat." 



W. I. (same busiyiess). " Yes ; that's my overcoat." 



If the reader is half as weary of my wholly and partially 

 intoxicated friends, and the nonsense they talked, as I was, 

 he will appreciate the possibilities of annoyance in an 

 American thaatre. Yet not one of a score of persons 

 around who lost the performance they had come to see, 

 through the ignorance and stupidity of these two louts, 

 addressed any remarks to them, or made any suggestion as 

 to their withdrawal. 



I may remark that the word " paggies " is here in- 

 terpreted as I suppose it was meant. Pages are not very 

 familiar in the Western States, and I suppose one of my 

 louts, seeing the word " pages " in a playbill, and conscious 

 that the pages of a book were not referred to, concluiled 

 that some foreign kind of servitors were meant, and that 

 the word was to be pronounced with a hard " g " to dis- 

 tinguish it from printed pages. But one is apt to make 

 mistakes about such matters, and my friend's " paggies " 

 may have meant something else.* 



Next month my "Notes on Americanisms" will be con- 

 tinued in glossary foi'm. 



BIRTH OF THE SUN. 



O the legends of the sun-god's birtli referred 

 to in the last three numbers many others 

 might be added. In fact, there arc innu- 

 merable stories of the same kind, relating to 

 the l>irth and babyliood of sun gods, or solar 

 heroes, or persons who (long after their 

 death) weie regarded as divine, and there- 

 fore as necessarily distinguished by all such attributes as 

 ancient solar religions liad assigned to the God of the Day 

 and of the Year. In the old world, as well as in the new, 

 the Slime ideas naturally arose, and were as naturally 

 extended to persons who had been distinguished during their 

 lives as teachers or as legislators, and around whom after 

 their death traditions belonging to far earlier days cauje 

 naturally to cling. Let these examples, however, sufiice. 



Before leaving the consideration of the circumstances 

 attending the birth of the sun-god, one point remains to be 

 noticed. It would be natursil, of course, in the history of 

 the birth of the actual sun-god — whether as born at morn (the 

 dark cave of night being his birthplace), or as born at the 

 opening of the year in the midst of the dark and cold cave of 

 winter — that the glory of the sun should be mentioned. 

 This in the account of persons regarded as divine, and there- 

 fore a.s showing the signs of the godhead visibly, would sug- 

 gest naturally the idea of a bright light surrounding the 

 child at its birth. All lesser lights also would disap|)ear in 

 the presence of this more glorious illumination. The dis- 

 appearance of the lesser lights has been regarded as explain- 

 ing the idea of the slaughter of other children by the tyrant 

 Kansa, in order that Crishna, whose future power had 

 been predicted, should be destroyed also. In the case of 

 nearly every solar hero, and also in the case of many per- 

 sons more or less historic to whom solar characteristics were 

 afterwards assigned, we find the same idea, either .as a story 

 relating to a decree for destroying other children born at the 



* There is an odd example in "David Coppertield" of a correctly 

 noted but misunderstood oddity of expression — at least .so I 

 imagine. Barkis, talking of young Copperfield, speaks of him as a 

 " young Rocshus," " by which," saj-s David — that is, Dickens — " I 

 think he meant prodigy." It seems likely that Dickens had heard 

 the expression, just as ho h.ad heard " Mawthcr," when at 

 Yarmouth, and supposed it to be Norfolk dialect, quoting and 

 explaining it in the same waj' that he explains ViJords really belong- 

 ing to Eastern Counties' talk. But probably, whoever used the 

 word in Dickens's hearing, as Barkis is made to do, meant " young 

 Roscius." At about the time when " David Copperfield " was 

 written the " young Roscius " was talked about all over England. 



