The So-Called Human Race
by , arranged with an Introduction by Henry B. fuller. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1922. 12mo, pp. xii+330. $2.50.
ON July 5, 1862,Vanity Fair of New York published a caricature of George D. Prentice ‘in his famous two-handed act of getting up a leader for the Louisville Journal.' He was at his desk with a pen in one hand, a revolver in the other. Eor the word ‘leader,’ ‘paragraph’ would have served, for while Prentice’s paragraphs were witty, often coarse, they were frequently and diabolically malicious, often brutal. The country laughed; the victim squirmed, and if he was in Kentucky, he looked thoughtfully at his gun.
Prentice, as a paragrapher, was followed by many. Newspapers began to pride themselves on their ‘ funny column.’ The All-Sorts man of the Boston Post, the Danbury News man, the Burlington Haiekeye man, the Detroit Free Press man were leading national jesters for a time. They joked about, contemporaneous fads and fashions, dress, the mother-in-law, house-cleaning and the putting-up of the stove-pipe, the petty burdens of routine—a few homely themes with countless variations. At last Eugene Field in Chicago wrote a witty column with a literary flavor.
As Mr. Fuller says in his preface, which is finely appreciative, not fulsome, ‘ B. E. T.’ was ‘ the first of our day’s colyumisls — first in point of time and first in point of merit.’ It is true that he had enlisted an army of contributors, who sent to him material from all parts of the country; material in the rough. He once wrote ironically: ‘As we have been informed, and as we repeat for the benefit of the School of Journalism, there is nothing to running a column except the knack of writing more or less apt headlines.’ ‘ B. L. T.’ had a unique faculty for detecting a grotesque relationship between prosaic news and a flight of fancy, as in the seventies a headline writer on the Chicago Times startled the nation by his wild exuberance.
The wit and the humor of ‘B. L. T.’ far outstripped those of his contributors, his followers, and his imitators. His wit was a rapier against cant and shams; his humor, now gentle, now uproarious and broad, cheered life, which, as Jules Laforgue put it, is so daily. His wit and humor were often the expression of his views and opinions, for he was a philosopher, but never a platitudinous or sermonizing one. He was also a man of sentiment; a receptive, appreciating, discriminating soul; with a mind truly critical, seeking first of all that which was stimulating, beautiful, noble, in literature, wit, and music. For wilting light and graceful verse his gift was more than a pretty knack.
The work of the journalist is, as a rule, ephemeral: when his serious articles, collected, appear in bpok-form, they seem belated; if they are humorous, they seem pointless, or in need of annotation. The work of ‘ B. L. T.’ stands among the shining exceptions; for he was more than a daily jester. If he amused the world, he pricked its swollen bubbles, and led the way to a sane regard for the verities, with a smile that was kindly, not superior or contemptuous.
PHILIP HALE.
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