Some of them consist of one line only, and quite a number have
only three words. Now, I will repeat five entire poems taken from this
fool-book: I learned them on purpose to repeat at the club. Here is
the first,--

"Me just now the golden-sandalled Dawn.

"That 's all there is to it. Here's the second:

"I yearn and seek.

"A third is complete in--

"Much whiter than an egg;

and the fourth is,--

"Stir not the shingle,

which, I take it, was one of Sapphire's juvenile poems addressed to his
mother. The fifth poem is simply,--

"And thou thyself, Calliope,

which, by the way, reminds me that Forepaugh's calliope got smashed up
in a railroad accident night before last,--a circumstance deeply to be
regretted, since there is no instrument calculated to appeal more
directly to one versed in mythological lore, or more likely to awaken a
train of pleasing associations, than the steam-calliope."

A South-Side packer, who has the largest library in the city, told us
that he had not seen Sappho's works yet, but that he intended to read
them at an early date. "I 've got so sick of Howells and James," said
he, "that I 'm darned glad to hear that some new fellow has come to the
front."

Another prominent social light (a brewer) said that he had bought a
"Sappho," and was having it bound in morocco, with turkey-red
trimmings. "I do enjoy a handsome book," said he. "One of the most
valuable volumes in my library I bought of a leading candy-manufacturer
in this city. It is the original libretto and score of the 'Songs of
Solomon,' bound in the tanned pelt of the fatted calf that was killed
when the prodigal son came home."

"I have simply glanced through the Sappho book," said another
distinguished representative of local culture; "and what surprised me,
was the pains that has been taken in getting up the affair. Why, do
you know, the editor has gone to the trouble of going through the book,
and translating every darned poem into Greek! Of course, this strikes
us business-men of Chicago as a queer bit of pedantry."

The scholarly and courtly editor of the "Weekly Lard Journal and
Literary Companion," Professor A. J. Lyvely, criticised Sappho very
freely as he stood at the corner of Clark and Madison Streets, waiting
for the superb gold chariot drawn by twenty milk-white steeds, and
containing fifty musicians, to come along. "Just because she lived in
the dark ages," said he, "she is cracke