d up for a great poet; but she
will never be as popular with the masses of Western readers as Ella
Wheeler and Marion Harland are. All of her works that remain to us are
a few fragments, and they are chestnuts; for they have been printed
within the last ten years in the books of a great many poets I could
name, and I have read them. We know very little of Sappho's life. If
she had amounted to much, we would not be in such ignorance of her
doings. The probability is that she was a society or fashion editor on
one of the daily papers of her time,--a sort of Clara-Belle woman,
whose naughtiness was mistaken for a species of intellectual
brilliancy. Sappho was a gamey old girl, you know. Her life must have
been a poem of passion, if there is any truth in the testimony of the
authorities who wrote about her several centuries after her death. In
fact, these verses of hers that are left indicate that she was addicted
to late suppers, to loose morning-gowns, to perfumed stationery, and to
hysterics. It is ten to one that she wore flaming bonnets and striking
dresses; that she talked loud at the theatres and in public generally;
and that she chewed gum, and smoked cigarettes, when she went to the
races. If that woman had lived in Chicago, she would have been
tabooed."

The amiable gentleman who reads manuscripts for Rand, McNally & Co.
says that Sappho's manuscripts were submitted to him a year ago. "I
looked them over, and satisfied myself that there was nothing in them;
and I told the author so. He seemed inclined to dispute me, but I told
him I reckoned I understood pretty well what would sell in our literary
circles and on our railroad-trains."

But while there was a pretty general disposition to criticise Sappho,
there was only one opinion as to the circus-parade; and that was
complimentary. For the nonce, we may say, the cares and vexations of
business, of literature, of art, and of science, were put aside; and
our populace abandoned itself to a hearty enjoyment of the brilliant
pageant which appealed to the higher instincts. And, as the cage
containing the lions rolled by, the shouts of the enthusiastic
spectators swelled above the guttural roars of the infuriate monarchs
of the desert. Men waved their hats, and ladies fluttered their
handkerchiefs. Altogether, the scene was so exciting as to be equalled
only by the rapturous ovation which was tendered Mdlle. Hortense de
Vere, queen of the air, when that