ON
A NEW BOOK
OR A
GRIDISSII ASCENSION
l
CRITICAL DIALOGUE
BETWEEN
ABOO AH5 OABO
ON
jY 1STEW BOOK
OR
I GRIDE ASCENS
EDITED BY
J3. 0-XJNITJ&
MINGO CITY
GREAT PUBLISHING HOUSE
OP
SAM SLICK ALLSPICE
12 VERACITY STREET, 158
1880.
COPYRlGr HTJED
1880.
PREFACE OF THE EDITOR.
The " Critical Dialogue between Aboo and Caboo on
a New Book, " which I have just published, and now ush-
er into the literary world, was discovered, at West-End,
in manuscript, lying on the knotted root of an old,
reeliniug willow-tree. It probably had been lost by
some musing rambler, whose steps had wandered along
the sandy and shelly shore of the Lake Pontchartrain,
bordered with rustling reeds and rushes.
The lost manuscript, when found, was carefully wrapped
up in a blue, silk handkerchief. The discoverer, after
having opened and perused it, was astonished at not
seeing, below the last line, the signature of the author.
At first, he knew not what to do with it and was
tempted to destroy it. But, having read it over again,
he was more deeply impressed, and, searchingly, wond-
ered who could have written it. He thought that it
must be a representative Creole, a Franco-American,
a vigorous offspring of the latin race. The more he
pondered, the more he felt puzzled.
I happened, myself, to be that very day an idler also,
in the environs of West-End, and met with the above
mentioned loiterer, who spoke to me of his discovery.
He then read the mysterious manuscript, and read it
with such an oratorical stress, that the startled echoes
responded from the sombre depth of the neighboring
swamp.
I at once proposed to publish it and assume upon my-
self the whole responsibility. He fain complied with my
request and proposition. Thus has it been rescued from
probable destruction by him, and brought to light by me,
with the hope that it will be welcomed by the intelligent,
candid and unbiased Readers, who are more fond of
simple truth than of complicated and tortuous errors,
painfully wrought into whimsical and derisive stories —
more or less dramatized to impression nate literary cox-
combs and blue-stockings.
The subject of this " Critical Dialogue, " is the last
work of the Dignissime George William Cable, — " The
Grandissimes,'' — which work is but a sequel of the " Old
Creole Days.'' They were given as novels and they have
been taken for history. The most historical and honor-
able creole families are therein pasquinaded.
Both works, in their tone and wording, remind us of
Moliere's " Precieuses Ridicules." They are written in
the spiteful mood and style, in which would write an
old, prudish maid, chatting about her younger and more
beautiful rivals ; or, rather, in the pedantic phraseology
of a sunday school-master, who pedagogues before a
ravished audience of gaping girls and boys.
But, if this be the style of these two books, what,
then, is the spirit which informs and makes them so en
vogue ? The bold and impertinent spirit is that of a
scoffer, a banterer, a ridiculer.
Now, since the ridiculer knows so well how to evade
the penalties of the Laws, how is he to be met and
punished ? " A ridiculer is the best champion to meet
another ridiculer. He must turn on him his own weapons,
and pay him in his own coin.' 7
This has been done by the unknown author of the
manuscript discovered at West-End, lying on the desert
shore, where it might have been reached by the waves
and washed away, like a floating reed or rush, never to
be seen again by any strolling poet or philosopher.
Bantering is the prostitution of genius, literature and
art ; it is a loathsome plague. Banterers are lazars that
should be banished from all social intercourse.
" Writers of this class alienate themselves from human
kind, they break the golden bond which holds them to
society ; and live among us like a polished banditti. A
bad book never sells unless it be addressed to the
passions ; the severest criticism will never impede its
circulation, — malignity and curiosity being passions
stronger and less delicate than taste and truth. "
And yet some one must have the courage to unmask
and denounce the "polished banditti."
There was in Louisiana, long ago, a Choctaw Chief
on whom had been inflicted the disgraceful name of
3fingolabee, le Chef-Menteur, the Great- Liar.
The mendacious Choctaw Chieftain was relegated,
— near the mouth of the Bayou Sauvage, — by the gray-
haired Sachems of his Tribe, so great was their love for
truth, in its virgin purity.
Have we not, just now, in the very heart of the good
and beautiful City of New Orleans, a Magnissime
Mingo) abee-Komanticist ? — We have.
— 0 —
This Precieux Monsieur Delicieux, this Mingclabee
Tasimbo, this deplorably untruthful Novelist, has af-
flicted us with a new brood of gravely-comical Grandis-
simes, Belles Dames and Belles Demoiselles Delicieuse-
ment Precieuses Ridicules, whose unmista-AaWe features
betray their vulgar, jocose, — and I may say, — outland-
ish ancestry.
CRITICAL DIALOGUE .
BETWEEN ABOO and CABOO
ON A NEW BOOK
OR
A GrRANDISSTME ASCENSION.
( Agricola Fusilier, who died many years ago, was permitted, it
appear.-,, after having resumed his life-like frame, to come out of
the realm of Shades, and to walk again on earth, and feel, and
speak, as once he had done. Disguising himself, he took the name
of Aboo. Being a Spirit, he instantly saw all the sad changes his
native State, his dear Louisiana, had undergone ; he saw the thistle
growing where whilom grew the cane ; he saw the once blooming
gardens overrun with thorny briers ; he saw the spiders spinning
their webs in the deserted mansions of pristine luxury ; and, amidst
all this desolation, all these ruins, he seemed like the meditative
and woeful Genius of all the vanished splendors of a lordly aristo-
cracy. He wept bitterly, and wept long. His lamentations attracted
the attention and excited the sympathy of one who was a surviving
member of his family. Deeply moved and touched, this man, —
slowly and hesitatingly, — approached the weeping ghost and was
intuitively recognized and greeted by him. His name was Caboo.
Seated, side by side, beneath the gloomy shade of a moss-clad cy-
press bending over the rippling waves of the lake Pontchartrain,
not far from West-End, they unbosomed themselves in a long and
animated conversation. This conversation was couched down on
paper, in readable writing, by a stenographer, or reporter, perhaps
of one of the New Orleans journals, who chanced to be, just then,
at no great distance from them, and who overheard what they had
said. The dialogue is now given, in all its uncouth vehemence, as
it was mis au net by the unknown stenographer, who had put to it
as a preliminary the above explanation. He had inadvertantly let
it drop or forgotten it on the root where it was found, as related in
the Editor's Preface. )
CRITICAL DIALOGUE
BETWEEN
ABOO ^lISTD CABOO.
Caboo. — Excuse me, Sir; I hope that I am not an in-
truder ; I have heard your moans and sobs : Are you ill ?
Can I, in any way, comfort or aid you ?
Aboo. — I am -not ill, but I am indignant and sorrowful.
My name is Aboo.
Caboo. — And my name is Caboo.
Aboo. — I know you ; we are related ; we are of the same
family.
Caboo. — It seemed to me that a voice had spoken within
my bosom ; my heart thrilled with emotion.
Aboo. — Come near, kinsman; seat thyself, here, on this
fallen tree ; I wish to unload my sonl of its burden of almost
unspeakable sadness Verily, verily, this Age is an Age of
balloon-ascensions, in the literary, as well as in the political,
world ; and no hemp nor iron cable could keep down this
irresistible tendency to aerial loftiness of aspiration. Each
age is characterized by its peculiar idiot- syncrasy
Caboo. — I see not what you are driving at. I am a practi-
cal man. Do not speak en Vair, — as say the French, — un-
practiced theorician.
Aboo. — Please, tell me, what is practice but the application
of theory? Is not the practical man the workman of the
metaphysician ? Is not speech, is not action the embodi-
ment of thought ? Is not art the sensible, the perceptible,
the real mani T "- Ration of the ideal, — in eloquent language,
musical sounds harmonized colors, in all beautiful figures
and forms, — that the^artist may elevate, ennoble, and thereby
benefit man and siKuety ?
— 9 —
Oaboo. — Come to the point. Substantiate your windy-
bubble. Give a " local habitation " to your " airy nothing."
Aboo. — Be patient, and heed my words : Some act, with-
out thinking ; some think, without acting ; and some think,
and act accordingly : Among whom of these shall I rank
you, without being guilty of a practical-joke ?
Caboo. — You mean a capital joke, for capital is derived
from caput, and theoricians are headmost in cogitation and
feeethinking too ! They dream of impracti - cable perfection.
Aboo. — That may be, subordinate practitioner; but, just
now, listen to the words of the master theorician.
Caboo. — Go on, master theorician, — but to the point.
Aboo. — Please do not, by frequent interruptions, confuse
my thoughts and prevent my ....
Caboo. — Your elaborate rounding of periods, eh ?
Aboo. — Bounding, or broken, peuimporte; only hearken
well to what I have to say.
Caboo. — But do not, I beg you, doom me to endure a long
and tedious lesson of unintelligible Esthetics : What is
imaginative is not practical.
Aboo. — Prithee, — for a little while, — bear with me ; I
come to the point : What is not true, not good, cannot be
beautiful. By chance, somewhere, the other day, fell, un-
happily, into my hands a book grandly entitled " The Grand-
issimes," but whose fit title should have been " The Fictions
of Ridicule; " which book is neither historical nor romantic,
in any true sense of what we term history or romance. It
has been, evidently, most submissively, written for the preju-
diced and inimical North, against the olden customs, habits,
manners and idiosyncrasies of the Southern Creole population
of Louisiana, therein so slanderously misrepresented ; and
yet, in reality, so high-spirited, so genteel and captivating,
in its polished civility, noble bearing and dignified character,
— 10 —
although the rude storm of misfortune has swept over its
once so opulent and princely homes.
Caboo. — I wonder not at this : I have read " The Grand-
issimes," that sensational catchpenny by which the Northern
readers have been gulled into foolish admiration. It is not the
only swindling publication of that series, nor shall it be the
last : It's indeed a novel sort of history !
Aboo. — The Grandissime Imaginer of this non-historical,
non-romantic, half-comical, half-dramatic, or rather melo-
dramatic, — and wondrously artistic, — elucubration, is, we
have been told, a native of Louisiana ; he is, besides, a pert,
waggish, flippant, somewhat bold upstart, brazen-faced wit-
ling, who supplies the Northern literary market with that
sort of adulterated, but gratifying, stuff : How disloyal, how
basely unfilial, how despi -cable! But it recks him not; for
he is the bearer of a talismanic./jrra<7tt, — insuring fame and
fortune, — with the great seal of the Grandissime, Mandarin,
Waucanous, Charlemagne Scribner, impressed upon it. Who
would dare criticise and denounce what has been written by
the white-gloved hand of this impec - cable Exquisite, who has
decked his head with a jet-black plume, fallen from the tail of
a crow, — which remarkable circumstance warns us to distrust
this Grandissime Tell-Tale. He cants like a censorious,
sanctimonious, grandiloquent expounder of the ism - mythic
doctrines, which the heated brain of any domestic, social or
political self-constituted Reformist, may dream of, and ex-
patiate on, in prosaic verse or poetical prose, — ad libitum,
et in osier num.
Caboo. — I am not astonished at the Northern popularity
of this petted vender of sublimated calumnies and graphically
dramatized stories, — conies bleus, conies noirs, — a dormir
debout.
Aboo. — The new-born, ludicrous thing of fiction, — conte
— 11 -
en Pair, — swollen into a marketable bulk, — is written in a
foppishly quaint, and yet studied, style ; it is written with a
malignant spirit, which may be called Gdblish, that is to say
Devilish, so mischievously altered and confused are dates,
events, places, things, names and persons ; and all this to
the sole intent, the wicked purpose of slur, travesty and
ridicule — leeringly — sneeringly — jeeringly. Undoubtedly,
he got his historical information from the babbling lips of
some old negresses. reeling on the brink of Eternity.
Caboo. — It is the finical refinement of disguised puritan-
ism, assuming the fanatical mission of radical reform and
universal enlightment, — Utopian dream of a madly infatuated
philanthropist. He is, just now, in high feather and prime
flush of unexpected success : G'est la lune de miel des reclames
exlravagantes.
Aboo. — This Cablishissime romanticist, this ill-natured
alien, this polyglot wight, who safely bore and in due time
brought forth this now so much admired, fondled and in-
dulged progeniture, has an evil eye to detect and seize upon
whatever seems to him burlesque, ridiculous or odious ; and
he so excels in exaggerating what he sees or seems to see,
that we have distorted images of fancy-wrought caricatures, in-
stead of life-like pictures, fair resemblances of natural realities.
Caboo. — That's what I call a crafty gullcatcher ; a sleek,
shrewed pedler of novelties ; a Sam Slick of magazine
literature.
Aboo. — And yet, every one is aware that the " Eidiculer's
business is not at all with truth," but with shadows of truth,
false appearances, fictitious characters, imaginary personages,
fantastic visions, in all the wild mirth of teemful malice,
and the flaunting exuberance or lightning- volubility of lan-
guage, — " frenzied mob of reeling words," striving, fighting
to hide the charming face of truth.
-12 —
Caboo. — Had we but the hissing, whistling, howling,
drunken "mob" of tortured English words, it might bo
tolerable ; but we have also the worst patois that ever grated
the human ear, in savage discord of sounds. Never before
were verbs, nouns and adjectives so multitudinously disallied,
tied together, whipped into forced union. Call not this
"orderly disorder," artistic disheveling, wildness in perfec-
tion. It's the tumultuous stampede of a startled drove of
words toppling, pell-mell, in wild and frightful confusion.
Aboo. — In his protean, metamorphosic versatility, he (I
mean the author, mind you, ) he is now like the gaudy,
fluttering butterfly, then like the gem-hued, dazzling hum-
ming-bird, ( but the butterfly is born of a creeping worm and
the humming-bird is a nasty little despoiler of flowers ) ; he
reminds us of the chatty magpie, the cold, sheeny serpent,
the slime-imbedded alligator, shedding pitiful tears ; " as-
suming all forms, he has none ; " he is every thing, and
nothing, by rapid turns of mood and shape : Indeed, Vou-
douism must have lent its powerful gris-gris. There is in
it all something cabalistic, cablish, qui accable; something
suffocating, strangling, incubus-like ; Bras-Coupe has sung
his weird incantations ; all the ebon-faced Sprites are let
loose ; and from their gloomy holes issuing, come multitudes
of bats, owls, snakes, pole-cats : Pandemonium is not far
hence !
Caboo. — If it's not Pandemonium, it's something like
it, — the vestibule of hell ! An offensive, poisonous stench
seizes our nostrils .... Oh ! for a bottle of Cologne-water ! —
Half of my life for a bottle of eau de Cologne !
Aboo. — I should not be surprised to see, — erelong, —
this great wizard of romanticism, by a sudden touch of his
magic wand, unveil to us the beau ideal of creole life and
lowland scenery, animated by the all-imitating music of the
unrivaled chanter, — hid in the orange groves and flowery
boskets, which adorn our dear Louisiana, — so wildly beautiful
and so beautifully wild ! After the sable, tinsel-robed harlot,
we will have the lily-like daughter of light, blushing in all
the smiling grace of youth, or all the sweet gravity of pensive
age.
Caboo. — And that would be another catchpenny of this
Grandissime Gullcatcher, and a most relishable food for the
languishing poetesses and sighing maidens of the snowy
climes, who dream of paradise in the Sunny South O
sickly- wan beauties, ye need the flame of our glowing sky !
Aboo. — After having followed awhile the zigzag flight of
his fitful, and oft raving, imagination, we dream that we dream
that we are dreaming.
Caboo. — He must be an opium-eater, or an entranced
medium whose mind roams in Dream-Land.
Aboo. — Even when and while he pleases and charms, he
knows how to beswear and spoil the fairest objects, over
which he throws a sort of weird tinge, — strangely weird
indeed, — but somehow made altogether unseemly by a skillful
play of dubious light or a foul daubing of the brush. He
fastens, in a fiendish mood of wanton waggery, some grotesque
unreality upon what is real comeliness, poetic beauty, resist-
less witchery of artless nature.
Caboo. — And with what unspeakable relish he thus sullies
what is most immaculate, most bloomingly attractive and
sweetly bewitching.
Aboo. — There is, (mind well, I allude to the author, and
not to the man), in this prolific and evil-eyed Caricaturist, —
strikingly harmonized, — something of the wasp, the cater-
pillar and Darwin's typical ape, transformed into a polichinel
puppet ; he stings while flying, befouls as he crawls, and
plays wonderful freaks, plumes himself, pranks up, and
— 14 —
assumes the comically - grave countenance of a Grandissime
Knight of the Quill, who has made awful revelations. He has
discovered Bras - Coupe's cabin in the swamp, and all the hor-
rors of a semi - barbarian state of society.
Caboo. — Puffed up with praise, he rises like a balloon to a
giddy height of self-conceit and overweening pride.... Shall
I slack the cable until we lose sight of the exultant aeronaut ?
Aboo. — Alas ! how easy would be, — were it less unworthy,
— a retaliative and astounding recrimination ! It might be
with a dagger - pen, or it might be with the still more in-
flictive fouel sanglanl of indignation, — the indignation of
love !
Caboo. — Why not with a scalping knife, a bloody hatchet,
or any other savage instrument of slow and ruthless torture ?
You are getting too excited and indignant at what hardly de-
serves our serious notice. I would not stoop to crush the
venom - swollen, dust - covered insect, suddenly brought to
light by his interested fellows ! Let the conspicuous ephe-
meron enjoy its glorious sunshine.
Aboo. — But, know you not, that the smallest insect may
kill the towering pine or cedar ; that a spark may set on fire
and destroy a whole forest ; that a wicked boy may poison the
purest waters ? Jest not ; I am in earnest, — terribly in earnest !
The meekest man becomes the fiercest, when too much pro-
voked by impudence and audacity. Only for a moment, lend
me your attention : There was a young Greek at Athens who
used to walk alone in the streets, as if abstracted from every-
thing around him. The whole people regarded this strange
young man as dove - like, child - like, girl - like ; he appeared
to them most bland, most inoffensive ; he always had upon
his ruddy lips the sweetest smile ; he was called 1 ' the
dreamer," and so called by every jack - a - dandy and jack - a-
napes : One day, all on a sudden, he broke through his long
silence and smiling meekness ; he broke savagely, and with
such a wild vehemence that he startled the whole city ! It
was a direful burst of noble indignation, a storm of vengeful
ire, — too long concentrated ; it was a lava - flood of volcanic
eloquence; it was lightning, and it was thunder, — awe-striking
and terrifying ! I tell you, trust not the dormant sea, — trust
not the " dreamer ": Main force, master power, irresistible
impetus, lurks beneath the silent tranquillity of lovely meek-
ness : Deep calm broods stormy mightiness. I tell you, those
whom you, — yes, you, practical men, workmen, jobbers, —
miscall "dreamers," I dare call "the unacknowledged and
unrewarded Rulers of the world." The upper realm belongs
to the winged birds ; the nether one to the four - footed spe-
cies. Above, the winged birds soar and sing ; below, the
unwinged quadrupeds never sing. It is not among the birds,
— aspiring upward, — that you will find the unfledged dwarf
who has insulted a noble po ulation, — high-bred, high-
minded and high-souled, — noble, and proud of its French
and Spanish descent : To find him, look downward !
Caboo. — Kinsman, you are becoming fearful, indeed, and
you frighten me.
Aboo. — What would you feel, what would you say, were
you to see a buzzard, glutted with carrion, lighting heavily
upon a consecrated shrine ? You would shudder and recoil !
What would you feel, what would you say, were you to be-
hold a jackal disinter a cherished corpse, drag it away, tear
it to pieces, and devour its lacerated flesh ? You would stand
mute and awe-struck. Say, then, has not this heartless and
grim-humoured dwarf done something like the foul buzzard,
has he not done something like the hideous jackal ?
Caboo. — Like an avalanche coming down crashingly from
the serene and snowy height, where the fell eagle reigns in
dreadful loneliness, your wrathful speech falls upon me, —
crushingly : Be more calm, my kinsman.
- 16 —
Aboo. — O ye, silent tombs, hoary, tile-roofed buildings,
mouldering homes, made more sacred by the melancholy
tinge of sweetest souvenirs, old Creole days, blest days of hon-
esty and hospitality, beautiful things of the Past, you attract
my moistened eyes ; you appeal to, and awaken, the deepest
emotions and sympathies in my enthusiastic soul ; you have
for me the soft and sad eloquence of an autumnal twilight's
lingering adieu: And, he, — the over-bold, the flippant
dwarf, the Magnissime Scrib-XAev of Charlemagne Scrib-ner, —
has attempted to touch ; — and touch, only to profane and pol-
lute ! He has invaded, violated, ransacked and riffled even the
asylum of the dead !
Caboo. — Be more calm, O kinsman mine.
Aboo. — O ye, Sisters Three, — Truth, Goodness, Beauty,
— Three, and yet One ; Sisters enclaspt by Love : Fly not up
to Heaven, whence you descended, — white-robed and lilly-
crowned, — to bless with your smiles and to charm with your
songs pilgrim-humanity ; tarry yet awhile on earth, in my be-
loved Louisiana, that the Land so glowingly depicted by
Chateaubriand, France's great genius, and Longfellow, our
great poet, who has sung, in wild homeric strains, of the
Sage and Hero, Hiawatha ; tarry yet awhile, that the Land of
my childhood and the Land of my old age may still seem to
me, as of yore, a paradise on earth, giving a foretaste of the
one above !
Caboo. — You are a noble son! you are a great patriot!
Would that I were like you ! — Heed not, mind not what this
Mingolabee has written.... He a romancer ! he an artist ! he a
poet ! Is it because he has not written a single page that may
elevate, ennoble and benefit men and society ? Is it for this
that he has grown so famous? He has genius, yes, he has ;
but it is the genius of lust, — lust of gain.
Aboo. — Hotbed fame is short-lived. Shiny mushrooms
— 17 —
spring up in one night and die the next day.... But, how un-
pleasant, will some one say, are these jarring notes which I come
to throw into the smooth stream of such a sweet concert of
praise ; unpleasant ? — may be ; yet not without the harmo-
nious ring of truth.
Caboo. — Truth may wound, but it wounds to heal.
Aboo. — Spider-like, how patiently, how industriously, he .
spun out words into lines, lines into pages, pages into chap-
ters, and chapters into a ponderous volume ; and how proudly
and gleefully he looked around, — after having launched his
heavy-laden paper-bark, — to see how her elated sails had
caught the wooing breeze of publicity .... Alas ! alas ! even
New Orleans, the "hybrid city," as scornfully called by him,
joined with the North in trumpeting his praise and strewing
with flowers and laurel leaves the path that leads to fame ;
yes, even New Orleans, without a sense of honor, without a
blush of shame !
Caboo. — But all these praises, so lavishly bestowed by the
Northern press, carry a sting in the tail,— the sting of a per-
fidious cajoler : Beware of the gift of such a Greek-like donor !
As the book is addressed to the passions of the hyperborean
Readers, the hyperborean Press blindly accepted and lauded
it as a chef- fVceuvre. Some critics reviewed it without having
had even a view of it ; others glanced at it, turned over five
or six pages, cursorily perused them, and penned hastily a
notice, in which they proclaimed the author as great as the
great Dickens. All were in perfect unison and entente cor-
diale to extol the unextollable. I heard that a hardy little
band tried to read it through, but fell asleep after having
read the opiferous leaves of the first chapter. I speak not of
the puffs, profusely given to it by generous friends, interested
or stipended parties ; all these reclames poured in like a sum-
mer shower on the dry sand ; Charlemagne Scribner beat the
— 18 —
drum, blew the trumpet, and boomed awfully, — and conscien-
tiously loo ;— and the waves of the two oceans caught the
psean, and triumphantly bore it afar, to unknown and desert
regions : But the ablest critics, the true critics, the Great
Masters, have not yet spoken ; and, when they do speak, it will
be to give a telling lesson, and a condign castigation to the
culprit - book.
Aboo. — In conclusion, let me say that, throughout this fan-
ciful, distressfully dull, sketchbook of " Grandissimes," — the
Grandissimest of whom is the author himself, — there is ma-
lice prepense, deep-rooted guilt. It is an unnatural, Southern
growth, a bastard sprout, un digne pendant de " Uncle Tom's
Cabin." And the more it is lauded by the Northern press,
and thereby made popular, — (so have I heard from the
lips of many,) — the more incriminated it stands before
the Southern Areopagus of stern criticism. Northern sym-
pathy and applause, are, impliedly, Southern diffidence
and condemnation. Would that he could plead in his
favor, as an excuse, ignorance or imbecility ; but the
XDlea is inadmissible : Both the letter and spirit of his book
betray his deliberate and cherished design. Nothing of the
kind ever survives, to be handed down to remote posterity and
crowned with merited glory. Such idle sport and wild mirth
of ill-humor and treasonable eccentricity are doomed to mer-
ciless oblivion or blighting reprobation
Caboo. — To your duties, boys ! — The cable snaps asunder
and the drifting bark of papyrus shall soon be wrecked on
some desert shore, — there to lie and rot !
Aboo. — Let her lie and rot, in desolate isolation !
Caboo. — And yet, what indiscriminate praises have been
bestowed upon it ! Tell me, master theorician, is it not easier,
much easier, for a cable, or a camel, — to pass through the eye
of a needle than it is for any one but 'the most gullible of
— 19 —
gulls to ingurgitate the elephant - lies of this Magnissime Ga-
ble's erratic genius, shooting, — meteor - like, — across the bo-
real firmament and diffusing its bleak light over the benight-
ed region occupied, until now, by semi-barbarians? Stand
from under, O ye who wish not to understand and be enlightened
by the Great Luminary of Gablishissime civilization, — beau-
tiful palingenesia, heretofore undreamed of, — which will con-
summate all fusion and confusion, — making all diverse colors
intermarry and blend into one and sole mongrel color, — sym-
bolical of highest perfection, — highest, in sooth, if highest
means lowest.
Aboo. — Behold, the new meteor is as dimly luminous as it
is voluminously apparent, and ponderously voluminous.
Caboo. — I am a practical man ; come to the point ; put
down on paper what you have said to-day, and publish it, re-
alize it.
Aboo. — But, kinsman, am I not too acerb, too bitter, too
vehement and personal ? You said that he was but an unfor-
tunate pigmy-leaser.
Caboo. — You are not, believe me. You have not assailed
the man, the private individual ; — you know him not. You
have only unmasked and denounced the author, the public man,
the unscrupulous falsificator. Say, has any thing, — local, do-
mestic, personal or social, — escaped his raillery and contam-
ination ? Whence derives he this privilege of insult and
ridicule ? He has exhausted the refined vocabulary of blur-
ring and wounding epithets. Write and publish at once.
Aboo. — But I have smiled .... I am disarmed .... The
ruffled pen falls from my relenting hand How sweet
it is to smoke the calumet of peace, well stuffed with the
red willow's almond - scented rind, and to muse, in trance-
ful delight, on all that is true, and good, and beautiful,
-20 —
while sings, in rapturous strains of wild harmony, the inimi-
table mimic of the Sunny South !
Caboo. — Master theorician, you know, I am not a dreamer ;
I am a practical man ; I deal with actual facts. . . . And yet,
who does not, now and then, long for some hours of rest ? . . . .
How refreshing it is to lie down on a soft, aromatic couch of
grass, and to listen to the melodious sough of the waving
pines, — forgetful of journals, magazines, books, brick an 1
mortar, slate and stone, — amidst birds, flowers and purling
rills, stealing their way through the lonely, peaceful desert ! —
What society of men or women can soothe as wild nature
does? O master theorician, should he, — the "polished
banditti", — retort; — he, the Grandissimest of Grandis-
simes,— ignore thou and leave unanswered whatever he may
write, unless he writes in the Fbench, as you have done in
the English, patois ; he can do it ; he is a polyglot, a many-
languaged scholar, a poet-romancer, boomiDg like a surge with
turgid gloriousness of renown : Let him show the virgin
gold of his exhaustless California.
Aboo. — Rest assured, O great votary to the actual, that I
shall follow your wise advice, unheeding every word not
written by him in the beautiful patois of Lamartine and Cha-
teaubriand.
Caboo. — I tell you, be not too pla - cable; for this impla-
cable Cable might work evil, and work it cablishly ! It is fearful
to think of all the mischief a snaky - minded, morbidly - sav-
age civilizer might concoct in mid -night watches and gloomy
solitude, beneath some hoary, moss - shrouded cypress, where
screech legions of frantic owls, — not far from Spanish - Fort !
— There are evil -spirit — haunted places of wild inspira-
tion ! — Beware ! He is a High - Priest of Negro - Voudouism,
and you know what Negro - Voudouism means '?
— 21 —
Aboo. — But, if I write and publish, he will leap on me like
a wounded wild-cat.
Caboo. — Let him leap, I will feather him with my brist-
ling arrows.
Aboo. — Be not too savage ; think of his mother, if mother
he have ; think of his sister, if sister there be ; think of
Caboo. — While writing his book, has he thought of
any one of us, — feelingly ? I tell you, write and publish . . . Lo,
he has already bewildered and bewitched almost all the critics
of the press ! — They seem to have lost all sense of Es-
tethics. — If he leaps on you, though he be backed by hell,
and hell's legions, I will hail - stone him into night's dismal
dungeon, made darker by clouds of moping owls and bats, —
most fit abode for one who has hoisted the sooty flag of Ache-
ron !. . . But, hark, meseems I hear a distant, doleful voice ;
it is the voice of a veteran crocodile, — waxed rueful, — and
shedding tears, — abundant tears, — streaming down his scaly
cheeks .... Beware of crocodilian tears ! Many, indeed, have
been beguiled by, and fallen victims to, their feint humanity !
Old Shakespeare, — the all -knowing and multiform genius, —
knew well the monstrous hypocrite ! He is the great Chef-
Menteur of the swamps and bayous ; and our Mingolabee —
Romanticist, — must have studied and graduated at his marsh-
environed Voudou - School of false lore and mock righteous-
ness. . . . But, hark ! again I hear strange voices, — voices of
Bull - Frogs, sounding like human voices ; list to them, kins-
man mine ; they are singing :
— 22 -
FIRST CHORUS.
EIGHT BULL-FROGS.
First Bull-Frog, (treble). — Greet Georgy, greet Georgy,
greet Georgy.
Second Bull-Frog, (barytone). — Weep, poor Will ; weep,
poor Will ; weep, poor Will.
Third Bull-Frog, (soprano).— Willy, Willy ; Willy, Willy ;
Willy, Willy.
Fourth Bull- Frog, (mezzo voce). — Kable, Keble ; Koble,
Kooble ; Kyble, Koible.
Fifth Bull- Frog, (tenor). — He's a Novelist, lie's an Artist,
lie's a Poet.
Sixth Bull-Frog, (alto).— He is, he is, lie is.
Seventh Bull-Frog, (counter base). — All the Press say so,
all the Press say so, all the Press say so.
Last and Biggest Bull-Frog, (fundamental base). — Let
us cheer him, let us praise him, let us crown him : He'll be
our Singer, he'll be our Mingo, he'll be our Great Chief.
SECOND CHORUS.
INNUMERABLE, SHRILL-VOICED, GEEEN - JACKETED
LITTLE FROGS.
All hail to thee,
All hail, all hail,
Grandissime, Brahmin, Mandarin, Wancanous, Georgy,
Willy, Tasimbo, Mingola.bee ;
All hail to thee,
All hail, all hail !
WEIRD SOLO
— BY A —
ZOMB I-FROGl.
(STEAXGE, VENTEILOQUOUS YOICE.)
Savan Missid Kabri,
Ki konin tou gri-gri,
Prosh kote For-Pagnol,
Li td kouri lekol
Avek vie kokodri,
Ki td in Gran Zombi ;
Kan soleil td koushd,
Dan ti kouin biyin kashd,
Li td sorti bayou
Pour apprande li Voudou.
Savan Missid Kabri,
Ki konin tou gri-gri,
Sd pa krivin pour frime ;
Li id Id ' ' Grandissime " ;
Tou moune ape parld
Anho liv ki li id ;
Sd pa piti Missid,
Silk ki yd pdld
Savan Missid Kabri,
Ki konin tou gri-gri.
Kotd Bayou Koshon,
Ou ganyin plin dijon,
Li td dansd Kongo
Avek Mari Lavo.
In soir, yd id gran bal,
Ye limin plin fanal,
Et yd marid Kabri
Avek mamezel Zizi ;
Sd td pli bel ne'gresse
Td ganyin dan lespesse.
Prosh kote gran dikane,
Yd bati in kabane ;
E yd id plin piti,
Ki td sambld zombi,
Savan Missid Kabri,
Li konin tou gri-gri,
Li konin tou kishoze,
E li santi ddroze.
— 24 —
r Alon danse* Kongo,
Epi crie*, bravo !
Bra vo pour Tasiinbo !
Bravo ! bravo pour li,
Savan Missid Kabri,
Ki konin tou gri-gri ;
Se pa krivin pour frime ;
Li f6 le " Grandissime."
Caboo. — Now, is not that grand, most grand, grander than
the grandest Opera-music ?
Aboo. — It is as grand as " The Grandissimes. "
(After this grand, — grandest of grand musical efforts, grandest
of grand lyrical paeans, which had been achieved by the Wararon
and Grenouiile choruses, a clap of thunder was heard.... All the bully
Wararons and the petty Grenouilles,— quick as fright, — suddenly-
dived, — with a great splash of water, — and disappeared beneath the
large-leaved and yellow - blossomed nenuphars of their native
swamp, — heureux d'etre hors de danger /.... A small cloud was then
seen in the direction of lake Catherine ; it grew darker and
larger, expanding until it overshadowed the whole sky ; the breeze
freshened and waxed into a gale ; the foaming waves of the aDgry
lake swelled and heaved, bearing on their snow-like crests the
weary gulls, whose sinister shrieks boded the coming storm ; rain
poured down, as if earth were threatened with a second deluge ;
Aboo, Caboo and the stenographer fled for a shelter to the nearest
house ; and there, they stood, with drenched garments, in patient
expectancy : And behold, clothed in spark-spangled smoke, with
its fearfully warning voice, comes rolling the stream-animated
monster, the Promethean creation of Fulton's audacious genius....
They leap into the returning tram.... They are gone.... And all
is over.
I bid you farewell, kind and impartial Reader, and wish you
the lull enjoyment of the most substantial and real happiness, while
I will still pursue. — dreaming still,— " airy nothings " and " ideal
visions" of unrealisable bliss,— unrealisable because space is too
narrow and time is too short to contain what is Infinite and
Etebnal. )
NOTICE OF THE EDITOR.
Whoever, in our Great Age of progress, -wishes to
speak and to be listened to, or to write and to be read by
the many, must speak in a vast public place, or write in
a Daily Journal. Our Age has not time, aDd is not in a
mood, to take up a huge volume, or to patiently endure
an endless speech, heavily delivered by a fastidious
scholar : Hence the necessity, the interest, the power,
the sway, the over-ruling and ever-active influence of
the Press. What Steam accomplishes in the physical
order, the Press, — that Stirn- ulating engine, — achieves
in the intellectual, moral, political, and even poetical,
order. The Journal, and the Pamphlet, its immediate
co-ad jutor, may work, and do work, daily, wonders, —
and, yet wonders that are not wondered at. — Here is a
Spicy Pamphlet, some twenty-four leaves put together, —
Journal-like, — which you may read, as you read a Daily
Paper ; and yet, — mark ye, — it can be bought for, —
you hardly will believe it for only :
28 CENTS.
