Ponkapog Papers | Page 7

retreat is called The Porcupine, and I ought by good rights to know
something about the habits of the small animal from which it derives its
name. Last winter my dog Buster used to return home on an average of

three times a month from an excursion up Mt. Pisgah with his nose
stuck full of quills, and he ought to have some concrete ideas on
the subject. We two, then, are prepared to testify that the por- cupine in
its moments of relaxation occasion- ally contracts itself into what might
be taken for a ball by persons not too difficult to please in the matter of
spheres. But neither Buster nor I--being unwilling to get into trouble--
would like to assert that it is an actual ball. That it is a shape with
which one had better not thoughtlessly meddle is a conviction that my
friend Buster stands ready to defend against all comers.
WORDSWORTH'S characterization of the woman in one of his poems
as "a creature not too bright or good for human nature's daily food" has
always appeared to me too cannibalesque to be poetical. It directly sets
one to thinking of the South Sea islanders.
THOUGH Iago was not exactly the kind of per- son one would select
as a superintendent for a Sunday-school, his advice to young Roderigo
was wisdom itself--"Put money in thy purse." Whoever disparages
money disparages every step in the progress of the human race. I lis-
tened the other day to a sermon in which gold was personified as a sort
of glittering devil tempting mortals to their ruin. I had an instant of
natural hesitation when the contribution-plate was passed around
immediately afterward. Personally, I be- lieve that the possession of
gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises
have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom
of poverty the world will never know. "After the love of knowledge,"
says Buckle, " there is no one passion which has done so much good to
mankind as the love of money."
DIALECT tempered with slang is an admirable medium of
communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons
who would not care for anything properly said.
DR. HOLMES had an odd liking for ingenious desk-accessories in the
way of pencil-sharpeners, paper-weights, penholders, etc. The latest
con- trivances in this fashion--probably dropped down to him by the
inventor angling for a nibble of commendation--were always making
one another's acquaintance on his study table. He once said to me: "I 'm

waiting for somebody to invent a mucilage-brush that you can't by any
accident put into your inkstand. It would save me frequent moments of
humiliation."
THE deceptive Mr. False and the volatile Mrs. Giddy, who figure in the
pages of seventeenth and eighteenth century fiction, are not tolerated in
modern novels and plays. Steal the burglar and Palette the artist have
ceased to be. A name indicating the quality or occupation of the bearer
strikes us as a too transparent device. Yet there are such names in
contemporary real life. That of our worthy Adjutant-General Drum may
be instanced. Neal and Pray are a pair of deacons who linger in the
memory of my boyhood. Sweet the confectioner and Lamb the butcher
are indi- viduals with whom I have had dealings. The old-time sign of
Ketchum & Cheetam, Brokers, in Wall Street, New York, seems almost
too good to be true. But it was once, if it is not now, an actuality.
I HAVE observed that whenever a Boston author dies, New York
immediately becomes a great literary centre.
THE possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any
man. There is a pos- sible Nero in the gentlest human creature that
walks.
EVERY living author has a projection of him- self, a sort of eidolon,
that goes about in near and remote places making friends or enemies
for him among persons who never lay eyes upon the writer in the flesh.
When he dies, this phan- tasmal personality fades away, and the author
lives only in the impression created by his own literature. It is only then
that the world begins to perceive what manner of man the poet, the
novelist, or the historian really was. Not until he is dead, and perhaps
some long time dead, is it possible for the public to take his exact mea-
sure. Up to that point contemporary criticism has either overrated him
or underrated him, or ignored him altogether, having been misled by
the eidolon, which always plays fantastic tricks with the writer
temporarily under its dominion. It invariably represents him as either a
greater or a smaller personage than he actually is. Pre- sently the
simulacrum works no more spells, good