The Mummery
THE TWO CAVEES
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
FITCH _a Pelter of Railrogues_
PICKERING _his Partner, an Enemy to Sin_
OLD NICK _a General Blackwasher_
DEAD CAT _a Missile_
ANTIQUE EGG _Another_
RAILROGUES, DUMP-CARTERS. NAVVIES and Unassorted SHOVELRY in the Lower Distance
_Scene_-The Brink of a Railway Cut, a Mile Deep.
_Time_-1875.
FITCH:
Gods! what a steep declivity! Below
I see the lazy dump-carts come and go,
Creeping like beetles and about as big.
The delving Paddies-
PICKERING:
Case of _infra dig._
FITCH:
Loring, light-minded and unmeaning quips
Come with but scant propriety from lips
Fringed with the blue-black evidence of age.
'Twere well to cultivate a style more sage,
For men will fancy, hearing how you pun,
Our foulest missiles are but thrown in fun.
(_Enter Dead Cat._)
Here's one that thoughtfully has come to hand;
Slant your fine eye below and see it land.
(_Seizes Dead Cat by the tail and swings it in act to throw._)
DEAD CAT (_singing_):
Merrily, merrily, round I go-
Over and under and at.
Swing wide and free, swing high and low
The anti-monopoly cat!
O, who wouldn't be in the place of me,
The anti-monopoly cat?
Designed to admonish,
Persuade and astonish
The capitalist and-
FITCH _(letting go):_
Scat!
_(Exit Dead Cat.)_
PICKERING:
Huzza! good Deacon, well and truly flung!
Pat Stanford it has grassed, and Mike de Young.
Mike drives a dump-cart for the villains, though
'Twere fitter that he pull it. Well, we owe
The traitor one for leaving us!-some day
We'll get, if not his place, his cart away.
Meantime fling missiles-any kind will do.
_(Enter Antique Egg.)_
Ha! we can give them an _ovation_, too!
ANTIQUE EGG:
In the valley of the Nile,
Where the Holy Crocodile
Of immeasurable smile
Blossoms like the early rose,
And the Sacred Onion grows
When the Pyramids were new
And the Sphinx possessed a nose,
By a storkess I was laid
In the cool papyrus shade,
Where the rushes later grew,
That concealed the little Jew,
Baby Mose.
Straining very hard to hatch,
I disrupted there my yolk;
And I felt my yellow streaming
Through my white;
And the dream that I was dreaming
Of posterity was broke
In a night.
Then from the papyrus-patch
By the rising waters rolled,
Passing many a temple old,
I proceeded to the sea.
Memnon sang, one morn, to me,
And I heard Cambyses sass
The tomb of Ozymandias!
FITCH:
O, venerablest orb of all the earth,
God rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth!
Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw
I freely tender thee mine own. Although
As a bad egg I am myself no slouch,
Thy riper years thy ranker worth avouch.
Now, Pickering, please expose your eye and say
If-whoop!-
_(Exit egg.)_
I've got the range.
PICKERING:
Hooray! hooray!
A grand good shot, and Teddy Colton's down:
It burst in thunderbolts upon his crown!
Larry O'Crocker drops his pick and flies,
And deafening odors scream along the skies!
Pelt 'em some more.
FITCH:
There's nothing left but tar-
wish I were a Yahoo.
PICKERING:
Well, you are.
But keep the tar. How well I recollect,
When Mike was in with us-proud, strong, erect
_Mens conscia recti_-flinging mud, he stood,
Austerely brave, incomparably good,
Ere yet for filthy lucre he began
To drive a cart as Stanford's hired man,
That pitch-pot bearing in his hand, Old Nick
Appeared and tarred us all with the same stick.
_(Enter Old Nick)_.
I hope he won't return and use his arts
To make us part with our immortal parts.
OLD NICK:
Make yourself easy on that score my lamb;
For both your souls I wouldn't give a damn!
I want my tar-pot-hello! where's the stick?
FITCH:
Don't look at _me_ that fashion!-look at Pick.
PICKERING:
Forgive me, father-pity my remorse!
Truth is-Mike took that stick to spank his horse.
It fills my pericardium with grief
That I kept company with such a thief.
(_Endeavoring to get his handkerchief, he opens his coat and
the tar-stick falls out. Nick picks it up, looks at the culprit
reproachfully and withdraws in tears._)
FITCH (_excitedly_):
O Pickering, come hither to the brink-
There's something going on down there, I think!
With many an upward smile and meaning wink
The navvies all are running from the cut
Like lunatics, to right and left-
PICKERING:
Tut, tut-
'Tis only some poor sport or boisterous joke.
Let us sit down and have a quiet smoke.
(_They sit and light cigars._)
FITCH (_singing_):
When first I met Miss Toughie
I smoked a fine cigyar,
An' I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.
BOTH (_singing_):
An' I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.
FITCH (_singing_):
I couldn't go to her,
An' she wouldn't come to me;
An' I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.
BOTH (_singing_):
An' I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.
FITCH (_singing_):
But purty soon I weakened
An' lef' de dummy's bench,
An' frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!
BOTH (_singing_)
An' frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!
FITCH:
Is there not now a certain substance sold
Under the name of fulminate of gold,
A high explosive, popular for blasting,
Producing an effect immense and lasting?
PICKERING:
Nay, that's mere superstition. Rocks are rent
And excavations made by argument.
Explosives all have had their day and season;
The modern engineer relies on reason.
He'll talk a tunnel through a mountain's flank
And by fair speech cave down the tallest bank.
(_The earth trembles, a deep subterranean explosion is heard and a section of the bank as big as El Capitan starts away and plunges thunderously into the cut. A part of it strikes De Young's dumpcart abaft the axletree and flings him, hurtling, skyward, a thing of legs and arms, to descend on the distant mountains, where it is cold. Fitch and Pickering pull themselves out of the debris and stand ungraveling their eyes and noses._)
FITCH:
Well, since I'm down here I will help to grade,
And do dirt-throwing henceforth with a spade.
PICKERING:
God bless my soul! it gave me quit a start.
Well, fate is fate-I guess I'll drive this cart.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Related quotes
Slander
FITCH:
'All vices you've exhausted, friend;
So all the papers say.'
PICKERING:
'Ah, what vile calumnies are penned!-
'Tis just the other way.'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Credit Rating Agencies: Moody's, Standard & Poor's & Fitch
To John Moody, Henry Varnum Poor and John Knowles Fitch
1.
moody's this is gin fizz to be a techno-wizz
2.
standard & poor's and floors for poors and doors for poors
3.
fitch and irrigation stitch international pitch
poem by Nicolas Grenier
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Substance Versus Shadow
So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt,
Not at the guilty, only just at Guilt!
Spare the offender and condemn Offense,
And make life miserable to Pretense!
'Whip Vice and Folly-that is satire's use
But be not personal, for _that's_ abuse;
Nor e'er forget what, 'like a razor keen,
Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen.''
Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe,
To think that razor but an old, old saw,
A trifle rusty; and a wound, I'm sure,
That's felt not, seen not, one can well endure.
Go to! go to!-you're as unfitted quite
To give advice to writers as to write.
I find in Folly and in Vice a lack
Of head to hit, and for the lash no back;
Whilst Pixley has a pow that's easy struck,
And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!)
Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free,
God gave to him a corn, a heel to me.
He, also, sets his face (so like a flint
The wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't)
With cold austerity, against these wars
On scamps-'tis Scampery that _he_ abhors!
Behold advance in dignity and state
Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great
Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows
In alms what t'other one as justice owes.
Rascality attends him like a shade,
But closes, woundless, o'er my baffled blade,
Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed.
Faith! I'm for something can be made to feel,
If, like Pelides, only in the heel.
The fellow's self invites assault; his crimes
Will each bear killing twenty thousand times!
Anon Creed Haymond-but the list is long
Of names to point the moral of my song.
Rogues, fools, impostors, sycophants, they rise,
They foul the earth and horrify the skies
With Mr. Huntington (sole honest man
In all the reek of that rapscallion clan)
Denouncing Theft as hard as e'er he can!
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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A Silurian Holiday
'Tis Master Fitch, the editor;
He takes an holiday.
Now wherefore, venerable sir,
So resolutely gay?
He lifts his head, he laughs aloud,
Odzounds! 'tis drear to see!
'Because the Boodle-Scribbler crowd
Will soon be far from me.
'Full many a year I've striven well
To freeze the caitiffs out
By making this good town a Hell,
But still they hang about.
'They maken mouths and eke they grin
At the dollar limit game;
And they are holpen in that sin
By many a wicked dame.
'In sylvan bowers hence I'll dwell
My bruised mind to ease.
Farewell, ye urban scenes, farewell!
Hail, unfamiliar trees!'
Forth Master Fitch did bravely hie,
And all the country folk
Besought him that he come not nigh
The deadly poison oak!
He smiled a cheerful smile (the day
Was straightway overcast)
The poison oak along his way
Was blighted as he passed!
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Loneliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best thing you can do it to know yourself... know what you want.
Janet Fitch in White Oleander
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One And One Are Two
The trumpet sounded and the dead
Came forth from earth and ocean,
And Pickering arose and sped
Aloft with wobbling motion.
'What makes him fly lop-sided?' cried
A soul of the elected.
'One ear was wax,' a rogue replied,
'And isn't resurrected.'
Below him on the pitted plain,
By his abandoned hollow,
His hair and teeth tried all in vain
The rest of him to follow.
Saint Peter, seeing him ascend,
Came forward to the wicket,
And said: 'My mutilated friend,
I'll thank you for your ticket.'
'The _Call_,' said Pickering, his hand
To reach the latch extended.
Said Peter, affable and bland:
'The free-list is suspended
'What claim have you that's valid here?'
That ancient vilifier
Reflected; then, with look austere,
Replied: 'I am a liar.'
Said Peter: 'That is simple, neat
And candid Anglo-Saxon,
But-well, come in, and take a seat
Up there by Colonel Jackson.'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Expositor Veritatis
I Slept, and, waking in the years to be,
Heard voices, and approaching whence they came,
Listened indifferently where a key
Had lately been removed. An ancient dame
Said to her daughter: 'Go to yonder caddy
And get some emery to scour your daddy.'
And then I knew-some intuition said
That tombs were not and men had cleared their shelves
Of urns; and the electro-plated dead
Stood pedestaled as statues of themselves.
With famous dead men all the public places
Were thronged, and some in piles awaited bases.
One mighty structure's high facade alone
Contained a single monumental niche,
Where, central in that steep expanse of stone,
Gleamed the familiar form of Thomas Fitch.
A man cried: 'Lo! Truth's temple and its founder!'
Then gravely added: 'I'm her chief expounder.'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Sweatshop
These are our brothers and sisters
Trapped in the chains of poverty
There is a sudden need for autonomy
Like MLK when he sang for peace
Like Howard Zinn’s soul released
Pier 1, Wal-Mart, Abercrombie and Fitch
Universal hatred toward the careless rich
And as the gut eaters sit in mansions and spoils of gain
Women and children are dying in vain
This tears on my hear and leaves only blisters
Popular to 'Emo
You say PINK
I say BLACK
You say HOLLISTER
I say HOT TOPIC
You say ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH
I say SPENCERS
You say LOVE
I say HATE
You say POP
I say ROCK
You say HANNAH MONTANA
I say MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE
You say THE HILLS
I say HEADBANGERS BALL
You say ROMANCE
I say HORROR
You say FLUTE
I say ELECTIRC GUITAR
You say PINK NAILS
I say BLACK NAILS
You say WATER
I say MOUNTAIN DEW
You say FAKE
I say DOWN TO EARTH
You say LIP GLOSS
I say EYELINER
poem by Destiny Avaritia
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A Literary Giant
He wore a grey overcoat,
A black fur cap with earflaps,
Felt boots and galoshes,
Addressing a large crowd
Of young writers in Flint,
Michigan, declaring
With a thick Russian accent:
'You, my American comrades,
What do you know about
Chekhov or Dostoyesvsky?
You who grew up with your
Abercrombie & Fitch,
Victoria's Secret Bras and
Fake Hollywood Orgasms,
And your thousand channels
Of mindless rubbish-
What do you know about
Passion and soul? '
And he looked around him,
Seeing the vacant smiles
Of his young audience,
Where some guy shouted:
'Peace out, dude, it's all good! '
And he looked straight into
His eyes, saying:
'See what I mean! This whole
Place is a joke and this
University is a joke! '
And then he said in Russian:
'Chyort poberi! ' leaving the stage
With his latest book under
His arm entitled
'Love in the Time of Futility, '
Which has won him
The Nobel Prize in Literature…
And he never set his foot
In that godforsaken place
Ever again.
May 25,2008
poem by Alexander Shaumyan
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Today, many fans are saddened and upset by the lack of integrity they see in professional boxing that has significantly weakened the sport - the most deplorable problem of which is the treatment of the sport's athletes.
quote by Charles W. Pickering
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known.
quote by Thomas Pickering
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But remember, any radiologic procedure is only as effective as the person performing it.
quote by Charles W. Pickering
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Without a doubt, professional boxers are the most exploited athletes in our Nation.
quote by Charles W. Pickering
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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But our country suffers from a shortage of vets trained in public health.
quote by Charles W. Pickering
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Vision Of Resurrection
I had a dream. The habitable earth
Its continents and islands, all were bare
Of cities and of forests. Naught remained
Of its old aspect, and I only knew
(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)
That this was earth and that all men were dead.
On every side I saw the barren land,
Even to the distant sky's inclosing blue,
Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves
Save one were open-not as newly dug,
But rather as by some internal force
Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split
And wide agape, and in their iron decay
The massive mausoleums stood in halves.
With mildewed linen all the ground was white.
Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones
Hung without motion in the soulless air.
While greatly marveling how this should be
I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,
Low like an angel's, delicately strong,
And sweet as music.
-'Spirit,' it said, 'behold
The burial place of universal Man!
A million years have rolled away since here
His sheeted multitudes (save only some
Whose dark misdeeds required a separate
And individual arraignment) rose
To judgment at the trumpet's summoning
And passed into the sky for their award,
Leaving behind these perishable things
Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure
Till all are up. Then they and all of earth,
Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,
River and wilderness and sites of dead
And vanished capitals of men, shall spring
To flame, and naught shall be for evermore!
When all are risen that wonder will occur.
'Twas but ten centuries ago the last
But one came forth-a soul so black with sin,
Against whose name so many crimes were set
That only now his trial is at end.
But one remains.'
Straight, as the voice was stilled
That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise
And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space
He stood and gazed about him with a smile
Superior; then laying off his shroud
Disclosed his two attenuated legs
Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly
As by the weight of saintliness above,
And so sprang upward and was lost to view
Noting his headstone overthrown, I read:
'Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,
Deacon and Editor-a holy man
Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years
And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first.'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Hate It
I hate the way you look at me
I hate the way you stare
I hate the way you tell me you love me
Even more when you say you care
I hate the way you hold my hand
I hate the smell of your sweater
I hate the way you hug me
And tell me things are going to get better
I hate the way you wear your hat
And the way you drive your car
I hate that I can’t see you
Why do you have to be so far?
I hate the way I can’t hate you
And I hate how I can’t give up
poem by Marjorie Pickering
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Lawsuit abuse is a major contributor to the increased costs of healthcare, goods and services to consumers.
quote by Charles W. Pickering
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The public airwaves provide a chance to affirm we want to be a good, decent people; a good, decent nation.
quote by Charles W. Pickering
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Media corporations have a civic responsibility not only to prevent fraud and financial abuse, but also to not corrupt or degrade our culture.
quote by Charles W. Pickering
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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