The Sunday Excursionist
Somebody—who it was doesn’t make any difference—has said something like the following: “There is something grand in the grief of the Common People, but there is no sadder sight on earth than that of a Philistine enjoying himself.”
If a man would realize the truth of this, let him go on a Sunday excursion. The male Sunday excursionist enjoys himself, as the darkies say, “a gwine and a cornin’.” No other being on earth can hold quite so much bubbling and vociferous joy. The welkin that would not ring when the Sunday excursionist opens his escape valve is not worth a cent. Six days the Sunday excursionist labors and does his work, but he does his best to refute the opponents of the theory of the late Charles Darwin. He occupies all the vacant seats in the car with his accomplices, and lets his accursed good nature spray over the rest of the passengers. He is so infernally happy that he wants everybody, to the brakeman on the rear car, to know it. He is so devilish agreeable, so perniciously jolly and so abominably entertaining that people who were bom with or have acquired brains love him most vindictively.
People who become enamored of the Sunday excursionist are apt to grow insanely jealous, and have been known to rise up and murder him when a stranger enters the car and he proceeds to repeat his funny remarks for the benefit of a fresh audience.
The female Sunday excursionist generally accompanies him. She brings her laugh with her, and does a turn in the pauses of his low comedy work. She never by any accident misplaces her laugh or allows it to get out of curl. It ripples naturally and conforms readily to the size of the car. She puts on the male Sunday excursionist’s hat, and he puts on hers, and if the other passengers are feeling worse than usual, they sing “The Swanee River.” There is enough woe and sorrow in the world without augmenting it in this way.
Men who have braved the deepest troubles and emerged unscathed from the heaviest afflictions have gone down with a shriek of horror and despair before the fatal hilarity of the Sunday excursionist. There is no escape from his effects.
Decoration Day has passed, and the graves of the Northern and Southern soldiers have been duly flower strewn, as is meet and fitting. The valor of the North has been told on a thousand rostrums, and the courage of the South has been related from ten hundred platforms. Battles have been fought again, and redoubts retaken. Much has been said of brotherly love and the bridging of the chasm. The Blue has marched abreast to the common meeting place, and the Gray has marched abreast, and they have met and shaken hands and said the war is over. There can be no such thing as a union of the Blue and the Gray. When you pronounce the words you form the bar that separates them. The Blue is one thing and the Gray is another. There should be no more Blue and no more Gray. If a tribute is to be paid to the heroes on either side whom we wish to keep in remembrance, it should be made by American citizens, not divided by the colors of their garments. There is no need to march by grand armies, by camps, or by posts. If there is to be a shaking of hands, let it be by one citizen of the United States with another. The Gray and Blue are things of the past. In the innermost hearts, in the still, quick memories of the South, the Gray will always live, but it should live as in a shrine, hallowed and hidden from pomp and display. As citizens of a common country, we of the South offer our hands to citizens of the North in peace and fellowship, but we do not mingle the Gray with the Blue.
Mehitabel, Claribel, Bessie, and Sue
All in white lawn and ribbons pale blue.
Went into a drug store; each sat on a stool,
And called for some phosphate to make them all cool.
“Oh! what is that big copper thing over there?”
Asked Bessie the gay one, asked Bessie the fair.
“Why that,” said the clerk, “is the thing with which we
Charge the phosphate and soda we sell, don’t you see?”
“How nice,” said bright Bessie and then they all rose,
And shook out their ruffles and beautiful clothes;
“Please charge those we had,” said the girls—then they flew,
Mehitabel, Claribel, Bessie, and Sue.