Radio Script #222
Little Talks On Common Things
April 11, 1954
LITTLE TALKS ON COMMON THINGS
222nd . Broadcast ,1~pri I 11 , 1954
The tremendous advance made in rapid transportation during this century is shown by a very si mp Ie statement. I t took more than 4,000 years after the I nvention of the wheel to produce the prairie schooner, the Conestoga wagon. But, in the short 50 years since the Wright Brothers’ flights at Kitty Hawk, air lines cover the world and the super-jet exceeds the speed of sound.
Although we sti II have the magazine subscription boys and men call at our doors, we don’t often see an honest-to-goodness book agent. How common they used to be. I’m sure some of our I isteners can come up with Interesting stories about them. Some of the very titles of those reference books once peddled from door to door are intriguing. Gateley’s “Universal Educator of Informative Facts”, Hi II’s “Universal Manual of Business and Social Etiquette”, The longer the title, the more the prospective purchaser was expected to be Impressed.
wonder how many sets of Stoddard’s Lectures were sold by agents al I through the Kennebec Valley. Then there were those sets of Dickens’ Novels, with their abusively fine print, two columns to the page. It was one of those sets that introduced me to Oliver Twist, and has made Dickens at I of a twist to me ever since.
The average book agent’s life was pretty tough. His feet got ve ry sore; many a door was slammed in his face; even when he got inside a house, Yankee sales resistance was powerful. Yet, all over the land, gilt-edged and deckleedged volumes, as well as encyclopedias and other compendiums of knowledge, stand on household shelves as sl lent testimony that those persistent ringers of doorbe I Is someti mes made a sa Ie.
have often wondered what prices the cattle drovers of Central Maine received for their stock driven the long journey over the roads to the Brighton Market just outside of Boston. In a copy of an old paper published by the Free Will Baptists I got some information on this subject. Chester Dunlap recently showed me the “Morning Star” for October 4, 1854. It was a four-page paper published by the religious sect in the Free Wi II Baptist Building, Washington Street, Near the Town Hall, Dover, New Hampshire. Its contents, a mixture of religious and literary homi lies and a bit of political comment, includes a list of pri ces at the Bri ghton Catt Ie Market. A fi rst qua Ii ty beef creature brought $8, an ordinary one $5.50. That was not a price per hundred pounds, but a price for The whole animal. Hides went for $5 a hundredweight, calf skins for 11 cents a pound. Extra qua f i ty sheep and I ambs brought $5, hogs 4 cents a pound. AT the end of the quotations appears this statement: I1Market largely stocked, and prices have declined from last week.”
On OCTober 10, 1854 the Free Baptists held a conference in Saco, and this October 4 issue of the “Morni ng Star” I nstructs the de legates as fo flows: “A I I those who come by ra I I road wi I I stop at Saco depot and go to the Free Wi I I Baptist meeting house, and al I others that come by stage or private conveyance are requested to go to the meeti ng house and register thei r names. A commi ttee wi I I be in attendance to di rect them to boardi ng places. Our meeti ng house is ha I f a mi Ie from the depot on Temp Ie Street. Those who come in on Monday wi I I inquire for me. I shall be at the depot on the arrival of each train on Monday. C. H. Smith, Pastor of the Church.”
I have often commented on the fact that formerly the posta t laws di d not requi re the payment of newspaper subscri ptions in advance, as they do today. Consequent Iy the pub Ii shers were a Iways try i n9 to collect overdue subscrlpti ons.
Papers prinTed by the religious denominations were no exception. Not only does this Issue of the Morning Star call attention to the law requiring a subscriber to pay all arrears before his paper can be stopped, but in quite contradictory fashion, the editor writes: “We entreat our agent in each town to collect bills of delinquent subscribers as soon as they receive them, and to give us immediate notice of any subscribers who wi II probably never pay, that their papers may be discontinued. We cannot afford to buy paper at the present price, then pri nt it and gi ve it away.”
Did you ever hear of artificial honey? The only reference I have ever seen to that product is an ad in the Morn i ng Star of January 7, 1857 — another issue preserved by Chester Dunlap. The ad reads as follONS: ”How to make honey as good as that made by bees at a cost not exceeding six cents a pound. Ten barre Is can be made I n one hour with but little troub Ie. Sing Ie reci pe, sent by mai I. 13 cents; per hundred, $3. Enclose your money securely to Marston & Company. Harmony, Rhode I s I and. ”
On Easter Monday, April 18 the Colby College Press wi II publish a book of interest to many Maine people. It is “The Collected Poems of Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer”, with a memoir of this Maine poet by Hermann Hagedorn. The volume includes poems written by Pulsifer over a period of forty years, some of them previously published in leading magazines, others in books of poems produced from time to time by the author.
Like most good lyrics, the poems are intensely subjective, embued with the feelings of the man himself on life’s intimate problems. Among the most memorab Ie of these is one ca lied “Faces II — four women whom he had known we II •
“Four faces in the d:lrk,
Eight eyes ag’ 011
With the pale lunar spark
Fi refl ies do show.
Eight hands beckoning,
Spindrift on the wind -Past
a II morta I reckoni ng
Are phantoms of the mi nd • ”
Another poem is called “The Woman Who Forgot” — begi nnl ng with the sad lines:
“He is gone forever now,
Past all hope of his returning.
On his altar In her heart
There is no light burning.”
Other intriguing titles are “The Harvest of Time”, “The Generations”,
“Ghosts”, “Elegy for a House”, “Trout”, and “I Would Be a Child Again”.
Though not Maine-born, Harold Pulsifer spent much of his life In Maine a II of his summers for many years, and longer seasons toward the end of his life. The best loved of his Maine residences was the salt-water farm on Bethel Poi nt near the vi Ilage of Cundy’s Harbor in the t~n of Harpswe II. There many of the poems were written. There he and his gracious wife entertained writers, editors, artists and other men and women of genius. To that salt water farm came Frederick and Alice Packard, whom Pulsifer had first met at a gathering of the Poet’s Gui I din New York Ci ty in 1930, and whom he se lected to co Ilect and edit the poems In their present volume. For some time Pulsifer had wanted the best of his work gathered into one volume. He set about that work In the summer of 1946, but fai ling health prevented his finishing it, and he gave instructions to his wife Susan that the Packards should complete the task. Their i nt I mate, affect ionate foreword adds much to the book.
Harold Pulsifer was a man of importance in the literary world. Unlike many other men who turn to writing, he never knew poverty. 80m in 1886 in Manchester, Connecti cut, he had for a father the OIiner of a prosperous paper mi II, for a mother the daughter of the man who deve loped the great Va lenti ne Varnish Company. His grandmother’s fami Iy, the Houghtons, owned the Riverside Press 1 wh i ch pri nted the works of longfe I low and LOIie I I, Hawthorne and Emerson, Thoreau and Louisa Alcott. Grandfather Valentine calmly produced $100,000 to set the publishing company back on its feet when a disastrous fire burned their p I ant.
Fami Iy relationships played some part in Pulsifer’s links with the great men and women of his time. His acquaintance with WinslOli Homer, the artist, resulting in the fine collection of Winslow Homer water colors which Mrs. Pulsi fer has loaned to Colby College, began because Wins low Homer’s brother Charles was chief chemist of the Valentine Varnish Company. The influence of Lyman Abbott and his sons began when Lawrence Abbott married a Va lenti ne daughter.
But Harold Pulsifer was the kind of man who would and did make acquaintances di rectly on his Olin. He became particularly close to Theodore Roosevelt. He organized a group called “The Poets”, which included Edwin Arlington Robinson, Arthur Guiterman, Robert Nathan, Wi I Ii am Rose Benet, Elinor Wi ley and Margaret Wi dQemer.
Pulsifer becarre the distinguihsed editor of the “Outlook”, the periodical made famous by the Abbotts, and to which Theodore Roosevelt, during his presidency and afterwards, was a regular contributor. As editor and critic, Pulsifer’s standards were high and his sense of lasting quality unusually keen. It was he, for instance, who gave Elinor Wiley her first publication, accepting one of her poems which had been refused by the Atlantic fVbnthly.
We have no time here to discuss the mixture of gaiety and melancholy, of humor and sadness, which made the rhythm of Harold Pulsifer’s life. You must read the book, both the poems and Mr. Hagedorn’s memoir, to understand all that. You can get it at your bookstore or directly from the Colby College Press •. Suffice it now to add a note for sportsmen. This man who was an ardent fisherman was the country’s foremost advocate of the barb less hook.
On this ,Palm Sunday we can think of no better way to end the program than by quoting Harold Pulsifer’s poem “Last Supper”.
“A ta I I spare man — soft beard cannot concea I
The firm, sure mouth, lean Jaw and sunken cheek
Aware of doom, waits for time to reveal
The morrow’s tidings that he may not speak.
He marks with poet’s eyes the little band -They
are the soi I, hi s word the fallen seed
Now ripe for destiny — and then his hand
Moves to supply their hunger and their need.
There is a thirst no fruit of vine can slake,
A deeper hunger that no man may shrink.
He breaks the bread. ‘This Is my body. Take!’
He gives the cup. ‘This Is my life blood. Drink!’
And at his word the belly’s food becomes
A flashing sword-blade and the roll of drums.”
Year: 1954