LITTLE TALKS ON COMMON THINGS<\/p>\n
222nd . Broadcast ,1~pri I 11 , 1954<\/p>\n
The tremendous advance made in rapid transportation during this century is\u00a0shown by a very si mp Ie statement. I t took more than 4,000 years after the I nvention\u00a0of the wheel to produce the prairie schooner, the Conestoga wagon. But,\u00a0in the short 50 years since the Wright Brothers’ flights at Kitty Hawk, air\u00a0lines cover the world and the super-jet exceeds the speed of sound.<\/p>\n
Although we sti II have the magazine subscription boys and men call at our\u00a0doors, we don’t often see an honest-to-goodness book agent. How common they\u00a0used to be. I’m sure some of our I isteners can come up with Interesting stories\u00a0about them. Some of the very titles of those reference books once peddled from\u00a0door to door are intriguing. Gateley’s “Universal Educator of Informative\u00a0Facts”, Hi II’s “Universal Manual of Business and Social Etiquette”, The longer\u00a0the title, the more the prospective purchaser was expected to be Impressed.<\/p>\n
wonder how many sets of Stoddard’s Lectures were sold by agents al I through the\u00a0Kennebec Valley. Then there were those sets of Dickens’ Novels, with their\u00a0abusively fine print, two columns to the page. It was one of those sets that\u00a0introduced me to Oliver Twist, and has made Dickens at I of a twist to me ever\u00a0since.<\/p>\n
The average book agent’s life was pretty tough. His feet got ve ry sore;\u00a0many a door was slammed in his face; even when he got inside a house, Yankee\u00a0sales resistance was powerful. Yet, all over the land, gilt-edged and deckleedged\u00a0volumes, as well as encyclopedias and other compendiums of knowledge,\u00a0stand on household shelves as sl lent testimony that those persistent ringers\u00a0of doorbe I Is someti mes made a sa Ie.<\/p>\n
have often wondered what prices the cattle drovers of Central Maine received\u00a0for their stock driven the long journey over the roads to the Brighton\u00a0Market just outside of Boston. In a copy of an old paper published by the Free\u00a0Will Baptists I got some information on this subject. Chester Dunlap recently\u00a0showed me the “Morning Star” for October 4, 1854. It was a four-page paper\u00a0published by the religious sect in the Free Wi II Baptist Building, Washington\u00a0Street, Near the Town Hall, Dover, New Hampshire. Its contents, a mixture of\u00a0religious and literary homi lies and a bit of political comment, includes a list\u00a0of pri ces at the Bri ghton Catt Ie Market. A fi rst qua Ii ty beef creature brought\u00a0$8, an ordinary one $5.50. That was not a price per hundred pounds, but a\u00a0price for The whole animal. Hides went for $5 a hundredweight, calf skins for\u00a011 cents a pound. Extra qua f i ty sheep and I ambs brought $5, hogs 4 cents a\u00a0pound. AT the end of the quotations appears this statement: I1Market largely\u00a0stocked, and prices have declined from last week.”<\/p>\n
On OCTober 10, 1854 the Free Baptists held a conference in Saco, and this\u00a0October 4 issue of the “Morni ng Star” I nstructs the de legates as fo flows: “A I I\u00a0those who come by ra I I road wi I I stop at Saco depot and go to the Free Wi I I\u00a0Baptist meeting house, and al I others that come by stage or private conveyance\u00a0are requested to go to the meeti ng house and register thei r names. A commi\u00a0ttee wi I I be in attendance to di rect them to boardi ng places. Our meeti ng\u00a0house is ha I f a mi Ie from the depot on Temp Ie Street. Those who come in on Monday\u00a0wi I I inquire for me. I shall be at the depot on the arrival of each train\u00a0on Monday. C. H. Smith, Pastor of the Church.”<\/p>\n
I have often commented on the fact that formerly the posta t laws di d not\u00a0requi re the payment of newspaper subscri ptions in advance, as they do today.\u00a0Consequent Iy the pub Ii shers were a Iways try i n9 to collect overdue subscrlpti ons.<\/p>\n
Papers prinTed by the religious denominations were no exception. Not only does\u00a0this Issue of the Morning Star call attention to the law requiring a subscriber\u00a0to pay all arrears before his paper can be stopped, but in quite contradictory\u00a0fashion, the editor writes: “We entreat our agent in each town to collect bills\u00a0of delinquent subscribers as soon as they receive them, and to give us immediate\u00a0notice of any subscribers who wi II probably never pay, that their papers may\u00a0be discontinued. We cannot afford to buy paper at the present price, then\u00a0pri nt it and gi ve it away.”<\/p>\n
Did you ever hear of artificial honey? The only reference I have ever\u00a0seen to that product is an ad in the Morn i ng Star of January 7, 1857 — <\/strong>another\u00a0issue preserved by Chester Dunlap. The ad reads as follONS: ”How to make honey\u00a0as good as that made by bees at a cost not exceeding six cents a pound. Ten\u00a0barre Is can be made I n one hour with but little troub Ie. Sing Ie reci pe, sent\u00a0by mai I. 13 cents; per hundred, $3. Enclose your money securely to Marston &\u00a0Company. Harmony, Rhode I s I and. ”<\/p>\n On Easter Monday, April 18 the Colby College Press wi II publish a book of\u00a0interest to many Maine people. It is “The Collected Poems of Harold Trowbridge\u00a0Pulsifer”, with a memoir of this Maine poet by Hermann Hagedorn. The volume includes\u00a0poems written by Pulsifer over a period of forty years, some of them\u00a0previously published in leading magazines, others in books of poems produced\u00a0from time to time by the author.<\/p>\n Like most good lyrics, the poems are intensely subjective, embued with the\u00a0feelings of the man himself on life’s intimate problems. Among the most memorab\u00a0Ie of these is one ca lied “Faces II — four women whom he had known we II \u2022<\/p>\n “Four faces in the d:lrk, Another poem is called “The Woman Who Forgot” — begi nnl ng <\/em>with the sad\u00a0lines:<\/p>\n “He is gone forever now, Other intriguing titles are “The Harvest of Time”, “The Generations”, Though not Maine-born, Harold Pulsifer spent much of his life In Maine\u00a0a II of his summers for many years, and longer seasons toward the end of his\u00a0life. The best loved of his Maine residences was the salt-water farm on Bethel\u00a0Poi nt near the vi Ilage of Cundy’s Harbor in the t~n of Harpswe II. There many\u00a0of the poems were written. There he and his gracious wife entertained writers,\u00a0editors, artists and other men and women of genius. To that salt water farm\u00a0came Frederick and Alice Packard, whom Pulsifer had first met at a gathering of\u00a0the Poet’s Gui I din New York Ci ty in 1930, and whom he se lected to co Ilect and\u00a0edit the poems In their present volume. For some time Pulsifer had wanted the\u00a0best of his work gathered into one volume. He set about that work In the summer\u00a0of 1946, but fai ling health prevented his finishing it, and he gave instructions\u00a0to his wife Susan that the Packards should complete the task. Their\u00a0i nt I mate, affect ionate foreword adds much to the book.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0Manchester, Connecti cut, he had for a father the OIiner of a prosperous paper\u00a0mi II, for a mother the daughter of the man who deve loped the great Va lenti ne\u00a0Varnish Company. His grandmother’s fami Iy, the Houghtons, owned the Riverside\u00a0Press 1 wh i ch pri nted the works of longfe I low and LOIie I I, Hawthorne and Emerson,\u00a0Thoreau and Louisa Alcott. Grandfather Valentine calmly produced $100,000 to\u00a0set the publishing company back on its feet when a disastrous fire burned their\u00a0p I ant.<\/p>\n Fami Iy relationships played some part in Pulsifer’s links with the great\u00a0men and women of his time. His acquaintance with WinslOli Homer, the artist,\u00a0resulting in the fine collection of Winslow Homer water colors which Mrs. Pulsi\u00a0fer has loaned to Colby College, began because Wins low Homer’s brother Charles\u00a0was chief chemist of the Valentine Varnish Company. The influence of Lyman\u00a0Abbott and his sons began when Lawrence Abbott married a Va lenti ne daughter.<\/p>\n But Harold Pulsifer was the kind of man who would and did make acquaintances\u00a0di rectly on his Olin. He became particularly close to Theodore Roosevelt.\u00a0He organized a group called “The Poets”, which included Edwin Arlington Robinson,\u00a0Arthur Guiterman, Robert Nathan, Wi I Ii am Rose Benet, Elinor Wi ley and Margaret\u00a0Wi dQemer.<\/p>\n Pulsifer becarre the distinguihsed editor of the “Outlook”, the periodical\u00a0made famous by the Abbotts, and to which Theodore Roosevelt, during his presidency\u00a0and afterwards, was a regular contributor. As editor and critic, Pulsifer’s\u00a0standards were high and his sense of lasting quality unusually keen. It\u00a0was he, for instance, who gave Elinor Wiley her first publication, accepting\u00a0one of her poems which had been refused by the Atlantic fVbnthly.<\/p>\n We have no time here to discuss the mixture of gaiety and melancholy, of\u00a0humor and sadness, which made the rhythm of Harold Pulsifer’s life. You must\u00a0read the book, both the poems and Mr. Hagedorn’s memoir, to understand all that.\u00a0You can get it at your bookstore or directly from the Colby College Press \u2022. Suffice\u00a0it now to add a note for sportsmen. This man who was an ardent fisherman\u00a0was the country’s foremost advocate of the barb less hook.<\/p>\n On this ,Palm Sunday we can think of no better way to end the program than\u00a0by quoting Harold Pulsifer’s poem “Last Supper”.<\/p>\n “A ta I I spare man — soft beard cannot concea I Year: 1954<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #222, broadcast on April 11, 1954<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[749,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nEight eyes ag’ 011<\/em>
\nWith the pale lunar spark
\nFi refl ies do show.
\nEight hands beckoning,
\nSpindrift on the wind -Past
\na II morta I reckoni ng
\nAre phantoms of the mi nd \u2022 ”<\/p>\n
\nPast all hope of his returning.
\nOn his altar In her heart
\nThere is no light burning.”<\/p>\n
\n“Ghosts”, “Elegy for a House”, “Trout”, and “I Would Be a Child Again”.<\/p>\n
\nThe firm, sure mouth, lean Jaw and sunken cheek
\nAware of doom, waits for time to reveal
\nThe morrow’s tidings that he may not speak.
\nHe marks with poet’s eyes the little band -They
\nare the soi I, hi s word the fallen seed
\nNow ripe for destiny — and then his hand
\nMoves to supply their hunger and their need.
\nThere is a thirst no fruit of vine can slake,
\nA deeper hunger that no man may shrink.
\nHe breaks the bread. ‘This Is my body. Take!’
\nHe gives the cup. ‘This Is my life blood. Drink!’
\nAnd at his word the belly’s food becomes
\nA flashing sword-blade and the roll of drums.”<\/p>\n