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PONKAPOG PAPERS
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

TO FRANCIS BARTLETT

THESE miscellaneous notes and essays are called Ponkapog
Papers not simply because they chanced, for the most part, to be
written within the limits of the old Indian Reservation, but, rather,
because there is something typical of their unpretentiousness in the
modesty with which Ponkapog assumes to being even a village. The
little Massachusetts settlement, nestled under the wing of the Blue Hills,
has no illu- sions concerning itself, never mistakes the cackle of the
bourg for the sound that echoes round the world, and no more thinks of
rivalling great centres of human activity than these slight papers dream
of inviting comparison between themselves and important pieces of
literature. Therefore there seems some- thing especially appropriate in
the geo- graphical title selected, and if the au- thor's choice of name
need further excuse, it is to be found in the alluring alliteration lying
ready at his hand.
REDMAN FARM, Ponkapog, 1903.

CONTENTS
LEAVES FROM A NOTE BOOK

ASIDES
TOM FOLIO
FLEABODY AND OTHER QUEER NAMES
A NOTE ON "L'AIGLON"
PLOT AND CHARACTER
THE CRUELTY OF SCIENCE
LEIGH HUNT AND BARRY CORNWALL
DECORATION DAY
WRITERS AND TALKERS
ON EARLY RISING
UN POETE MANQUE
THE MALE COSTUME OF THE PERIOD
ON A CERTAIN AFFECTATION
WISHMAKERS' TOWN
HISTORICAL NOVELS
POOR YORICK
THE AUTOGRAPH HUNTER

ROBERT HERRICK

LEAVES FROM A NOTE BOOK

IN his Memoirs, Kropotkin states the singular fact that the natives of
the Malayan Archipel- ago have an idea that something is extracted
from them when their likenesses are taken by photo- graphy. Here is
the motive for a fantastic short story, in which the hero--an author in
vogue or a popular actor--might be depicted as having all his good
qualities gradually photographed out of him. This could well be the
result of too prolonged indulgence in the effort to "look natural." First
the man loses his charming sim- plicity; then he begins to pose in
intellectual attitudes, with finger on brow; then he becomes morbidly
self-conscious, and finally ends in an asylum for incurable egotists. His
death might be brought about by a cold caught in going out bareheaded,
there being, for the moment, no hat in the market of sufficient
circumference to meet his enlarged requirement.
THE evening we dropped anchor in the Bay of Yedo the moon was
hanging directly over Yokohama. It was a mother-of-pearl moon, and
might have been manufactured by any of the delicate artisans in the
Hanchodori quarter. It impressed one as being a very good imitation,
but nothing more. Nammikawa, the cloisonne- worker at Tokio, could
have made a better moon.
I NOTICE the announcement of a new edition of "The Two First
Centuries of Florentine Literature," by Professor Pasquale Villari. I am
not acquainted with the work in question, but I trust that Professor
Villari makes it plain to the reader how both centuries happened to be
first.
THE walking delegates of a higher civiliza- tion, who have nothing to
divide, look upon the notion of property as a purely artificial creation
of human society. According to these advanced philosophers, the time

will come when no man shall be allowed to call anything his. The bene-
ficent law which takes away an author's rights in his own books just at
the period when old age is creeping upon him seems to me a hand-
some stride toward the longed-for millennium.
SAVE US from our friends--our enemies we can guard against. The
well-meaning rector of the little parish of Woodgates, England, and
several of Robert Browning's local admirers have recently busied
themselves in erecting a tablet to the memory of "the first known fore-
father of the poet." This lately turned up an- cestor, who does not date
very far back, was also named Robert Browning, and is described on
the mural marble as "formerly footman and butler to Sir John Bankes of
Corfe Castle." Now, Robert Browning the poet had as good right as
Abou Ben Adhem himself to ask to be placed on the list of those who
love their fellow men; but if the poet could have been consulted in the
matter he probably would have preferred not to have that particular
footman exhumed. However, it is an ill wind that blows