O U T I N GVol. XLIV SEPTEMBER, 1904 No. 6

MIDSUMMER JINKS OF THE BOHEMIANCLUB

By GOUVENEUR MORRIS

AT midnight in the month of Augustwhen the moon of August is full,in a grove of giant redwoods, the

Bohemian Club of San Francisco, Amer-ica and Bohemia, hold its High Jinks, itsLow Jinks and its Burial of Care. Andfor a number of days and nights the mem-bers of the club and their guests dwell intents, laugh, wonder and forget the world.

If there was a grove of fine trees in thevicinity of New York, or London, and aBohemian Club which elected to holdsummer jinks therein, rain, nine years outof the ten, would drown the affair. Themoon would be invisible, the gods mali-cious. In California, however, the lumi-naries live up to a schedule. You can sendout your invitations and have perfect con-fidence in the behavior of your moon.The weather never disappoints. If thedays differ one from another, it is only inbrightness and beauty; if the nights differ,it is in glory.

I have intimated advisedly that there areno fine groves of trees near New York orLondon. Outside of California there areno fine groves of trees anywhere in the dis-covered world. The forest of Fontaine-bleau, the oaks of Hampton Court, theBanyan of Calcutta, the deodars of Ceylonwould be as blades of grass among the red-woods of California.

The Bohemian Club, and may it live

long and prosper if for no other reason,had a race with a railroad for a grove ofthese trees. The railroad had an ax, andthe Bohemian Club a splendid fund ofsentiment. The club strained its resourcesand won out in the last lap. It bought thegrove and preserved it to the delight ofman and the glory of God.

Go and stand neck-kinked opposite St.Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.Imagine hundreds of trees, each as biground as the fountain in Union Square,their lowest branches beginning to sproutwhere the spires of the cathedral end,their trunks as symmetrical as the masts ofcup defenders, their foliage as soft andfeathery as thistledown, and you will havea reasonable idea of the Bohemian ClubGrove. And the great vegetables which goto compose that grove are as I understandnothing extra—for Califorina. There aretwo kinds of redwood—the other kind iscalled Sequoia Gigantea. That meansthat it is really a big kind of tree. If lowerBroadway, Wall Street, Broad Street werecañons, and gigantea grew therein, thenthe tops of the tall buildings of lower NewYork would be in deep shade. When theJinks were over and I slept in my tent Idreamed a dream. I dreamed that I wason the top of a redwood, and had in myhand a butterfly net, wherein I did catchdivers stars, comets and constellations,

Copyrighted, 1904, by the Outing Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

The Morning Sunday concert .

Nat. Goodwin Reciting.

6 5 2 Midsummer Jinks of the Bohemian Club

even a lapful. But the Great Bear gotaway from me and fell to the ground.Looking downward through the deliciousleaves, I could not deserve its location. Forwhy? The distance was too great. Nat.Goodwin said (it was the very night I hadmy dream) that he was not in the least im-pressed by the size, beauty and grandeurof the trees. That is enough to prove toyou how grand, beautiful and tremendousthey are. Many funny Americans con-sider Nat. Goodwin the funniest Americanof them all.

High Jinks is not what it sounds. Youdon’t know what it is until you have seenit. For weeks beforehand each person youmeet says: “Are you going to the Jinks?”Wives and virgins ask it snippily; they arenot allowed to attend. It is, like mosttruly artistic incidents, a stag affair. I ad-mit that it sounds like a lot of men turnedloose with a lot of champagne. And as amatter of fact there were lots of men, per-haps five hundred, and there was a lot ofchampagne (very good champagne, too),and there was anything else that youwanted to drink and plenty of brilliantmen to drink it with. But the Jinks is nota Long Island clambake. Your Cali-fornian’s belly as empty as the nextman’s and he likes to fill it with goodthings; but he has other emptinesses, andin this he differs from the average run ofhis countrymen. He has the soul of anartist and once a year he goes to his groveunder the full moon and fills that soul withthe majesty of rich color and strong music.The High Jinks is as serious as a funeral.It is—or was last year—a musical play de-livered elaborately in the open air at mid-night before the quietest and most ap-preciative audience I have ever seen. Thetheme was the fall of Montezuma.

“Beneath the Titan trees we hope to showHow mighty Montezuma faced the fateThat left him throneless, thralled and

desolateIn Cortez’ clutch four hundred years ago.Upon a victim’s breast a fire shall glow,A war-god’s favor to propitiate,And you shall hear the priests and proph-

ets prateThe princely Aztec’s doom and over-

throw.”

And by that sign you shall know, if everyou are asked to the Jinks, by which ofSan Francisco’s many ferries it is properto depart. But we had special “tiguts”printed for the club, and were otherwisecared for. One traveler’s privilege only Ireserved for myself. I checked my ownbag, and I checked it to

Bohemia.We traveled a number of hours (perhaps

two hundred of us—and as many had goneon before) through a country which I didnot observe, for my seat mate was a wittyIrishman, and it is more healthful to laughthan to look at landscapes. Now and thenwe had sandwiches and drinks, and di-vested ourselves, for it was hot in the car.

The train sprawled over a rickety trestleand jolted itself to a stand still. We hadlaughed much and were gay to meet ourhost; everybody was in a good humor.But I have no right to speak for any one’ssensations but my own. I shook handswith my host (no less a man than the club’spresident). I tried to say something niceand failed. My tongue was tied. Aboutand above were trees whose tops I couldnot see without hurting myself. We werein a narrow valley. The trees towered inthe bottom and on the heights. I wasearly afternoon of a bright blue day,but the light was like that in a a church.Men’s feet made no sound; their voiceswere lost. There were five hundred menin and about the grove. There might havebeen five thousand; there might havebeen none. It did not matter; they didnot matter. An army of ants would havecounted for as much. I have never beenso suddenly and completely depressed inmy life. Mr. President introduced Mr.Morris as a rising author to Mr. This andMr. That. Mr. This and Mr. That werefar from impressed; they thought Mr.Morris the gloomiest and stupidest youngman they had ever met. If they thoughtfurther on the subject, it was to wonder ifhis attitude—back of head resting on backof neck and mouth half open—was at-tributable to a fall from his perambulatorat an early age, or merely to a fashion ofthe moment in far New York.

. . . . . . .Dinner at six-thirty was a remarkable

piece of management. The courses werehot and came fast. Several hundred menwere kept busy eating and drinking. The

Just outside of the ticket office window,some weary one had written in pencil—

“Plis gimme tigut.”

Part of the Encampment.

Circle of Seats Cut Out of a Small Tree.

tables were laid in a circle, and about andabove towered the trees. And as the godof day went down, they grew in solemnityand glory. From the table arose the usualsounds of men met; jokes, sudden shoutsof laughter, argument and quotation. Butat the least of a distance above and aboutwas complete tranquillity. As a star withits nebulous ring of light fails to disturbthe tranquil aspect of the heavens, so ourtremendous dinner party and the noiseswe made were lost in that vast grove. Inso large a crowd there must have beenmany ordinary men, but as the eve trav-eled over the rows of candle-lit and candle-shaded faces, it was compelled to manya fascinated pause and speculation. Thecompact, forceful, resourceful Americanface of the president was worth study, thetragic face of the poet Shields, with itsgaiety and breeding and charm. Almostopposite me was a national legislator, notyet turned thirty. His eyes were gray andIrish, his teeth even and white, his jaw fullof ambition and power. Whenever helaughed you laughed. Farther down ourtable and on the same side was Redding ofinternational fame, a man that can doanything he pleases—well. Next to him,his eyes beady with genius, was Dave War-field. They told me how the night beforeWarfield had stood up in their midst andspoken a little pathetic ballad, and howmen had crept softly to his feet, andcrouched there with stretched ears andaching hearts before the magic of his act-ing. Next to Warfield I beheld the large,pale, humorous, luminous face of Nat.Goodwin—and the heart beat the pleas-

anter to be meat with so much talent.Even the trees lost their significance a lit-tle, for I thought of names that were olderthan they—and that now and again thereis something in short lived man that out-lasts the hills and the forests. Yet someof these trees must have been well grownwhen the Greeks were analeising andgiants when Jesus Christ was born toilluminate the world.

Here and there the placid surface of themeeting began to show signs of boiling,but the president arose and brought orderquickly and masterfully, and a treat ofspeeches followed. They were the best Ihave ever heard; and their sequence wasthe most tactfully arranged. It was sig-nificant that every speaker drew his in-spiration from the trees; it was significant,too, that the best things said about thetrees were received with greater satisfac-tion than the best things said about any-thing else. There was much that was apt,little that was bombast, nothing that wasadequate. Redding’s figure, that the starslooked like candles on Christmas trees,was very pretty, but short of the mark, likethe figure in which the Japanese poet com-pares Fuji Yama to an inverted fan. Red-ding was all readiness and charm. DoctorHofmeyer of South Africa, with his luringDutch accent and glorious voice, made averitable oration; the Congressman hit allhis nails on the head and drove them hometo the tune of laughter and cheers. BenGreet, who brought “Everyman” toAmerica, spoke shortly and wittily, and atthe last Nat. Goodwin, his large face ex-pressing patience and pain, proved him-

The Morning Gathering for Music.

self for the thousandth time the foremostof after-dinner speakers. Although, as hehimself said, it was difficult to follow in thewake made by a Boer, a Congressman anda solicitor.

. . . . . . .Behind the stage, gorgeous with Aztec

symbols and prime colors, towered thehill and the trees; we sat upon logs, raisedas seats in a theater, and about us toweredthe trees. Those of us who attended forthe first time did not know what to expect.But we took our cue of reverence and at-tention from those who had been there be-fore. The big orchestra of trained musi-cians struck into the solemn strains thatDr. Stewart had written for the occasion.The curtains swept aside and we beheldthe summit of an Aztec pyramid, andpresently Robert’s fine lines began to rum-ble in our ears.

I have called the High Jinks a musicalplay. It is not that exactly, it is betweenthat and a short opera. The words andmusic are written by members of the club;but the orchestra is professional. If the“Fall of Montezuma” were to be given inan ordinary theater, I do not think that itwould draw. It was too slight in structure,too conventional in movement, and tooshort. There was an occasional slip ormiscalculation that, anywhere outside ofthe Bohemian Club Grove, might havearoused a disastrous laugh. And a laughwould spoil the show. For instance, manyof Montezuma’s courtiers and officerswere merely breech-clouted for decency,and greased to keep from catching cold.The naked man in his proper place is a

distinct improvement over the Yaeger-underweared Roman crowds of the con-ventional theater; and a naked man witha good figure should never prove a disas-trous experiment in realism. But one ofMontezuma’s officers, like Gilbert’s dis-contented sugar-broker, had everything aman of taste could possibly want excepta waist. That was carrying realism toofar. Undoubtedly heroes have stomachs;some have bulging stomachs. Napoleon,in his later years, when like a nestling crowhe was all head and tail, would not havebeen a heroic figure stripped. If one manhad laughed at the appearance of theplump Aztec, others would have laughed,and the show would have blown up thenand there. But nobody laughed either atthat trifling absurdity or at others. Andthere were others. But I am not going toremember them and set them down. Itwouldn’t be fair. The men who write andstage the High Jinks are writing for agiven theater and a given audience. Theyare writing for an audience that’s deter-mined to be pleased; and for a stagewhich itself is as noble and impressive as atragedy by Shakespeare. If any inade-quacy smote you, you had only to look upinto the trees to be convinced that all hu-man efforts are inadequate. But as hu-man efforts go, the play was very good; itwas solemn and serious, full of color andinspiring music. The more seriously youtook it, the more it pleased you with itselfand yourself. And that was the beauty ofit. It was a play in which every memberof the audience took part; not a speakingor a singing or a showing part, but the part

Dinner on the Night of the Jinks.

The Stage Setting of “Montezuma.”

6 5 8 Midsummer Jinks of the Bohemian Club

of silence and reverence and charitable-ness. And the comfort of attending oneplay properly listened to, and given everychance, is an experience that for pleasureand uniqueness shall never forget.

When the curtain had closed before theadvent of Cortez and the final overthrowof Montezuma, the audience remainedseated, and talked enthusiastically of theHigh Jinks and the men who had writtenit. And meanwhile the musicians and theperformers withdrew up the steep hill be-hind the stage and became hidden amongthe trees. Suddenly afar off up the hilltorches began to twinkle, and faintly theopening bars of the saddest piece of musicever written came to our ears. Dull Carewas dead it seemed and the procession wasforming to carry him to his last restingplace. I have said him, but there is a dif-ference of opinion about it. Some say thatDull Care is a woman; some a girl; somesay that she has brown eyes, some blue.Still others say that she has a mouth thatlaughs and eyes that pray. But I thinkthat Dull Care may be of either sex or sex-less, and the oftener he, she or it can beburied the better.

Slowly the procession came down thehill with twinkling music; Aztecs, Span-iards, cowled musicians and the corpseof Care. The effect was indescribablysolemn and beautiful. When the tail of theprocession had passed we followed veryslowly, very solemnly. We went by de-vious paths until at length the head ofthe procession descended into an openbowl like valley among the hills, wherewas a rostrum and a mighty pyre readyprepared. The orator ascended into therostrum, the body was laid on the pyre andthe music ceased. Then the voice of theorator rose, clear and bell like in the per-fect acoustics at the place, and in statelyverse he spoke the funeral oration of Care.Then torches were touched to the pyre—the flames sprang aloft and pandemoniumbroke loose. The club had done withCare. The club yelled and laughed; itdanced about the fire; it pranced off tothe bar where drinks were served.

Later there was another show theLow Jinks—supposed to be a take off onthe High Jinks. It had its good points andits bad like most funny shows, but per-sonally I could not do it justice. I had

The Swimming Pool.

Low Jinks.

seen enough for one night—more than I carbon and oxygen and hydrogen andhad ever seen in one night before; more nitrogen and earth and that they must van-that was affecting and grand. I wanted to ish and be forgotten. Even Care, whichspeak to no one and to be alone with the we had killed and buried, would outlivetrees. I felt in touch with them for the them; and I thought how the sad soul offirst time and knew them to be mortal like Chopin had come wailing down the hill,myself. I knew at last that they were but and would outlive them too.

“TE MORITURI SALUTAMUS”

By EMERY POTTLE

W ILD bugles singing through a listening land,High flutes and gallant drums with war-cries blent!

Across a world where summer slept contentBut yesterday, comes now a reckless band—Their bivouac fires a-flare on hill and plain—To fight our ancient winter-foe again.