This Giddy Globe — 03 - Part 1, Chapters 7-9
[Illustration] In spite of incessant and violent exercise, the Giddy Globe (as we have remarked before) is unable to keep comfortably warm all over.
Her Temperature varies from intense cold at her upper and lower extremities to fever heat in the region of her equatorial diaphragm.
Ancient Geographers indicated these variations of temperature by means of _Zones_.
The Term Zone is derived from the Greek word [Greek: zone] a Belt or Girdle, and a Girdle in the days of the First Geography Book was the principal (if not the only) garment of a well dressed person.
Today, however, the Girdle is no longer accepted as a complete costume.
No modern Costumer would countenance such a "model," it would be too easy to copy and consequently unprofitable.
Even the "Knee-plus-ultra" of Newport or Palm Beach Society would hesitate to pose for the Sunday Supplement Photographer in a one-piece Bathing Girdle.
You might explore the World of Dress, from the Land of the Midnight Follies to the Uttermost parts of Greenwich Village and find nothing exactly like it.
It is on its way, to be sure, but it will never be fashionable until-- _The two extremes of decollete_ _Of Ballroom and of Bathing Beach_ _Here meet in a bewildering way_ _And mingle all the charms of each.
_ Why, then, in this up-to-date Geography Book, should we depict the Giddy Globe in an obsolete hoop skirt of imaginary Zones?
In striving to answer the question, we have hit upon a pleasing compromise.
[Illustration: (A, E, C, D markers)] At least it is up-to-date.
A.
and E. are the two extremities of the Giddy Globe, which are quite bare.
They correspond to the Frigid Zones.
C.
is the Corset, which being hot and uncomfortable corresponds to the Torrid.
D.
is--that is to say are----* * Pardon us for interrupting--but we thought this was to be a geography book.
_The Reader.
_ CHAPTER VIII THE AGE OF THE GLOBE
[Illustration: THE NEW WORLD / THE OLD WORLD] Some people are sensitive about their ages.
The Giddy Globe has never told us hers.
Rude men of science, after careful examination, declare she can't be a day under five billion years old.
Theologians, ever tactful in feminine matters, set her down as a shrinking young thing of barely four thousand summers.
Real delicacy of feeling goes with the bulging tum rather than with the bulging forehead; who ever saw a thin Bishop or a fat man of science!
_Happy the man with the bulging Tum,_ _Who smiles and smiles and is never glum!
--_ _But alas for the man with the bulging brow,_ _If he wanted to smile, he wouldn't know how!
_ If the Giddy Globe asked _us_ to guess her age, we should say, without a moment's hesitation, "Whatever it is you certainly don't look it!"
Astronomers may say what they like, a Planet is as old as it looks, especially if it is a Lady-Planet, and we have seen ours when she didn't look a June day over sixteen!
and, not having a bulging forehead, we told her so!
Astronomers think themselves so wise, but what do they know about the sex of the Planets?
With the exception of Mother Earth and old Sol Phoebus,--nothing!
If you asked an Astronomer whether the Pleiad girls were really the daughters of Atlas, or what Jupiter was doing with eight Moons (if they _were_ Moons), he would think you were trifling with him.
But is it not possible that the old Greek tales were the garbled gossip of an age-forgotten science of which we have only the A. B.
C.?
If it is Love that makes the world go round (and who can prove that it isn't?
), what makes the other Planets go round?
How about the movements of the Heavenly Bodies?
How about----* * This is all very interesting, but don't you think perhaps it is---- _The Reader.
_ Quite right!
Quite right!
how we do run on!
[Illustration] CHAPTER IX THE FACE OF THE GLOBE
There are no good photographs of the Giddy Globe; she refuses to sit.
Imagine attempting to photograph an obese and flighty Spheroid who spends her time pirouetting round in a circle with all her might and main.
Perhaps it is to avoid the photographer that the Earth spins, and not merely to reduce her girth as we hinted elsewhere.
In these days such a strenuous evasion of publicity is suspicious.
Where does she come from?
Where is she going?
She refuses to answer, she will not even state her business or tell her real name.
For aeons (quite a number of aeons) this Giddy one has been going round under various male and female aliases such as--Cosmos, Mother Earth, The World, Mrs. Grundy, the Footstool, the Terrestrial Globe.
If you look up her record you will find the following press notices-- "The Earth's a thief."
Timon of Athens.
"Earth's bitter."
Wordsworth.
"This distracted Globe."
Hamlet.
"This tough World."
King Lear.
"Naughty World."
Merchant of Venice.
"This World is given to Lying."
Henry IV.
"The World is too much with us."
Wordsworth.
"The World is grown so bad."
Richard III.
"The narrow World."
Julius Caesar.
"The World is not thy friend."
Romeo and Juliet.
"The World's a bubble."
Bacon.
"This World is all a fleeting show."
Moore.
"The World was not worthy."
St. Paul.
"The World's a tragedy."
Horace Walpole.
"This bleak World."
Moore.
"The weary weight of all this unintelligible World."
Wordsworth.
"A World of vile ill-favoured faults."
Merry Wives of Windsor.
"Stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this World."
Hamlet.
"This dim spot that men call Earth."
Milton.
"The wicked World."
W.
S.
Gilbert.
It is possible that the Giddy Globe has read the above clippings and, realizing that she has been discovered, spins round with all her might to avoid being photographed for the Rogues' Gallery of the Universe.
Appearances are certainly against her.
* * * _When I am moved to contemplate_ _The rude and unregenerate state_ _Of that rampageous reprobate_ _The World at large,_ _And as I mark its stony phiz_ _And see it whoop and whirl and whiz,_ _I can but cry--O Lord, why is_ _The World at large?
_ [Illustration: A PERFECT DAY IN LONDON] [Illustration: A PERFECT DAY IN CHICAGO]
