Needy knife-grinder in the Tribune at Florence.No, not "needy,"come to think of it.Marcus Aurelius on horseback.Query.Are horses subject to the Morbus Addisonii? Advertise for a bronzed living horse--Lyceum invitations and engagements--bronze versus brass.---What 's the use in being frightened? Bet it was a bump.
Pretty certain I bumped my forehead against something.Never heard of a bronzed man before.Have seen white men, black men, red men, yellow men, two or three blue men, stained with doctor's stuff; some green ones, from the country; but never a bronzed man.Poh, poh!
Sure it was a bump.Ask Landlady to look at it.
--Landlady did look at it.Said it was a bump, and no mistake.
Recommended a piece of brown paper dipped in vinegar.Made the house smell as if it were in quarantine for the plague from Smyrna, but discoloration soon disappeared,--so I did not become a bronzed man after all,--hope I never shall while I am alive.Should n't mind being done in bronze after I was dead.On second thoughts not so clear about it, remembering how some of them look that we have got stuck up in public; think I had rather go down to posterity in an Ethiopian Minstrel portrait, like our friend's the other day.
--You were kind enough to say, I remarked to the Master, that you read my poems and liked them.Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what it is you like about them?
The Master harpooned a breakfast-roll and held it up before me.--Will you tell me,--he said,--why you like that breakfast-roll?--I suppose he thought that would stop my mouth in two senses.But he was mistaken.
--To be sure I will,--said I.---First, I like its mechanical consistency; brittle externally,--that is for the teeth, which want resistance to be overcome; soft, spongy, well tempered and flavored internally, that is for the organ of taste; wholesome, nutritious,--that is for the internal surfaces and the system generally.
--Good,--said the Master, and laughed a hearty terrestrial laugh.
I hope he will carry that faculty of an honest laugh with him wherever he goes,--why shouldn't he? The "order of things," as he calls it, from which hilarity was excluded, would be crippled and one-sided enough.I don't believe the human gamut will be cheated of a single note after men have done breathing this fatal atmospheric mixture and die into the ether of immortality!
I did n't say all that; if I had said it, it would have brought a pellet from the popgun, I feel quite certain.
The Master went on after he had had out his laugh.--There is one thing I am His Imperial Majesty about, and that is my likes and dislikes.What if I do like your verses,--you can't help yourself.
I don't doubt somebody or other hates 'em and hates you and everything you do, or ever did, or ever can do.He is all right;there is nothing you or I like that somebody does n't hate.Was there ever anything wholesome that was not poison to somebody? If you hate honey or cheese, or the products of the dairy,--I know a family a good many of whose members can't touch milk, butter, cheese, and the like, why, say so, but don't find fault with the bees and the cows.Some are afraid of roses, and I have known those who thought a pond-lily a disagreeable neighbor.That Boy will give you the metaphysics of likes and dislikes.Look here,--you young philosopher over there,--do you like candy?
That Boy.---You bet! Give me a stick and see if I don't.
And can you tell me why you like candy?
That Boy.--Because I do.
--There, now, that is the whole matter in a nutshell.Why do your teeth like crackling crust, and your organs of taste like spongy crumb, and your digestive contrivances take kindly to bread rather than toadstools--That Boy (thinking he was still being catechised).--Because they do.
Whereupon the Landlady said, Sh! and the Young Girl laughed, and the Lady smiled; and Dr.Ben Franklin kicked him, moderately, under the table, and the Astronomer looked up at the ceiling to see what had happened, and the Member of the Haouse cried, Order! Order! and the Salesman said, Shut up, cash-boy! and the rest of the boarders kept on feeding; except the Master, who looked very hard but half approvingly at the small intruder, who had come about as nearly right as most professors would have done.
--You poets,--the Master said after this excitement had calmed down, --you poets have one thing about you that is odd.You talk about everything as if you knew more about it than the people whose business it is to know all about it.I suppose you do a little of what we teachers used to call "cramming" now and then?
--If you like your breakfast you must n't ask the cook too many questions,--I answered.
--Oh, come now, don't be afraid of letting out your secrets.I have a notion I can tell a poet that gets himself up just as I can tell a make-believe old man on the stage by the line where the gray skullcap joins the smooth forehead of the young fellow of seventy.You'll confess to a rhyming dictionary anyhow, won't you?
--I would as lief use that as any other dictionary, but I don't want it.When a word comes up fit to end a line with I can feel all the rhymes in the language that are fit to go with it without naming them.I have tried them all so many times, I know all the polygamous words and all the monogamous ones, and all the unmarrying ones,--the whole lot that have no mates,--as soon as I hear their names called.
Sometimes I run over a string of rhymes, but generally speaking it is strange what a short list it is of those that are good for anything.
