ISE OF BOOBS 245

2 SIMPLIFICATION 250

TO AN UNKNOWN DAMSEL 256

THOUGHTS ON SETTING AN ALARM CLOCK 258

SONGS IN A SHOWER BATH 259

ON DEDICATING A NEW TEAPOT 261

THE UNFORGIVABLE SYNTAX 263

VISITING POETS 264

A GOOD HOME IN THE SUBURBS 270

WALT WHITMAN MINIATURES 272

ON DOORS 292

MINCE PIE

ON FILLING AN INK-WELL

Those who buy their ink in little stone jugs may prefer to do so because
the pottle reminds them of cruiskeen lawn or ginger beer (with its
wire-bound cork), but they miss a noble delight. Ink should be bought in
the tall, blue glass, quart bottle (with the ingenious non-drip spout),
and once every three weeks or so, when you fill your ink-well, it is
your privilege to elevate the flask against the brightness of a window,
and meditate (with a breath of sadness) on the joys and problems that
sacred fluid holds in solution.

How blue it shines toward the light! Blue as lupin or larkspur, or
cornflower--aye, and even so blue art thou, my scriven, to think how far
the written page falls short of the bright ecstasy of thy dream! In the
bottle, what magnificence of unpenned stuff lies cool and liquid: what
fluency of essay, what fonts of song. As the bottle glints, blue as a
squill or a hyacinth, blue as the meadows of Elysium or the eyes of
girls loved by young poets, meseems the racing pen might almost gain
upon the thoughts that are turning the bend in the road. A jolly throng,
those thoughts: I can see them talking and laughing together. But when
pen reaches the road's turning, the thoughts are gone far ahead: their
delicate figures are silhouettes against the sky.

It is a sacramental matter, this filling the ink-well. Is there a
writer, however humble, who has not poured into his writing pot, with
the ink, some wistful hopes or prayers for what may emerge from that
dark source? Is there not some particular reverence due the ink-well,
some form of propitiation to humbug the powers of evil and constraint
that devil the journalist? Satan hovers near the ink-pot. Luther solved
the matter by throwing the well itself at the apparition. That savors to
me too much of homeopathy. If Satan ever puts his face over my desk, I
shall hurl a volume of Harold Bell Wright at him.

But w