en of Eden bespangled with the early dew;
Adam scrabbling up a fistful of worm's and hooking them on a bent thorn
and a line of twisted pampas grass; hurrying down to the branch or the
creek or the bayou or whatever it may have been; sitting down on a
brand-new stump that the devil had put there to tempt him; throwing out
his line; sitting there in the sun dreaming and brooding....

And then a tug, a twitch, a flurry in the clear water of Eden, a pull, a
splash, and the First Fish lay on the grass at Adam's foot. Can you
imagine his sensations? How he yelled to Eve to come--look--see, and,
how annoyed he was because she called out she was busy....

Probably it was in that moment that all the bickerings and back-talk of
husbands and wives originated; when Adam called to Eve to come and look
at his First Fish while it was still silver and vivid in its living
colors; and Eve answered she was busy. In that moment were born the
men's clubs and the women's clubs and the pinochle parties and being
detained at the office and Kelly pool and all the other devices and
stratagems that keep men and women from taking their amusements
together.

Well, I didn't mean to go back to the Garden of Eden; I just wanted to
say that summer is here again, even though the almanac doesn't vouch for
it until the 21st. Those of you who are fond of smells, spread your
nostrils about breakfast time tomorrow morning and see if you detect it.

A JAPANESE BACHELOR

The first obligation of one who lives by writing is to write what
editors will buy. In so doing, how often one laments that one cannot
write exactly what happens. Suppose I were to try it--for once!

I have been lying on the bed--where the landlady has put a dark blue
spread, instead of the white one, because I drop my tobacco
ashes--smoking, and thinking about a new friend I met today. His name is
Kenko, a Japanese bachelor of the fourteenth century, who wrote a little
book of musings which has been translated under the title "The
Miscellany of a Japanese Priest." His candid reflections are those of a
shrewd, learned, humane and somewhat misogynist mind. I have been lying
on the bed because his book, like all books that make one ponder deeply
on human destiny, causes that feeling of mind-sickness, that swimming
pain of the mental faculties--or is it caused by too much strong
tobacco?

My acquaintance with Kenko began only last night, when I sat in bed
reading Mr. Raymond Weav