" Who are we to improve on
Omar's wise and tolerant philosophy?
I have less sympathy with the girl who wrote poetry, and even
occasionally sold it, at so much a line. Having sold a poem of
eighteen lines for $9.00 she almost wept because, as she ingenuously
complained, she might just as easily have written twenty lines for
$10.00!
Then there is the fair Villager who intones Walt Whitman to music of
her own composition; that is a bit trying, I grant you. And the male
Villager who frequents spiritualistic seances and communes with dead
poets.
One night Emerson presided. And, after the ghosts had departed, the
spiritualistic Villager read some of his own poems.
"And do you know," he declared, enraptured, "everyone thought it was
still Emerson who was speaking!"
Now for him we may have sympathy. He is perhaps a faker, but I am
inclined to believe that he is that anachronism, a sincere faker. He
is on the level. Like two-thirds of the Village, he is playing his
game with his whole heart and soul, with all that is in him.
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