"
"You say--at least you used to--that happiness is the only thing worth
while in life. Do you think you're any happier for being a pessimist?"
Anthony grunted savagely. His pleasure in the conversation began to
wane. He was nervous and craving for a drink.
"My golly!" he cried, "where do you live? I can't keep walking forever."
"Your endurance is all mental, eh?" returned Dick sharply. "Well, I live
right here."
He turned in at the apartment house on Forty-ninth Street, and a few
minutes later they were in a large new room with an open fireplace and
four walls lined with books. A colored butler served them gin rickeys,
and an hour vanished politely with the mellow shortening of their drinks
and the glow of a light mid-autumn fire.
"The arts are very old," said Anthony after a while. With a few glasses
the tension of his nerves relaxed and he found that he could
think again.
"Which art?"
"All of them. Poetry is dying first. It'll be absorbed into prose sooner
or later. For instance, the beautiful word, the colored and glittering
word, and the beautiful simile belong in prose now. To get attention
poetry has got to strain for the unusual word, the harsh, earthy word
that's never been beautiful before.
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