Part 18

It has nothing at all to do with Bagdad, you know -- though at first glance it seems quite like it might, doesn't it?

Of course, they're both Oriental -- aren't you just simply WILD about Oriental things? But really, they're QUITE different.

The Bhagavad Gita, you know, is all about Reincarnation and Karma, and all those lovely old things.

When I start my Salon I'm going to have a Bhagavad Gita Evening -- all in costume, you know.

I find that when I dress in harmony with the Idea I RADIATE so much more effectively, if you get what I mean.

Fothergil Finch is the same way.

He writes his best vers libre things in a purple dressing-gown.

There's an amber-colored pane of glass in his studio skylight, and he has to sit and wait and wait and wait until the moonlight falls through that pane onto his paper, and then it only stays long enough so he can write a few lines, and he can't go on with the poem until he comes again.

He brought me one last night -- he wrote it to me yes, really! -- and he waited and waited for enough moonlight to do it, and caught a terrible cold in his head, poor dear Fothy.

It goes like this:

Poppies, poppies, silver poppies in the moonlight, poppies! Silver poppies, Silver poppies in the moonlight, Youth! Poppies poppies, crimson poppies in the sunset, Love! Poppies, poppies, poppies! Black poppies in the midnight, Death! Three colors of poppies! One color is silver, The second color is crimson, The third color is black, And if there were a fourth color it would be green!

Alas! Why is there never a fourth color?

Poppies, poppies, poppies, but no Green Poppy!

I asked the little crippled girl who sells poppies to Buy bread for the drunken father who beats her,

And she said, "I, too, seek the fourth color!"

I asked the boy who drives the grocer's delivery wagon, the old apple woman without teeth, the morgue keeper, the plumber, the janitor, the red-armed waffle baker in the window of a restaurant full of marble-topped tables and pallid-looking girls, the subway guard and the millionaire,

And they all said, "Poppies, poppies, poppies, We have never known but three colors!" I am a Great Virile Spirit; I, with my Ego, I will give the world its Desire! I, the strong! I, the daring! I will create a Green Poppy!

That about being Virile is just like Fothy! He prides himself on being Virile, you know -- Poor dear Fothy!

He said until he saw me he had always been satisfied with silver and red and black poppies, but as soon as he knew me he felt there MUST be a Green Poppy somewhere.

It is likely a mood of my soul, you know -- the Green Poppy is!

Isn't it simply wonderful!

CONCENTRATION

Isn't it just simply terrible the way the Balkans are bombarding Venice . . . all those beautiful Doges and things, you know.

I suppose there will be nothing left, just simply nothing, of the city that Byron wrote about in in -- what was it? Oh, yes, in "Childe Harold to the Dark Tower Came."

That's one comforting thing to think of if this country ever gets into a war, isn't it? I mean that we haven't any of those lovely old things that can be bombarded, you know.

I suppose if we ever did get into war someone like Edison would invent something quick, you know, and it would be all over in a few hours.

Isn't inventive science wonderful! Just simply wonderful!

It's so -- so -- well, so DYNAMIC, if you get what I mean. Isn't it?