Part 40

(Fothergil Finch, the Vers Libre Bard)

OH, the Beautiful Mud! I always leave it on my boots. It is sacred to me. Because in it are the souls of lilies!

The Hog should be a sacred beast. Hogs are Beautiful! They are close to the Mire! Oh, to be a Swine!

What is more eloquent than a Sneeze? The Sneeze is the protest of the Free Spirit against the Smug Citizen who never exposes himself to a cold. Oh, Beautiful Sneezes! Oh, to make my life one loud explosive Sneeze in the face of Conventionality!

What is so free, so untrammeled, so ungyved, so unconventional, as an Influenza Germ? From throat to throat it floats, full of the spirit of true democratic brotherhood, making the masses equal with the classes, careless, winged ungyved! Oh, the Beautiful Germ! Oh, to be an Influenza Germ!

What is so naive as a Hiccough! Oh, to be ingenuous, unspoiled, beautiful, barbaric! Oh, the hiccoughs, the beautiful hiccoughs, the hiccoughs of Art uttered against the hurricane of time.

Bugs are Beautiful! Oh, the beautiful, sleek slithery bugs. Oh, to be a water-bug of poesy skipping across the flood of oblivion! Oh, to be a Bug!

I went down to the waterfront where they sell fish and there I saw a fisherman who had caught a Dogfish, and he cursed, but I said to him, "Do not curse the Dogfish! The Dogfish is Symbolical! The Dogfish is beautiful! Beautiful!"

Oh, the lovely Garbage Scows! I went down the bay, and there I saw them dump the Garbage Scows! I said to the man who sailed my boat: "What does the Garbage Scow MEAN to you?" He was a Philistine; he was Bourgeois; he was Smug; he was Conventional, and he said: "A Garbage Scow means a Garbage Scow to me!" But I said to him: "You are Academic; you are Conservative! Garbage Scows are lovely Symbols! Oh, my Argosies of Dream! Oh, my beautiful Garbage Scows! Some day even the Philistines of Benighted America will see the Spiritual Significance of the Lovely Garbage Scow!"

I found a Glue Factory, a Free Untrammeled Glue Factory! I was expressing itself. It was asserting its individuality. It was saying to the Blind Complacent Pillars of Polite Society: "My aroma is not your aroma, but my aroma is my own!" Oh, the Courageous Glue Factory, the Free, Unfettered Glue Factory! A thousand Glue Factories, from Main to Oregon, are thus rebuking Class Prejudice and Bourgeois Smugness. Like Poets, like Prophets of the New Art, they stand, Glue Factory after Glue Factory, expressing their Egos, Being Themselves, undaunted, unshackled, strong, independent, virile! Oh, to be the Poet of the Super Glue Factory!

With violets in my hands I wandered to the wilds, and there I met a Buzzard. He was Being Himself! I wove a wreath of the violets and I crowned the Buzzard, and the Buzzard said, "Why do you crown me?" And I said, "Oh, Lovely Buzzard, are you not Being Yourself? Are you not rebuking the Trivial Conventionalities of our Organized Society? I know your Dream, O Buzzard! Accept this Crown of Violets from our little group!"

Come with me to the zoo, and I will bare our Souls to the Hyena, and the Hyena will commune with us, and we will know the meaning of Life! Oh, the lovely Hyena.

THE BOURGEOIS ELEMENT AND BACKGROUND

ISN'T it simply wonderful about D'Annunzio enlisting as a common soldier and digging trenches along with the Due D'Abruzzi and those other Italian poets? Or was it D'Abruzzi? Anyhow, it was one of those poets that were always talking about the Superman.

Although, I must say, one doesn't hear so much about the Superman these days, does one? The Superman is going out, you know.

One of my friends -- she's quite an advanced thinker, too, and belongs to our little group -- told me a year or so ago, "Hermione, I will NEVER marry until I find a Superman!"

"Of course, that is all right, my dear," I said to her, "but how about Genetics?"

Because, you know, the slogan of our little group -- that is, one of the slogans -- is "Genetics or Spinsterhood!"

It made her quite angry for some reason. She pursed her lips up and acted shocked.

"It is all very well, Hermione," she said, "to discuss Genetics in the ABSTRACT. But to connect the discussion with the marriage of a FRIEND is not, to my mind, the proper thing at all!"

Did you ever hear of anything more utterly in- consistent?

Oh, Consistency! Consistency! Isn't Consist- ency perfectly wonderful!

But that is always the way when it comes to a discussion of Sex. The Bourgeois Element are NEVER Fundamental and Thorough in their treatment of Sex, if you know what I mean.

And, as Fothergil Finch says, in this country we are NEARLY all Bourgeois.

We have not had enough Background for one thing.

If all the little groups the country over would take up the matter of Background in a serious way, something might be done about it, don't you think?

We must organize -- we who are the intellectual leaders, you know -- and start an effective propaganda for the purpose of obtaining more Background.

TAKING UP THE LIQUOR PROBLEM