st also share this cruel lot:
That every haunt of sin must go
To pot.

I who have seen your roaring marts
Engulf our aristocracy,
Our poets, all who love the arts
But me:

I who have watched your bounteous purse
Seduce, I say, the world's elect--
I, in my clear and ringing verse,
Object.

You've stripped existence to the bone;
You see us of all else bereft;
You know quite well that vice alone
Is left.

You claim our every thought and prayer,
Nor do we grudge the sacrifice.
But worms will turn! You've got to spare
Us vice

[Illustration]

Objections to Reading

When I was a child of tender years--about five tender years, I think--I
felt I couldn't wait any longer: I wanted to read. My parents had gone
along supposing that there was no hurry; and they were quite right;
there wasn't. But I was impatient. I couldn't wait for people to read to
me--they so often were busy, or they insisted on reading the wrong
thing, or stopping too soon. I had an immense curiosity to explore the
book-universe, and the only way to do it satisfactorily was to do it
myself.

Consequently I got hold of a reader, which said, "See the Dog Run!" It
added, "The Dog Can Run and Leap," and stated other curious facts. "The
Apple is Red," was one of them, I remember, and "The Round Ball Can
Roll."

There was certainly nothing thrilling about the exclamation, "See the
Dog Run!" Dogs run all the time. The performance was too common to speak
of. Nevertheless, it did thrill me to spell it out for myself in a book.
"The Round Ball Can Roll," said my book. Well, I knew that already. But
it was wonderful to have a book say it. It was having books talk to me.

Years went on, and I read more and more. Sometimes, deep in Scott,
before dinner, I did not hear the bell, and had to be hunted up by some
one and roused from my trance. I hardly knew where I was, when they
called me. I got up from my chair not knowing whether it was for dinner
or breakfast or for school in the morning. Sometimes, late at night,
even after a long day of play--those violent and never-pausing exertions
that we call play, in boyhood--I would still try to read, hiding the
light, until my eyes closed in spite of me. So far as I knew, there were
not many books in the world; but nevertheless I was in a hurry to read
all there were