r my face ... it was hollow and
tight-drawn like the face of a consumptive.

The mass of resistance I had to face, for poetry's sake, was too
enormous ... my country's motto was not "beauty is truth, truth beauty,"
but "blessed be that man who can make two hills of corn grow where one
bank of violets grew before," ... and my pilgrimage, in that hour of
vision, it disgusted me ... for I was making it not to some grand poet
like L'Estrange, but to the home of the chief exponent of the
"Honest-to-God, No-Nonsense-About-Me Hick School of Literature" ... and
associated with him was the syndicate poet, William Struthers, called
familiarly Uncle Bill, whose daily jingles run together as prose, were
now making him a fortune.

With the coming of dawn the day cleared, the sun glistened on a thousand
puddles, making them silver and gold....

By walking carefully on the side of the road, I made progress less
muddy. I was used to the squashing of the water in my shoes. The weather
turned warmer.

* * * * *

I found myself on the usual long one-street called Main Street, in the
prosperous little city of Osageville. It was Sunday. A corner loiterer
directed me to Jarvis Alexander Mackworth's house.

A habitation of sequestered quiet ... as I stood before the door I heard
the sunrise song of Rossini's _Wilhelm Tell_ ... a Red Seal record ...
accompanied by the slow, dreamy following of a piano's tinkle ... like
harp sounds or remote, flowing water.

I halted, under a charm. I waited till the melody was at an end before I
knocked. A small, pale-faced, pretty little woman answered.

"Does Mr. Jarvis Mackworth live here?"

"Yes. Come in. We have been expecting you. You are the poet, aren't
you?"

"Yes, I am the poet."

"You're a good walker ... we didn't expect you before Monday or
Tuesday.... Jarvis, here's the poet-boy from the university."

My host, unseen within, turned off another Red Seal record he had just
started, again to the accompaniment of the piano.... Kreisler's _Caprice
Viennoise_....

Jarvis Alexander Mackworth came forth like a leisurely duck, waddling.
He was very, very fat. He extended me a plump, white hand ... a slack
hand-shake ... but not an unhearty one, rather a grip of easy welcome.

A kind, rubicund, moon-round face, full of large blue eyes smiling a
gentle and kindly welcome ... if the face of Shelley's father, plump and
methodic-oracular, could have been joined