CHAPTER MIV




OF THE DESPAIR OF THE NOVELISSIMIST; ANENT HIS CAREER; AND OF THE APPEAL THAT HE MADE.





   `Twere unreasonable to expect me to write a novelissim at Seaside, Long Island, with its vomit of sour-smelling canaille. Thence did I flee to the verandah; the mob is but a distant yowl, and the winds from the bay. But my legs are scorched by the whips of my great Father; and despite all manner of grease, they burn. Yet -- what else is there to do? Life's naught to me but worship, art, or love; and love's impossible amid these cattle -- 'tis plain bestiality. And so Religion too wears thin, since Love under Will is the law. What's left but art? What's art but St. Paul's `faith,' the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen? Then art should be able to move mountains: oh if one could only dump the Central Asiatic Plateau on to this infernal country! It's a curious thing, perhaps even a little morbid, the way in which hatred of America eats up all one's other passions. It's omnipresent. It's not pure hatred; it's loathing and disgust. And it certainly does interfere with the writing of a novelissim; for I'd more easily write sonnets when I'm seasick.


   Now, upon what God shall I call? It's a far cry to Lochawe! There are no gods on the long-distance telephone. The most disreputable outcast of Olympus would hide this shame elsewhere -- so long as there was a latrine or a cicada outside America he would not haunt their pinchback palaces. I fear me I must call on their own deity, the dollar; and use him to get out.