When they
have had time to cool, he is more indifferent.
A good deal as it is with buckwheat cakes,--said the young fellow
whom they call John.
The last words, only, reached the ear of the economically organized
female in black bombazine .--Buckwheat is skerce and high,--she
remarked. [Must be a poor relation sponging on our landlady,--pays
nothing,--so she must stand by the guns and be ready to repel
boarders.]
I liked the turn the conversation had taken, for I had some things
I wanted to say, and so, after waiting a minute, I began again.--I
don't think the poems I read you sometimes can be fairly
appreciated, given to you as they are in the green state.
- You don't know what I mean by the GREEN STATE? Well, then, I
will tell you. Certain things are good for nothing until they have
been kept a long while; and some are good for nothing until they
have been long kept and USED. Of the first, wine is the
illustrious and immortal example. Of those which must be kept and
used I will name three,--meerschaum pipes, violins, and poems. The
meerschaum is but a poor affair until it has burned a thousand
offerings to the cloud-compelling deities. It comes to us without
complexion or flavor,--born of the sea-foam, like Aphrodite, but
colorless as pallida Mors herself. The fire is lighted in its
central shrine, and gradually the juices which the broad leaves of
the Great Vegetable had sucked up from an acre and curdled into a
drachm are diffused through its thirsting pores.
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