A valued colleague quotes the emotional line—
“This is my own, my native land!”—
[p 107]
]as palliation, if not justification, for the “simple, homely, and comprehensive adjuration, ‘Own Your Own Home.’” We acknowledge the homeliness and comprehensiveness, but we deny the value of poetic testimony. Said Dr. Johnson:
“Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru,”
which, De Quincey or Tennyson declared, should have run: “Let observation with extended observation observe mankind extensively.” Poets and tautology go walking like the Walrus and the Carpenter.
BOLSHEVISM OF LONG AGO.
“A radical heaven is a place where every man does what he pleases, and there is a general division of property every Saturday night.”—George S. Hillard (1853).
LULLABY.
In Woodman, Wis., the Hotel Lull
Is where a man may rest his skull.