"Tutti i salmi finiscono in gloria."
All the psalms wind up with the Gloria.—"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, World without end. Amen."
Well, then, Amen.
I hope you say Amen! along with me, dear little reader: if there be any dear little reader who has got so far. If not, I say Amen! all by myself.—But don't you think the show is all over. I've got another volume up my sleeve, and after a year or two years, when I have shaken it down my sleeve, I shall bring it and lay it at the foot of your Liberty statue, oh Columbia, as I do this one.
I suppose Columbia means the States.—"Hail Columbia!"—I suppose, etymologically, it is a nest of turtle-doves, Lat. columba, a dove. Coo me softly, then, Columbia; don't roar me like the sucking doves of the critics of my "Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious."
And when I lay this little book at the foot of the Liberty statue, that brawny lady is not to look down her nose and bawl: "Do you see any green in my eye?" Of course I don't, dear lady. I only see the reflection of that torch—or is it a carrot?—which you are holding up to light the way into New York harbor. Well, many an ass has strayed across the uneasy paddock of the Atlantic, to nibble your carrot, dear lady. And I must say, you can keep on slicing off nice little carrot-slices of guineas and doubloons for an extraordinarily inexhaustible long time. And innumerable asses can collect themselves nice little heaps of golden carrot-slices, and then lift up their heads and brag over them with fairly pan-demoniac yells of gratification. Of course I don't see any green in your eye, dear Libertas, unless it is the smallest glint from the carrot-tips. The gleam in your eye is golden, oh Columbia!
Nevertheless, and in spite of all this, up trots this here little ass and makes you a nice present of this pretty book. You needn't sniff, and glance at your carrot-sceptre, lady Liberty. You needn't throw down the thinnest carrot-paring you can pare off, and then say: "Why should I pay for this tripe, this wordy mass of rather revolting nonsense!" You can't pay for it, darling. If I didn't make you a present of it you could never buy it. So don't shake your carrot-sceptre and feel supercilious. Here's a gift for you, Missis. You can look in its mouth, too. Mind it doesn't bite you.—No, you needn't bother to put your carrot behind your back, nobody wants to snatch it.
How do you do, Columbia! Look, I brought you a posy: this nice little posy of words and wisdom which I made for you in the woods of Ebersteinburg, on the borders of the Black Forest, near Baden Baden, in Germany, in this summer of scanty grace but nice weather. I made it specially for you—Whitman, for whom I have an immense regard, says "These States." I suppose I ought to say: "Those States." If the publisher would let me, I'd dedicate this book to you, to "Those States." Because I wrote this book entirely for you, Columbia. You may not take it as a compliment. You may even smell a tiny bit of Schwarzwald sap in it, and be finally disgusted. I admit that trees ought to think twice before they flourish in such a disgraced place as the Fatherland. "Chi va coi zoppi, all' anno zoppica." But you've not only to gather ye rosebuds while ye may, but where ye may. And so, as I said before, the Black Forest, etc.
I know, Columbia, dear Libertas, you'll take my posy and put your carrot aside for a minute, and smile, and say: "I'm sure, Mr. Lawrence, it is a long time since I had such a perfectly beautiful bunch of ideas brought me." And I shall blush and look sheepish and say: "So glad you think so. I believe you'll find they'll keep fresh quite a long time, if you put them in water." Whereupon you, Columbia, with real American gallantry: "Oh, they'll keep for ever, Mr. Lawrence. They couldn't be so cruel as to go and die, such perfectly lovely-colored ideas. Lovely! Thank you ever, ever so much."
Just think of it, Columbia, how pleased we shall be with one another: and how much nicer it will be than if you snorted "High-falutin' Nonsense"—or "Wordy mass of repulsive rubbish."