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."