or
The washing
Billowing—
Frozen egg-shells
Crimson pantaloons
Skyline
Flutter.
or
The omnibuses herd together
In the dirty autumn weather
Elephants in jungle town
Monkey-nuts come pattering down.
and so on and so on. . . .
He got deep pleasure from these inspirations; he had sent three to an annual anthology Hoops, and one of them, "Railway-Lines—Bucket-shop," was to appear in the 1920 volume.
But the trouble with Henry was that cheek by jowl with this modern up-to-date impulse ran a streak of real old-fashioned, entirely out-of-date Romance. It was true, as Millie had informed Miss Platt, that he had written ten chapters of a story, The House in the Lonely Wood.
How desperately was he ashamed of his impulse to write this romance and yet how at the same time he loved doing it! Was ever young literary genius in a more shameful plight! A true case of double personality! With the day he pursued the path of all the young 1920 Realists, believing that nothing matters but "the Truth, the calm, cold, unaffected Truth," thrilling to the voices of the Three Graces, loving the company of the somewhat youthful editor of Hoops, reading every word that fell from the pen of the younger realistic critics.
And then at night out came the other personality and Henry, hair on end, the penny bottle of ink in front of him, pursued, alas happily and with the divine shining behind his eyelids, the simple path of unadulterated, unashamed Romance!