One of Don Marquis's more racy stories which I recollect is of a loafer
in a country town who had the habit of dropping into the store every day
at the time the free cheese was set on the counter, and buying very
little in return. When the time came for the privilege to be withdrawn
the loafer was outraged and aghast. Addressing the storekeeper (his
friend for years) he summed up his ungenerosity in these terms: "Your
soul, Henry," he said, "is so mean, that if there were a million souls
like it in the belly of a flea, they'd be so far apart they couldn't
hear each other holler."
As for Oliver Herford, he is an elf, a sprite, a creature of fantasy,
who may be--and, I rejoice to say, is--in this world, but certainly is
not of it. This Oliver is in the line of Puck and Mercutio and Lamb and
Hood and other lovers and makers of nonsense, and it is we who ask for
"more." He had just brought out his irresponsible but very searching
exercise in cosmogony, "This Giddy Globe," dedicated to President Wilson
("with all his faults he quotes me still") and this was the first
indigenous work I read on American soil. Oliver Herford is perhaps best
known by his "Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten," and there is a kitten also
in "This Giddy Globe":
"Hurray!" cried the Kitten, "Hurray!"
As he merrily set the sails,
"I sail o'er the ocean to-day
To look at the Prince of Wales.
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