The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume II

by Bob Blaisdell

  This is the thing I find to be:

  That I am weary of words and people,

  Sick of the city, wanting the sea;

  Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness

  Of the strong wind and shattered spray;

  Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound

  Of the big surf that breaks all day.

  Always before about my dooryard,

  Marking the reach of the winter sea,

  Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,

  Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;

  Always I climbed the wave at morning,

  Shook the sand from my shoes at night,

  That now am caught beneath great buildings,

  Stricken with noise, confused with light.

  If I could hear the green piles groaning

  Under the windy wooden piers,

  See once again the bobbing barrels,

  And the black sticks that fence the weirs,

  If I could see the weedy mussels

  Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,

  Hear once again the hungry crying

  Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,

  Feel once again the shanty straining

  Under the turning of the tide,

  Fear once again the rising freshet,

  Dread the bell in the fog outside,—

  I should be happy,—that was happy

  All day long on the coast of Maine!

  I have a need to hold and handle

  Shells and anchors and ships again!

  I should be happy, that am happy

  Never at all since I came here.

  I am too long away from water.

  I have a need of water near.

  SOURCE: Edna St. Vincent Millay. Second April. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1921.

  Travel (1921)

  The railroad track is miles away,

  And the day is loud with voices speaking,

  Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day

  But I hear its whistle shrieking.

  All night there isn’t a train goes by,

  Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming

  But I see its cinders red on the sky,

  And hear its engine steaming.

  My heart is warm with the friends I make,

  And better friends I’ll not be knowing,

  Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,

  No matter where it’s going.

  SOURCE: Edna St. Vincent Millay. Second April. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1921.

  LANGSTON HUGHES

  Langston Hughes (1902–1967), whose writing career spanned the Harlem Renaissance and continued its persistent path until his death, was a colloquial poet who often wrote in the voice of his subjects; throughout his life, he was a determined advocate for black Americans and writers. This was his first famous published poem.

  The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921)

  I’ve known rivers:

  I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

  My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

  I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

  I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

  I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

  I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset

  I’ve known rivers:

  Ancient, dusky rivers.

  My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

  SOURCE: The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races (June 1921).

  GERTRUDE STEIN

  One of the greatest of experimenters in sound and sense, Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) grew up in Oakland, California, but lived most of her life in Paris, where she mentored and befriended numerous international writers and artists.

  Every Afternoon: A Dialogue (1922)

  I get up.

  So do you get up.

  We are pleased with each other.

  Why are you.

  Because we are hopeful.

  Have you any reason to be.

  We have reason to be.

  What is it.

  I am not prepared to say.

  Is there any change.

  Naturally.

  I know what you mean.

  I consider that it is not necessary for me to teach languages.

  It would be foolish of you to.

  It would here.

  It would anywhere.

  I do not care about Peru.

  I hope you do.

  Do I begin this.

  Yes you began this.

  Of course we did.

  Yes indeed we did.

  When will we speak of another.

  Not today I assure you.

  Yes certainly you mentioned it.

  We mentioned everything.

  To another.

  I do not wish reasons.

  You mean you are taught early.

  That is exactly what I mean.

  And I feel the same.

  You feel it to be the same.

  Don’t tempt him.

  Do not tempt him.

  This evening there was no question of temptation he was not the least interested.

  Neither was she.

  Of course she wasn’t.

  It’s really not necessary to ask her.

  I found it necessary.

  You did

  Certainly.

  And when have you leisure.

  Reading and knitting.

  Reading or knitting.

  Reading or knitting.

  Yes reading or knitting.

  In the evening.

  Actively first.

  He was very settled.

  Where was he settled.

  In Marseilles.

  I cannot understand words.

  Cannot you.

  You are so easily deceived you don’t ask what do they decide what are they to decide.

  There is no reason.

  No there is no reason.

  Between meals.

  Do you really sew.

  He was so necessary to me.

  We are equally pleased.

  Come and stay.

  Do so.

  Do you mean to be rude.

  Did he.

  I ask you why.

  Tomorrow.

  Yes tomorrow.

  Every afternoon.

  A dialogue.

  What did you do with your dog.

  We sent him into the country.

  Was he a trouble.

  Not at all but we thought he would be better off there.

  Yes it isn’t right to keep a large dog in the city.

  Yes I agree with you.

  Yes

  Coming.

  Yes certainly.

  Do be quick.

  Not in breathing.

  No you know you don’t mind.

  We said yes.

  Come ahead.

  That sounded like an animal.

  Were you expecting something.

  I don’t know.

  Don’t you know about it at all.

  You know I don’t believe it.

  She did.

  Well they are different

  I am not very careful.

  Mention that again.

  Here.

  Not here.

  Don’t receive wood.

  Don’t receive wood.

  Well we went and found it.

  Tomorrow.

  Come tomorrow.

  Come tomorrow.

  Yes we said yes. Come tomorrow.

  Coming very well. Don’t be irritable. Don’t say you haven’t been told. You know I want a telegram. Why.

  Because emperors didn’t.

  I don’t remember that.

  I don’t care for a long time.

  For a long time to pass away.

 
Why not.

  Because I like him.

  That’s what she said.

  We said.

  We will gladly come Saturday.

  She will go.

  Oh yes she will.

  What is a conversation.

  We can all sing.

  A great many people come in.

  A great many people come in.

  Why do the days pass so quickly.

  Because we are very happy.

  Yes that’s so.

  That’s it.

  That is it.

  Who cares for daisies.

  Do you hear me.

  Yes I can hear you.

  Very well then explain.

  That I care for daisies.

  That we care for daisies.

  Come in come in.

  Yes and I will not cry.

  No indeed.

  We will picnic.

  Oh yes.

  We are very happy.

  Very happy.

  And content.

  And content.

  We will go and hear Tito Ruffo.

  Here.

  Yes here.

  Oh yes I remember about that. He is to be here.

  To begin with what did we buy.

  Scolding.

  If you remember you will remember other things that frighten you.

  Will I.

  Yes and there is no necessity the explanation is not in your walking first of walking last of walking beside me the only reason that there is plenty of room is that I choose it.

  Then we will say that it will rain.

  The other day there was bright moonlight.

  Not here.

  No not here but on the whole there is more moonlight than in Brittany.

  Come again.

  Come in again.

  Coming again.

  Coming in again.

  Come again.

  I say I do understand calling.

  Calling him.

  Yes Polybe.

  Come.

  Come.

  Come again and bring a book.

  We meet him so often.

  We meant to see about it. You mean the light.

  I am proud of her. You have every reason to be and she takes it so naturally.

  It is better that it is her hands.

  Yes of course.

  Nothing can pay for that.

  Republics are so ungrateful.

  Do you desire to appear here.

  Why of course in that sense.

  I do not know those words.

  It is really wretched.

  You do see it.

  I don’t see it that way.

  No you wouldn’t you would prefer the words well and tall.

  Say it to me.

  You know I never wished to be blamed.

  An effort to eat quickly.

  Did you promise him.

  Did I promise him the woods.

  The woods.

  Not now.

  You mean not now.

  SOURCE: Gertrude Stein. Geography and Plays. Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1922.

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, born in 1896, was the rising star in American fiction at the beginning of the 1920s. He wrote gorgeously phrased, engaging stories for big magazines, many of them about attractive, young, rich men and women. His most famous work today, the novel The Great Gatsby, appeared in 1925. Though he was enormously talented, alcoholism took a toll on him; after moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s, he died in 1940. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” prompted Fitzgerald’s amused and amusing note in the Table of Contents of Tales of the Jazz Age: “This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain’s to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler’s Note-books. The story was published in Collier’s last summer and provoked this startling letter from an anonymous admirer in Cincinnati: ‘Sir—I have read the story Benjamin Button in Colliers and I wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic I have seen many peices of cheese in my life but of all the peices of cheese I have ever seen you are the biggest peice. I hate to waste a peice of stationary on you but I will.’ ”

  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922)

  Chapter 1

  AS LONG AGO as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this anachronism had any bearing upon the astonishing history I am about to set down will never be known.

  I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself.

  The Roger Buttons held an enviable position, both social and financial, in ante-bellum Baltimore. They were related to the This Family and the That Family, which, as every Southerner knew, entitled them to membership in that enormous peerage which largely populated the Confederacy. This was their first experience with the charming old custom of having babies—Mr. Button was naturally nervous. He hoped it would be a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in Connecticut, at which institution Mr. Button himself had been known for four years by the somewhat obvious nickname of “Cuff.”

  On the September morning consecrated to the enormous event he arose nervously at six o’clock, dressed himself, adjusted an impeccable stock, and hurried forth through the streets of Baltimore to the hospital, to determine whether the darkness of the night had borne in new life upon its bosom.

  When he was approximately a hundred yards from the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen he saw Doctor Keene, the family physician, descending the front steps, rubbing his hands together with a washing movement—as all doctors are required to do by the unwritten ethics of their profession.

  Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware, began to run toward Doctor Keene with much less dignity than was expected from a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period. “Doctor Keene!” he called. “Oh, Doctor Keene!”

  The doctor heard him, faced around, and stood waiting, a curious expression settling on his harsh, medicinal face as Mr. Button drew near.

  “What happened?” demanded Mr. Button, as he came up in a gasping rush. “What was it? How is she? A boy? Who is it? What—”

  “Talk sense!” said Doctor Keene sharply. He appeared somewhat irritated.

  “Is the child born?” begged Mr. Button.

  Doctor Keene frowned. “Why, yes, I suppose so—after a fashion.” Again he threw a curious glance at Mr. Button.

  “Is my wife all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “Here now!” cried Doctor Keene in a perfect passion of irritation, “I’ll ask you to go and see for yourself. Outrageous!” He snapped the last word out in almost one syllable, then he turned away muttering: “Do you imagine a case like this will help my professional reputation? One more would ruin me—ruin anybody.”

  “What’s the matter?” demanded Mr. Button, appalled. “Triplets?”

  “No, not triplets!” answered the doctor cuttingly. “What’s more, you can go and see for yourself. And get another doctor. I brought you into the world, young man, and I’ve been physician to your family for forty years, but I’m through with you! I don’t want to see you or any of your relatives ever again! Good-by!”

  Then he turned sharply, and without another word climbed into his phaeton, which was waiting at the curbstone, and drove severely away.

  Mr. Button stood there upon the sidewalk, stupefied and trembling from head to foot. What horri
ble mishap had occurred? He had suddenly lost all desire to go into the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen—it was with the greatest difficulty that, a moment later, he forced himself to mount the steps and enter the front door.

  A nurse was sitting behind a desk in the opaque gloom of the hall. Swallowing his shame, Mr. Button approached her.

  “Good-morning,” she remarked, looking up at him pleasantly.

  “Good-morning. I—I am Mr. Button.”

  At this a look of utter terror spread itself over the girl’s face. She rose to her feet and seemed about to fly from the hall, restraining herself only with the most apparent difficulty.

  “I want to see my child,” said Mr. Button.

  The nurse gave a little scream. “Oh—of course!” she cried hysterically. “Up-stairs. Right up-stairs. Go—up!”

  She pointed the direction, and Mr. Button, bathed in a cool perspiration, turned falteringly, and began to mount to the second floor. In the upper hall he addressed another nurse who approached him, basin in hand. “I’m Mr. Button,” he managed to articulate. “I want to see my—”

  Clank! The basin clattered to the floor and rolled in the direction of the stairs. Clank! Clank! It began a methodical descent as if sharing in the general terror which this gentleman provoked.

  “I want to see my child!” Mr. Button almost shrieked. He was on the verge of collapse.

  Clank! The basin had reached the first floor. The nurse regained control of herself, and threw Mr. Button a look of hearty contempt.

  “All right, Mr. Button,” she agreed in a hushed voice. “Very well! But if you knew what state it’s put us all in this morning! It’s perfectly outrageous! The hospital will never have the ghost of a reputation after—”

  “Hurry!” he cried hoarsely. “I can’t stand this!”

  “Come this way, then, Mr. Button.”

  He dragged himself after her. At the end of a long hall they reached a room from which proceeded a variety of howls—indeed, a room which, in later parlance, would have been known as the “crying-room.” They entered. Ranged around the walls were half a dozen white-enameled rolling cribs, each with a tag tied at the head.

  “Well,” gasped Mr. Button, “which is mine?”

  “There!” said the nurse.

  Mr. Button’s eyes followed her pointing finger, and this is what he saw. Wrapped in a voluminous white blanket, and partially crammed into one of the cribs, there sat an old man apparently about seventy years of age. His sparse hair was almost white, and from his chin dripped a long smoke-colored beard, which waved absurdly back and forth, fanned by the breeze coming in at the window. He looked up at Mr. Button with dim, faded eyes in which lurked a puzzled question.