The Air Of The New

I Sit Down Religiously Every Morning, I Sit Down For Eight Hours Every Day - And The Sitting Down Is All.

The Nellie, A Cruising Yawl, Swung To Her Anchor Without A Flutter Of The Sails, And Was At Rest. The Flood Had Made, The Wind Was Nearly Calm, And Being Bound Down The River, The Only Thing For It Was To Come And Wait For The Turn Of The Tide.

For A Time I Would Feel I Belonged Still To A World Of Straightforward Facts; But The Feeling Would Not Last Long. Something Would Turn Up To Scare It Away.

In The Empty Immensity Of Earth, Sky, And Water, There She Was, Incomprehensible, Firing Into A Continent.

I Would Not Unduly Praise The Virtue Of Restraint. It Is Often Merely Temperamental. But It Is Not Always A Sign Of Coldness. It May Be Pride. There Can Be Nothing More Humiliating Than To See The Shaft Of One's Emotion Miss The Mark Of Either Laughter Or Tears. Nothing More Humiliating! And This For The Reason That Should The Mark Be Missed, Should The Open Display Of Emotion Fail To Move, Then It Must Perish Unavoidably In Disgust Or Contempt.