I Belonged In Idle Valley Like A

Show Me A Man Or Woman Who Cannot Stand Mysteries And I Will Show You A Fool, A Clever Fool - Perhaps - But A Fool Just The Same.

When A Book, Any Sort Of Book, Reaches A Certain Intensity Of Artistic Performance It Becomes Literature.

It Is A Mass Language Only In The Same Sense That Its Baseball Slang Is Born Of Baseball Players. That Is, It Is A Language Which Is Being Molded By Writers To Do Delicate Things And Yet Be Within The Grasp Of Superficially Educated People. It Is Not A Natural Growth, Much As Its Proletarian Writers Would Like To Think So. But Compared With It At Its Best, English Has Reached The Alexandrian Stage Of Formalism And Decay.

There Was A Desert Wind Blowing That Night. It Was One Of Those Hot Dry Santa Anas That Come Down Through The Mountain Passes And Curl Your Hair And Make Your Nerves Jump And Your Skin Itch. On Nights Like That Every Booze Party Ends In A Fight. Meek Little Wives Feel The Edge Of The Carving Knife And Study Their Husbands' Necks. Anything Can Happen. You Can Even Get A Full Glass Of Beer At A Cocktail Lounge.

The Plants Filled The Place, A Forest Of Them, With Nasty Meaty Leaves And Stalks Like The Newly Washed Fingers Of Dead Men.