The Ocala banner., 1911-09-01
MY EXPERIENCE i'm THE LEGISLATURES
Z. h B. Floyd in Apalachicoa Times


the loneliness of the soul? Has he
drunk long of the black wine of the
thought Of death? Some demurrer.
perhaps, he mas sustained against the
gaudy declaration of life? Once.
perhaps, for a while, he walked and
talked with Mystery, or he. heard
Apollo play? 1t is as though part
O. him belonged to the Abyss. Other
standards than the common ones he
lays against what he learns. In his
editorials one now and then feels the
sweep of an uncommon wind, the
pulse of a great tide. The cheruDlm
OF character wait on him in his
high moods. He is gold.''
Mrs. Reader: "He looks very inter-
esting, as though one might live with
him fifteen or twenty years and still
find him an enigma
Mr.. Reader: "a god"
Mrs. Reader: Yes, some men are
higher than women are, as women:
he seems one of these men. He is
sensitive, and therefore would respect
your feelings; he holds himself as sa-
cred. and therefore would hold you
as sacred. | think l shall get a di-
vorce from you, Idle, my dear, and
marry Mr.. Frank L. Mayes. You see,
we have no children, and so you have
not the same claim on me as if we
were bound together by them"
Idle Reader: go your route
c. H. B.: Gods make poor hus-
bands; ask my wife, or the wife of
Lord Byron; or the wife of Shelley,
who took the happy dispatch; the
gods make pretty sweethearts, but
ugly husbands. You must not go very
close to them. Being self sufficient
they do not really need you except to
mash you into paint or turn you into
copy; wnen you intrude on them with
your poems in flesh they, lost in the
red cloud of dream, will spear you
with lightning jolt that will make
you wish you were back home with
mama. Besides, you know, gods do
not marry twice"
Mrs. Reader: ooh! surely you are
wrong. 1t is the gods who marry
twice and thrice. They are the ones
who recognize that life on earth is
impossibleS ~tiFesome, lonely, unless
one is at the university of matrimony
from N1haontty to death. Montaigne,
remember, said that matrimony was
bad enough but it looked as though
it was the common lot, and if he had
his life to live over again he believed
he would marry again. This is the
world of woman; in her is the foun-
tain of love that gushes through the
moonlight in the brooding hours in
the fragrance of lilies and kisses;
man who lives unmarried is as foolish
as one who lives in Greenland in the
open air, unsheltered and alone.
will recite a poem to you:
"Slave-driver of the earth, yourself a
slave.
You knout the workers to their
bloody toll
And sob because you wound them.
Demigod! half demon,
Half divinel the lowest slouch, the
foulest wench, might give
The sleeping world Napoleon
Or Washington, or Keats; but that
Is but the part-the froth of life you
pour
Around the earth is but the part! Be-
low the stars,
Some night, you bare your shoulders
to the lips
OF idle man, and cities roari ploughs
ten myriad run!
And continents are rich with har-
vestsi
Though tender, soft, you seem, you
are not flesh!
Caryatid of the ages, you lift up
The wide entablature of life, and 10!
Turn into stone to pillar it in place"
C. H. B.: Magnificent! that is The
greatest verse L ever heard! what eff
fortress felicity of divine expression!
Get the idea-man kisses woman's
white shoulder, and thereupon the
roar and tumult of cities-London
and Ninevah make the glad noise
and wheels are heard on the stone
streets of Baalbec and Pensacola.
remember the day l wrote it in the
house we were renting from Capt.
Rice on the beach in Apalachicola.
called my wife to the head of the
stairs and read it to her
Mrs. Silly Reader: "Oh! Mr.. Floyd,
did you really write that? 1 am go
ing to kiss you for it,"
C. H. B.: Help. Help! Luke Grif-
fin, help! | am local preacher in the
Methodist church, and this woman is
about to kiss me-
(Enter Luke, the sergeant at arms.)
Luke: kiss me, Silly, my girl"
(Curtain.)