" 'Poor, foolish boy! Politeness is the name
  Politely given to equivocation.
'Twas not a tree from which this comment came;
  But an old stump with fungus vegetation
Encrusted thick. It was this old stump's aim,
  And, as it deemed, beneficent vocation,
To extract out of the toadstools it evolved
A system that all other systems solved."
--Owen Meredith, Glenaveril (1885)

   "Self-Questioning

To-day I saw a chipmunk stealthily
  Sitting upon a slender branch;
How steadily he gazed at me--
  As tho 'twere deed in no wise staunch!

Madly I hurled a stone--and down he fell. . . .
  Limp little body, am I then
So void of hell? . . . Since you can't tell,
  We'll think we're masterfull again!"
--Hyman Segal, The Book of Pain-Struggle
(1911)

"...It would be a pity if any future historian
were to have to write words like these: 'By
the middle of the twentieth century the higher
institutions of learning had lost all influence
over public opinion in the United States. But
the mission of raising the tone of democracy,
which they had proven themselves so lamentably
unfitted to exert, was assumed with rare
enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary
skill and success by a new educational power;
and for the clarification of their human sym-
pathies and elevation of their human preferences,
the people at large acquired the habit of
resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain
private literary adventures, commonly designated
in the market by the affectionate name of ten-
cent magazines...' " --William James in
Memories and Studies
[--Well, almost.]

Buffalo Daughter has a new album!