His skin barely sufficed to cover his bones; his complexion had paled until it became the color of urine.
When there are girls and boys in a classroom it is trying for the teacher to say “Lake Titicaca.” No one takes this lake seriously. It sounds absurd—and a trifle suggestive. Moloch felt the same way about this situation. He wanted someone to extricate him.
Blanche slipped off quietly to clasp her dreams. Her gesture was akin to the shrug of a dance-hall woman tossing aside a novel by Maxwell Bodenheim because “it starts off dirty.”
Toward dawn Hari slipped into Matt’s bed. It was not necessary to disturb Reardon since he was not there to disturb. In the telegraph game one meets with a large variety of experience. Very likely Matt had put the kibosh on the insurrection uptown, and then, highly satisfied with his efforts, had gone to a prizefight with one of the operators. After that a drinking bout and a Turkish bath. Or an all-night session in a black-and-tan. Matt would arrive bright and early in the morning with a swollen head and a fitful desire to spend the rest of his days in the South Seas....
Moloch tarried a few minutes before retiring to glance at Hari’s pamphlet entitled “Merry Christmas Greetings to the World!” It was written in the first person spectacular. Some of it was in high fettle.
“I restrain myself lest a stray casual remark develop into a volume. I do not expect to be appreciated all at once. Of this, however, I am convinced, that only the rarest among men have been foreordained to understand me.... The rest are merely humanity on their way to ordination....
“I boast of my system being fluid, gaseous, capable of evaporating. This is the highest rational system ever yet propounded. The sensations embodied in my ‘Aphorisms’ are a tiny fragment of the vast firmament of my philosophy, and exhibit the state of chaos out of which will order be born, to which I shall willingly, proudly, stand Godfather; it is the state of Inharmony out of which shall Harmony be born, to the divine rhythm of which the world shall dance for the pleasure of the Master-Artist....”
“The Master-Artist”! Moloch mused awhile on megalomania. The Master-Artist was already snoring deeply. His “Aphorisms” were floating like toy balloons over the surface of his dreams. He was no longer aware of such mythical realities as corns, bunions and “Charley Horse.” He walked in deep meadow grass through the valley of the moon, and the smell of clover was as incense to his quivering nostrils.
“With a proper diet, clean linen, a soft pallet, he’ll get over this Messianic complex. I suppose it’s up to me to play Joseph of Arimathea…. Ho hum!” He yawned, stretched himself, and lit a cigarette. Ideas gathered, the species of ideas which strangles sleep, and which seems next morning to be more than mildly aberrant. He pictured himself in a Quaker meeting, passing the hat around for his friend, the Master-Artist, who has just finished lecturing on “The Religious Aspects of Procreation.” As an entrepreneur his success is established. The hat is full. If this gag can be repeated, it it can be pulled on the Christian Scientists, well… the telegraph company can go to hell then. The Master-Artist has no idea what a gold mine awaits them. Once California is reached…. California: the land of golden whales. California: where a new cult is born every day. He’s glad he was born an American. America: the land of opportunity, where the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. If necessary, he’ll change his name … Mordecai Brown, Impresario!
In the upper stratum of Chinese society a favorite method of committing suicide is “to take gold leaf.” Death is brought on by the gold leaf obstructing the glottis. Similarly, the web of cocoons that Dion Moloch spun brought about a suffocation of ideas and he became deliciously drowsy. The last impression he was conscious of was the racing extra in
When there are girls and boys in a classroom it is trying for the teacher to say “Lake Titicaca.” No one takes this lake seriously. It sounds absurd—and a trifle suggestive. Moloch felt the same way about this situation. He wanted someone to extricate him.
Blanche slipped off quietly to clasp her dreams. Her gesture was akin to the shrug of a dance-hall woman tossing aside a novel by Maxwell Bodenheim because “it starts off dirty.”
Toward dawn Hari slipped into Matt’s bed. It was not necessary to disturb Reardon since he was not there to disturb. In the telegraph game one meets with a large variety of experience. Very likely Matt had put the kibosh on the insurrection uptown, and then, highly satisfied with his efforts, had gone to a prizefight with one of the operators. After that a drinking bout and a Turkish bath. Or an all-night session in a black-and-tan. Matt would arrive bright and early in the morning with a swollen head and a fitful desire to spend the rest of his days in the South Seas....
Moloch tarried a few minutes before retiring to glance at Hari’s pamphlet entitled “Merry Christmas Greetings to the World!” It was written in the first person spectacular. Some of it was in high fettle.
“I restrain myself lest a stray casual remark develop into a volume. I do not expect to be appreciated all at once. Of this, however, I am convinced, that only the rarest among men have been foreordained to understand me.... The rest are merely humanity on their way to ordination....
“I boast of my system being fluid, gaseous, capable of evaporating. This is the highest rational system ever yet propounded. The sensations embodied in my ‘Aphorisms’ are a tiny fragment of the vast firmament of my philosophy, and exhibit the state of chaos out of which will order be born, to which I shall willingly, proudly, stand Godfather; it is the state of Inharmony out of which shall Harmony be born, to the divine rhythm of which the world shall dance for the pleasure of the Master-Artist....”
“The Master-Artist”! Moloch mused awhile on megalomania. The Master-Artist was already snoring deeply. His “Aphorisms” were floating like toy balloons over the surface of his dreams. He was no longer aware of such mythical realities as corns, bunions and “Charley Horse.” He walked in deep meadow grass through the valley of the moon, and the smell of clover was as incense to his quivering nostrils.
“With a proper diet, clean linen, a soft pallet, he’ll get over this Messianic complex. I suppose it’s up to me to play Joseph of Arimathea…. Ho hum!” He yawned, stretched himself, and lit a cigarette. Ideas gathered, the species of ideas which strangles sleep, and which seems next morning to be more than mildly aberrant. He pictured himself in a Quaker meeting, passing the hat around for his friend, the Master-Artist, who has just finished lecturing on “The Religious Aspects of Procreation.” As an entrepreneur his success is established. The hat is full. If this gag can be repeated, it it can be pulled on the Christian Scientists, well… the telegraph company can go to hell then. The Master-Artist has no idea what a gold mine awaits them. Once California is reached…. California: the land of golden whales. California: where a new cult is born every day. He’s glad he was born an American. America: the land of opportunity, where the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. If necessary, he’ll change his name … Mordecai Brown, Impresario!
In the upper stratum of Chinese society a favorite method of committing suicide is “to take gold leaf.” Death is brought on by the gold leaf obstructing the glottis. Similarly, the web of cocoons that Dion Moloch spun brought about a suffocation of ideas and he became deliciously drowsy. The last impression he was conscious of was the racing extra in
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