624
Withered tufts of grass
...
There was and still is
An old witch
OLD
GREEN
WITCH
Plan
ts for
the
cognoscen
ti
trees
herbs
flowers
succulents
vines
ceramics
metal pots
hanging baskets
249 West 13th Street
New York City
(Corner of Greenwich Ave.)
Open 2-7, Monday through Friday
Or by appointment, WA 9-8529
CHESTER
will serve a purpose. But these
filthy beggars lying in the rain,
what purpose do they serve? What
good can they do us? They make
us bleed for five minutes, that's
all.
Oh, well these are night
thoughts produced by walking in
the rain after two thousand years
of Christianity. At least now the
birds are well provided for, and
the cats and dogs. Every time
I
pass the concierge's window and
catch the full icy impact of her
glance
I
have an insane desire
to
throttle all the birds in creation.
At the bottom of every frozen
heart there is a drop or two of
love-just enough to feed the birds.
But this is not the vision of the
rest of the book. Taken by itself,
this passage is writing of the high–
est order. Set in context, it is
merely sentimental. He is being
tragic about the abstract, about the
idea
of the tragic, about those he
doesn't know personally.
Those
Miller does know personally he
doesn't see as tragic at all. He
sees them as funny, silly, somewhat
pathetic-and everything always
comes out right for them in the
end.
'- So
Tropic of Cancer,
says I,
isn't a great book. So? There is
a consolation prize, however.
Think
of what pleasure it is to disagree
with Karl Shapiro. And what
pleasure it is to disagree with that
long and laudatory list of eminent
names that appears on the dust
jacket like a list of vitamins and
minerals: Eliot, Pound, Durrell,
i
t
