Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/175

 drunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater's heaven.

We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a taste of that musty old cheese that we are.

I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons that some one may convey an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon on the pond that laughs so loud. . . . I am no more Tonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horsefly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star or the south wind. . . or the first spider in a new house.

The piercing of "rotten diction," the fastening of words to our own "visible things"—this special pioneer quest of the American stylist, led by Emerson, followed by Thoreau, was pursued with immense and devouring gusto by Whitman and all his tribe.