But verily why men should _new_ worship Hymen,--who, just as unshackled as
Cupid,--
(See decision _Re_ JACKSON), take burdens their backs on, I can_not_
conceive. It seems stupid
Beyond all expression to have a "possession" whose "ownness" there's
desperate doubt of,
And which (if she's _nous_) you can't keep _in_ your house, nor yet (if
she's "savvy") keep _out_ of!
What _is_ "Hymen's halter"? I fidget and falter! The Beaks seem to palter
and fumble.
In such a strange fashion, I fly in a passion, and vow that the world is a
jumble.
Law seems a wigged noodle, as tame as a poodle, the whole darned caboodle
(as 'ARRY sees)
Is ructions and "rot," and our "rulers" a lot of confounded old foodles
and Pharisees!
Yes, that's what _I_ think about Marriage and Drink--if you may call it
thought, which with frenzy is fraught, and gives me a "head" like bad
whiskey; whose dread is on me day and night, makes me wake in a fright,
from visions most solemn of column on column of such "printed matter"
and paragraph chatter, as makes me feel flatter than cold eggless batter
upon a lead platter--as mad as a hatter, and who will relieve me? Can anyone?
I tell you it's dreadful to face a whole bedful of spectres and spooks (born
of papers and books) with, most horrible looks, limbs contorted in crooks,
and bat-wings with big hooks, which haunt all the nooks of tester and
curtain, and which, I am certain, will drive me insane if _some_ one can't
explain where the mischief we are, 'midst the jumble and jar of factions
and fads, of crotchets and cads, of Tolstois and Jeunes, and Ibsens (whose
lunes are more lunatic still).
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