The Near Touch Of Death May Be

For Man, The Vast Marvel Is To Be Alive. For Man, As For Flower And Beast And Bird, The Supreme Triumph Is To Be Most Vividly, Most Perfectly Alive. Whatever The Unborn May Know, They Cannot Know The Beauty, The Marvel Of Being Alive In The Flesh. The Dead May Look After The Afterwards. But The Magnificent Here And Now Of Life In The Flesh Is Ours, And Ours Alone, And Ours Only For A Time.

Now Go Away Then, And Leave Me Alone. I Don't Want Any More Of Your Meretricious Persiflage.

My God, What A Clumsy Olla Putrida James Joyce Is! Nothing But Old Fags And Cabbage Stumps Of Quotations From The Bible And The Rest, Stewed In The Juice Of Deliberate, Journalistic Dirty-mindedness—what Old And Hard-worked Staleness, Masquerading As The All-new!

Oh Build Your Ship Of Death. Oh Build It! For You Will Need It. For The Voyage Of Oblivion Awaits You.

One Could Laugh At The World Better If It Didn't Mix Tender Kindliness With Its Brutality.