"The human and other machines of the age are bringing such wonderful things into existence, and the poet will lift his voice in praise of them. It really takes the imagination of a poet to picture and glorify the countless commodities that are manufactured and put upon the markets of our time. It takes a poet to point out their usefulness. What will he not sing of on those huge street signs and in the double-page advertisements in the newspapers? Of pre-digested foods, of squeezeless corsets, of baking powder that bakes the cakes without any form of heat, of ink that endows the pen with brains, of cigars that are conducive to health, of watches that make people up to date, of a hair restorer that keeps the hair you have, of shoes with which you can walk in the air, of clothes that make man and woman out of nothing, pianos that make Paderewskys, of bicycles and typewriters, and razors and house-lots and furniture, and peerless, rare, surpassing, extraordinary everything mentionable. What will he not sing of? These things will be. God will send us a Bobby Burns and he will sing the song of the best steamship company, and he will not only be able to go abroad often, but he may in the course of time even become the general passenger agent. It takes a competent fortune to escape the materialism of the age, and to acquire this the poet will associate himself with the material interests of the time and become as free as a bird in the woods. "The process has begun, and already one finds pretty little poems and fine sentiments in all advertisements, particularly those that meet one's eyes in the street cars. I usually have a book with me on the cars, but of late I find the advertisements more amusing. Pretty soon the best literature will appear in the advertisements of all publications. One firm advertises in choice epigrams, which show the possibilities for some future wits. I do not know whether they are written by Elbert Hubbard or not, but they sound like it and show which way things are going. "This is the solution of the problem of the poet. I pondered over it long, but found it at last. Our hope comes from Parnassus. The poets will help us conquer the foreign market." XXII "My Vacation on the East Side" "Green fields, fair forests, singing streams, pine-clad mountains, verdant vistas--from the monotony of the city to the monotony of nature. I wanted a complete change, and so I went to the East Side of New York for my vacation. That is where I have been."