I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human DaysMacLane, Mary
General
I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human Days
MacLane, Mary
MacLane, Mary, 1881-1929; Montana -- Biography; Women authors, American -- Biography
till it feels pleasantly ecstatic just to be living in the same world
with bewitching vases of Cold Cream, Cold Cream, Cold Cream--always
bewitching and lovely but never so notably and festively as in the
Back of a magazine: and I like the Pencils: and Book-cases: and
Silver: and Jewels: and Glass: and Gloves: and Shoes--beautiful
Shoes: and Fountain-pens: and Leather things: and Paint--silkish
salubrious Paints, house-Paints, and the panegyrics with them--they
make me long to own a spirit-house and paint it liberally: and Rugs:
and Varnish: and Clothes--wonderful Clothes: and Bungalows: and
Phonographs--his master’s voice: and Paper--fine-wrought Paper to
write on--bond and linen and hand-pressed, pale-tinted--a vast virgin
treasure: and Oranges: and Cigarettes--a shilling in London a quarter
here: and Water-Bottles of powdery rubber: and Stockings--patrician
Stockings which take me into realms of silk-looms and delicate dyes
and slim ankles: and Candle-Shades: and Candle-Sticks: and countless
Cosmetics--Cosmetics of tender colors for the outer women: and
Sealingwax indescribably useless and attractive: and Tennis-Racquets:
and Ivory--smooth Vantine Ivory toys and trinkets polished softly
bright as moonlight--and their lily-worded descriptions like
restrained sonnets: and Washing Powders--let the Gold Dust twins do
your work: and Shower-baths: and Evans’ Ale: and Flying Boats: and
Umbrellas: and Cameras--if it isn’t an Eastman it isn’t a kodak: and
boxes of Candy--sweet wilderness of chocolates--their very makers’
names have a melting gust--Allegretti, Huyler, Clarence Crane,
Maillard--cloying courtiers all: and Diamond Dyes--a child can use
them: and Veranda Screens--she can look out but he can’t look in:
and Cedar Chests: and Chartreuse from Carthusian monasteries: and
Perfumes--Perfumes in their maddening-sweet pride, Perfumes from
Paris, Perfumes bottled in thick crystal, enchantingly costly--each
American dollar added to their price-by-the-ounce making them
fragranter to my thoughts: and boxes of benevolent Matches, and
captivating Brooms, and fascinating Scouring-powders--a Dutch girl
on the can chasing dirt--all three luscious tempting things in the
Back of a magazine: and Automobiles--ask the man who owns one: and
Rifles--simple and formidable and fine: and restful Rat-poison--they
die in the open air seeking water: and sacks of Flour--eventually
why not now--flour unusual and piquant in the Back of a magazine,
flour novel and endearing: and Type-writers: and Mushrooms: and
Monkey-Wrenches: and Rosaries: and Rock-salt--
the Back, the Back, the Back of a magazine--
There’s no sadness and no terror in the Back of a magazine.
And it is for Everybody, Everybody.
A million people read a story in the middle of the magazine and half
the million readily miss its point. But a single tin of Talcum Powder
in the Back--the whole million note that and miss nothing in it: it
gets to them both on and under their skin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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