TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. THE TASTE OF HONEY THE NOTE BOOK OF A LINGUIST THE TASTE OF HONEY THE NOTE BOOK OF A LINGUIST BY EDNA WORTHLEY UNDERWOOD [Illustration] PORTLAND MAINE THE MOSHER PRESS MDCCCCXXX COPYRIGHT EDNA WORTHLEY UNDERWOOD 1930 Manufactured in the United States of America TO THREE PROSATEURS LOTI, BLANCO-FOMBONA, D’ANNUNZIO _FOREWORD_ The Taste of Honey _is a genuine diary, of somewhat the same kind as_ De Vigny’s Journal d’un Poète, _or_ Diary of a Kentish Gentleman, _in that it was not written for public approval, but for personal pleasure. It is not dated nor arranged in order, partly because it was jotted down upon loose leaves which were threaded upon a string; partly because of the period of years covered and the vicissitudes that befall perishable substances such as paper._ _Part was written at the age of sixteen, eighteen; part recently. Many pages have been lost; indeed as recently as the spring of 1928 a manuscript of over three hundred pages disappeared from the office of a New York magazine. Some notes from this are included however._ _Selections from the Note Book have been published, in both French and English_, Le Disque Vert _of Belgium carried pages, when Hellens was director. American papers have carried other pages._ _It has not been edited nor changed for publication. It is the unreserved expression of what was in the reader’s mind, set down with malice toward none and always with sincerity._ THE TASTE OF HONEY THE NOTE BOOK OF A LINGUIST THE TASTE OF HONEY THE NOTE BOOK OF A LINGUIST Goethe wrote: _Was ich litt und was ich lebte, sind hier Blumen nur im Strausz._ I paraphrase: _Was ich lese und was ich denke, hab ich hier bewahrt für mich._ (What I read and what I think I have stored up here for myself.) This sentence from one of Concha Espina’s novels pleased me: _Acaso han huido para siempre en el mundo las aves altarnaras de la Humanidad._ (Perhaps vanished forever from the earth are the heavenly wings of humanity.) That is what Spanish thinkers declare that we lack more than anything else, human values. Byron and Shelley created merely to console themselves for the fact that they could not learn how to live. To them a man of action was something strange, something enviable.