Don Marquis

thumb|Believe that everything is foryou until you discover that you are for it. Donald Robert Perry Marquis (29 July 1878 – 29 December 1937) was an American humorist, journalist, novelist, poet, cartoonist, newspaper columnist, and playwright most famous for creating the characters "Archy" the cockroach, and "Mehitabel" the cat. Quotes thumb|right|If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you. I have noticed that when chickens quit quarreling over their food they often find that there is enough for all of them i wonder if it might not be the same with the human race archy's life of mehitabel, random thoughts by archy (1933) If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you. As quoted in The Volta Review (1934), p. 574, Clifton Fadiman: The American Treasury 1455-1955 (New York 1955) p. 997 and Hugh Rawson, Margaret Miner: The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations (2006) p. 431 #5 from archy and mehitabel (1927) A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country. As quoted in O Rare Don Marquis, a Biography, by Edward Anthony (1962), Ch. 11 The Almost Perfect State (1921) "The Almost Perfect State" in Modern Essays (1921), edited by Christopher Morley I No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth, have a perfectly corking time for a few years. The most wonderful governmental system in the world does not attract us, as a system; we are after a system that scarcely knows it is a system; the great thing is to have the largest number of individuals as happy as may be, for a little while at least, some time before they die. Infancy is not what it is cracked up to be. The child seems happy all the time to the adult, because the adult knows that the child is untouched by the real problems of life; if the adult were similarly untouched he is sure that he would be happy. But children, not knowing that they are having an easy time, have a good many hard times. Growing and learning and obeying the rules of their elders, or fighting against them, are not easy things to do. Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles. It is to old age that we look for reimbursement, the most of us. And most of us look in vain. For the most of us have been wrenched and racked, in one way or another, until old age is the most trying time of all. In the Almost Perfect State every person shall have at least ten years before he dies of easy, carefree, happy living . . . things will be so arranged economically that this will be possible for each individual. Personally we look forward to an old age of dissipation and indolence and unreverend disrepute. In fifty years we shall be ninety-two years old. We intend to work rather hard during those fifty years and accumulate enough to live on without working any more for the next ten years, for we have determined to die at the age of one hundred and two. Between the years of ninety-two and a hundred and two, however, we shall be the ribald, useless, drunken, outcast person we have always wished to be. We shall have a long white beard and long white hair; we shall not walk at all, but recline in a wheel chair and bellow for alcoholic beverages; in the winter we shall sit before the fire with our feet in a bucket of hot water, a decanter of corn whiskey near at hand, and write ribald songs against organized society; strapped to one arm of our chair will be a forty-five calibre revolver, and we shall shoot out the lights when we want to go to sleep, instead of turning them off; when we want air we shall throw a silver candlestick through the front window and be damned to it; we shall address public meetings (to which we have been invited because of our wisdom) in a vein of jocund malice. We shall … but we don’t wish to make any one envious of the good time that is coming to us … We look forward to a disreputable, vigorous, unhonoured, and disorderly old age. We have always been compelled, and we shall be compelled for many years to come, to be prudent, cautious, staid, sober, conservative, industrious, respectful of established institutions, a model citizen. We have not liked it, but we have been unable to escape it. Our mind, our logical faculties, our observation, inform us that the conservatives have the right side of the argument in all human affairs. But the people whom we really prefer as associates, though we do not approve their ideas, are the rebels, the radicals, the wastrels, the vicious, the poets, the Bolshevists, the idealists, the nuts, the Lucifers, the agreeable good-for-nothings, the sentimentalists, the prophets, the freaks. We have never dared to know any of them, far less become intimate with them. We shall know that the Almost Perfect State is here when the kind of old age each person wants is possible to him. Of course, all of you may not want the kind we want . . . some of you may prefer prunes and morality to the bitter end. The best good that you can possibly achieve is not good enough if you have to strain yourself all the time to reach it. A thing is only worth doing, and doing again and again, if you can do it rather easily, and get some joy out of it. Do the best you can, without straining yourself too much and too continuously, and leave the rest to God. If you strain yourself too much you'll have to ask God to patch you up. And for all you know, patching you up may take time that it was planned to use some other way. BUT . . . overstrain yourself now and then. For this reason: The things you create easily and joyously will not continue to come easily and joyously unless you yourself are getting bigger all the time. And when you overstrain yourself you are assisting in the creation of a new self — if you get what we mean. II Men could not think of THE ALMOST PERFECT STATE if they did not have it in them ultimately to create THE ALMOST PERFECT STATE. The wise and subtle deities permit nothing worthy to be lost. It was with no thought of beauty that the builders labored; no conscious thought; they were masters or slaves in the bitter wars of commerce, and they never saw as a whole what they were making; no one of them did. But each one had had his dream. And the baffled dreams and the broken visions and the ruined hopes and the secret desires of each one labored with him as he labored; the things that were lost and beaten and trampled down went into the stone and steel and gave it soul: the aspiration denied and the hope abandoned and the vision defeated were the things that lived, and not the apparent purpose for which each one of all the millions sweat and toiled or cheated; the hidden things, the silent things, the winged things, so weak they are easily killed, the unacknowledged things, the rejected beauty, the strangled appreciation, the inchoate art, the submerged spirit — these groped and found each other and gathered themselves together and worked themselves into the tiles and mortar of the edifice and made a town that is a worthy fellow of the sunrise and the sea winds. Humanity triumphs over its details. The individual aspiration is always defeated of its perfect fruition and expression, but it is never lost; it passes into the conglomerate being of the race. The way to encourage yourself about the human race is to look at it first from a distance; look at the lights on the high spots. archy and mehitabel (1927) dedicated to babswith babs knows whatand babs knows why the octopus's secret wishis not to be a formal fishhe dreams that some time he may growanother set of legs or soand be a broadway music show oh i should worry and fretdeath and i will coquettethere s a dance in the old dame yettoujours gai toujours gai the song of mehitabel procrastination is theart of keepingup with yesterday certain maxims of archy an optimist is a guythat has never hadmuch experience certain maxims of archy well bossmehitabel the cathas reappeared in her oldhaunts with aflock of kittens archy she said to meyesterdaythe life of a femaleartist is continuallyhampered what in hellhave i done to deserveall these kittensi look back on my lifeand it seems to me to bejust one damned kittenafter anotheri am a dancer archyand my only prayeris to be allowedto give my best to my artbut just as i feelthat i am succeedingin my life workalong comes another batchof these damned kittensit is not archythat i am shy on mother lovegod knows i care forthe sweet little thingscurse thembut am i never to be allowedto live my own lifei have purposely avoidedmatrimony in the interestsof the higher lifebut i might justas well have been a domesticslave for all the freedomi have gainedi hope none of themgets run over byan automobilemy heart would bleedif anything happenedto them and i found it outbut it isn t fair archyit isn t fairthese damned tom cats have allthe fun and freedomif i was like some of thesegreen eyed feline vamps i knowi would simply walk out on thebunch of them andlet them shift for themselvesbut i am not that kindarchy i am full of mother lovemy kindness has alwaysbeen my cursea tender heart is the cross i bearself sacrifice always and foreveris my motto damn themi will make a homefor the sweet innocentlittle thingsunless of course providencein his wisdom should removethem they are livingjust now in an abandonedgarbage can just behinda made over stable in greenwichvillage and if it rainedinto the can before i couldget back and rescue themi am afraid the littledears might drownit makes me shudder justto think of itof course if i were a family catthey would probablybe drowned anyhowsometimes i thinkthe kinder thing would befor me to carry thesweet little thingsover to the riverand drop them in myselfbut a mother s love archyis so unreasonablesomething always prevents methese terribleconflicts are alwayspresenting themselvesto the artistthe eternal strugglebetween art and life archyis something fierceyes something fiercemy what a dramaticlife i have livedone moment up the nextmoment down againbut always gay archy always gayand always the lady tooin spite of hellwell boss it willbe interesting to notejust how mehitabelworks out her present problema dark mystery still broodsover the mannerin which the formerfamily of three kittensdisappearedone day she was talking to meof the kittensand the next day when i askedher about themshe said innocentlywhat kittensinterrogation pointand that was alli could ever get outof her on the subjectwe had a heavy rainright after she spoke to mebut probably that garbage canleaks so the kittenshave not yetbeen drowned mehitabel and her kittens dance mehitabel dancecaper and shake a legwhat little blood is leftwill fizz like wine in a keg mehitabel dances with boreas ihave often noticed thatancestors never boast the descendants who boastof ancestors i wouldrather start a family than one blood will tell but oftenit tells too much a roach of the taverns as i was crawlingthrough the holes ina swiss cheesethe otherday it occurred tome to wonderwhat a swiss cheesewould think ifa swiss cheesecould think and aftercogitating for sometime i said to myselfif a swiss cheesecould thinkit would think thata swiss cheesewas the most importantthing in the worldjust as everything thatcan think at alldoes think about itself archygrams what the ants are saying no insect likes human beings and if you think you can see why the only reason i tolerate you is because you seem less human to me than most of them it wont be long now it wont be long man is making deserts of the earth it wont be long now before man will have used it up so that nothing but ants and centipedes and scorpions can find a living on it man has oppressed us for a million years but he goes on steadily cutting the ground from under his own feet making deserts deserts deserts what man calls civilization always results in deserts men talk of money and industry of hard times and recoveries of finance and economics but the ants wait and the scorpions wait for while men talk they are making deserts all the time getting the world ready for the conquering ant drought and erosion and desert because men cannot learn each generation wastes a little moreof the future with greed and lust for riches it wont be long now it won't be long till earth is barren as the moon and sapless as a mumbled bone dear boss i relay this information without any fear that humanity will take warning and reform archy does his part (1935) it is a cheering thought to thinkthat god is on the side of the best digestion the big bad wolf there is bound to be a certain amount oftrouble running any countryif you are president the trouble happens to youbut if you are a tyrant you can arrange things sothat most of the trouble happens to other people archy's newest deal there is alwaysa comforting thoughtin time of trouble whenit is not our trouble comforting thoughts warty bliggens, the toad thumb|right|i met a toad the other day by the name of warty bliggens... i met a toadthe other day by the nameof warty bliggenshe was sitting undera toadstoolfeeling contentedhe explained that when the cosmoswas createdthat toadstool was especiallyplanned for his personalshelter from sun and rainthought out and preparedfor him thumb|right|warty bliggens considers himself to be the center of the said universe... a little moreconversation revealedthat warty bliggens considers himself to bethe center of the saiduniversethe earth exists to grow toadstools for himto sit underthe sun to give him lightby day and the moonand wheeling constellationsto make beautifulthe night for the sake ofwarty bliggens i asked himwhy is it that you are so greatly favoredask rathersaid warty bliggenswhat the universehas done to deserve me the robin and the worm a robin said to anangleworm as he ate himi am sorry but a birdhas to live somehow theworm being slow witted couldnot gather hisdissent into a wise crackand retort he waseffectually swallowedbefore he could turna phrase demons and fishhookshe exclaimedi am losing my personalidentity as a wormmy individualityis melting away from meodds craw i am becomingpart and parcel ofthis bloody robinso help me i am thinkinglike a robin and notlike a worm anylonger yes yes i evenfind myself agreeingthat a robin must livei still do notunderstand with my mentalitywhy a robin must liveand yet i swoon into a condition of belief amen said a beetle who hadpreceded him into the interior that is the way ifeel myself is it notwonderful when one arrives at the placewhere he can give up hisambitions and resignedlynay even with gladnessrecognize that it is a farfar better thing to be merged harmoniouslyin the cosmic alland this confortable situationin his midstso affected the marauding robin that he perchedupon a blooming twigand sang until theblossoms shook with ecstacyhe sangi have a good digestionand there is a god after allwhich i was wicked enough to doubtyesterday when it rained breakfast breakfasti am full of breakfastand they are at breakfastin heaventhey breakfast in heavenall s well with the world how beautiful is the universewhen something digestible meetswith an eager digestionhow sweet the embracewhen atom rushes to the armsof waiting atom well well boss there issomething to be saidfor the lyric and imperialattitudebelieve that everything is foryou until you discover that you are for it'''sing your faith in what youget to eat right up to theminute you are eatenfor you are going to be eaten there are more thingstwixt the vermiform appendixand nirvana than are dreamt ofin thy philosophy horatio External links Don Marquis Don_Marquis Don Marquis Essays by Don Marquis at Quotidiana.org Don Marquis.org Don Marquis.com Category:Poets from the United States Category:Cartoonists from the United States Category:Humorists from the United States Category:Journalists from Illinois Category:Novelists from the United States Category:Playwrights from the United States Category:Short story writers from the United States Category:1878 births Category:1937 deaths Category:Columnists from the United States