A cow does not know how much milk it has until the milkman starts working on it. Then it looks round in surprise and sees the pail... full to the brim. In the same way a writer has no idea how much he has to say till his pen draws it out of him. Thoughts will then appear on the paper that he is amazed to find that he possessed. "How brilliant!" he says to himself. "I had no idea I was so intelligent." But the reader may not be so im pressed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If we have largely forgotten the physical discomforts of the itching, oppressive garments of the past ... then we have mercifully ...forgotten, too, the smells of the past, the domestic odours--ill-washed flesh; infrequently changed underwear; chamber-pots; slop-pails; inadequately plumbed privies; rotting food; unattended teeth; and the streets are no fresher than indoors, the omnipresent acridity of horse piss and dung, drains, the sudden stench of old death from butchers' shops, the amniotic horror of the fishmonger.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Last season's fruit is eaten And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.... For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum... In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The well was dry beside the door, And so we went with pail and can... Across the fields behind the house To seek the brook if still it ran....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[O]ur people are steadily increasing their spending for higher standards of living ... the slogan of progress is changing from the... full dinner pail to the full garage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I stand on top of our back steps and breathe the rich air--... a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail. She jabs her wedge-head in a cup of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail, and will not scare.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Jack and Jill Went up the hill,... To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down, And broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »