Sinclair Lewis: Main Street

28. CHAPTER XXVIII (continued)

VI

"He has absolutely no sense of humor. Less than Will. But hasn't he----- What is a `sense of humor'? Isn't the thing he lacks the back-slapping jocosity that passes for humor here? Anyway---- Poor lamb, coaxing me to stay and play with him! Poor lonely lamb! If he could be free from Nat Hickses, from people who say `dandy' and `bum,' would he develop?

"I wonder if Whitman didn't use Brooklyn back-street slang, as a boy?

"No. Not Whitman. He's Keats--sensitive to silken things. `Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes as are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings.' Keats, here! A bewildered spirit fallen on Main Street. And Main Street laughs till it aches, giggles till the spirit doubts his own self and tries to give up the use of wings for the correct uses of a `gents' furnishings store.' Gopher Prairie with its celebrated eleven miles of cement walk. . . . I wonder how much of the cement is made out of the tombstones of John Keatses?"