By Wallace Irwin Author of The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum The Rub?iy?t of Omar Khayy?m, Junior Etc.
With a harmless and instructive Introduction by Wolfgang Copernicus Addleburger Professor of Literary Bi-Products University of Monte Carlo
Muse of my native land, am I inspir'd? - Keats.
Paul Elder & Company San Francisco and New York
Mark what I say! Attend me where I wheel! - Troilus and Cressida.
Copyright, 1908 by Paul Elder and Company
Introduction
Science may conquer the stars, but it does nothing by jumps. As a Scientist, as well as a philosopher, I am accustomed to reaching the Transcendental by winding paths. It is characteristic of me that I should have consented to preface this remarkable Sonnet Cycle only after supreme deliberation, and that I should at last have determined to speak in behalf of the Car Conductor for the following reasons: 1. As a Botanist I am fascinated by the phenomenon of Genius flourishing from bud to flower, from flower to seed. 2. As a Psychologist I am anxious to establish once and for all, both by plano-inductive and precoordinate systems of logic, the Status of Slang. What position does Slang occupy in the thought of the world? Let us turn to Zoology for an answer.