Grant that my virtues may atone
For some small vices of mine own.

And it is thoroughly characteristic of Don Marquis that he follows his
prayer with this comment:

People, when they pray, usually pray not for what they really
want--and intend to have if they can get it--but for what they think
the Creator wants them to want. We made a certain attempt to be
sincere in the above verses; but even at that no doubt a lot of
affectation crept in.




THE ART OF WALKING

Away with the stupid adage about a man being as old as his arteries!
He is as old as his calves--his garteries....

--_Meditations of Andrew McGill_.

"There was fine walking on the hills in the direction of the sea."

This heart-stirring statement, which I find in an account of the life of
William and Dorothy Wordsworth when they inhabited a quiet cottage near
Crewkerne in Dorset, reminds me how often the word "walking" occurs in
any description of Wordsworth's existence. De Quincey assures us that
the poet's props were very ill shapen--"they were pointedly condemned by
all female connoisseurs in legs"--but none the less he was _princeps