So don’t shake your carrot-sceptre and feel supercilious. Here’s a gift for you, Missis. You can look in its mouth, too. Mind it doesn’t bite you. — No, you needn’t bother to put your carrot behind your back, nobody wants to snatch it.

How do you do, Columbia! Look, I brought you a posy: this nice little posy of words and wisdom which I made for you in the woods of Ebersteinburg, on the borders of the Black Forest, near Baden Baden, in Germany, in this summer of scanty grace but nice weather. I made it specially for you — Whitman, for whom I have an immense regard, says “These States.” I suppose I ought to say: “Those States.” If the publisher would let me, I’d dedicate this book to you, to “Those States.” Because I wrote this book entirely for