Artsybashev is a Russian. I am an American. Let us wonder, my townspeople, if Artsybashev tends his own fires as I do, gets himself cursed for the baby's failure to thrive, loosens windows for the woman who cleans his parlor -- or has he neat servants and a quiet library, an intellectual wife perhaps and no children, -- an apartment somewhere in a back street or lives alone or with his mother or sister -- I wonder, my townspeople, if Artsybashev looks upon himself the more concernedly or succeeds any better than I in laying the world. I wonder which is the bigger fool in his own mind. These are shining topics my townspeople but -- hardly of great moment. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO MY CLASS: ON CERTAIN FRUITS AND FLOWERS SENT ... SICKNESS by SIDNEY LANIER MAN, THE MAN-HUNTER by CARL SANDBURG WESTWARD BOUND by BETSY H. ASHMORE THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS by JAMES BEATTIE ARTHUR AND ALBINA by MATILDA BARBARA BETHAM-EDWARDS |