On a beautiful day in spring as I was running as hard as I could run
pursued by the New York police and a number of excited citizens, my mind,
which becomes brilliantly active under physical exhilaration, began to
work busily.
I thought about all sorts of things: I thought about hard times and
financial depression and about our great President who is in a class
all alone with himself and soon to become extinct; I thought about
art and why there isn't any when it's talked about; I thought of
macro-lepidoptera, of metagrammatism, monoliths, manicures, and monsoons.
And all the time I was running as fast as I could run; and the faster I
ran the more things I thought about until my terrific pace set my brain
whizzing like a wheel.
I felt no remorse at having published these memoirs of my life--which was
why the police and populace were pursuing me, maddened to frenzy by the
fearless revelation of mighty scientific truths in this little volume you
are about to attempt to read. _Ubicumque ars ostentatur, veritas abesse
videtur!_
I thought about it clearly, calmly, concisely as I fled. The maddened
shouts of the prejudiced populace did not disturb me. Around and around
the Metropolitan Museum of Art I ran; the inmates of that institution
came out to watch me and they knew at a glance that I was one of them for
they set up a clamor like a bunch of decoy ducks when one of their wild
comrades comes whirling by.
"Police! Police!" they shouted; but I went careering on uptown, afraid
only that the park squirrels might club together to corner me. There are
corners in grain. Why not in--but let that pass.
I took the park wall in front of the great Mr. Carnegie's cottage at a
single bound. He stood on his terrace and shouted, "Police!" He was quite
logical.
The Equal Franchise Society was having a May party in the park near the
Harlem Mere. They had chosen the Honorable William Jennings Bryan as
Queen of the May. He wore low congress-gaiters and white socks; he was
walking under a canopy, crowned with paper flowers, his hair curled over
his coat collar, the tips of his fingers were suavely joined over his
abdomen.