While doing here our earthly chores, we’re going in and out of doors;
doors have a part in all we do, until our little trip is through; and
then who knows what sort of door we’ll enter on the other shore?
If I am welcome at your shack you gladly swing the door clear back, and
say, “Come in, you blamed old skate, and stay six months, or maybe
eight!” But if I sell “The Works of Poe,” you ope the door an inch or
so, and cry, “Go chase yourself, gadzooks! We do not want your tinhorn
books!”
Oh, doors are good for many things; they’re used by peasants and by
kings; the humblest hut has three or two, and palaces have quite a few.
And I recall a bitter day, when I climbed on a dappled gray, a horse
that wasn’t brought up right; it liked to kick and buck and bite; it
threw me off, in wanton style, then sat on me for quite a while. I was
so crippled, bruised and sore, men took me home upon a door. It shows
how useful doors can be; I always carry two or three.
We’re always viewing doors, you know; they face us everywhere we go;
on doors we knock, at doors we wait, and if they’re handsome, smooth
and straight, they strike us as a work of art, they’re soothing to the
mind and heart. But if they’re warped and out of plumb, and cracked and
cheap and on the bum, we think, “The owner doesn’t heed how much his
dwelling runs to seed.”