Summer Meditations

Yet for him who must talk about his shop, it is Meditations not an enlivening season. Not only does nobody care to listen to him; but he even lakes no pleasure in listening to himself, and thus the last refuge of the ego disappears in a mist of divots and dinghies.

Across the street is the Public Garden, green and golden, with willows whispering at the edge of the water, and lovers whispering on the benches. The Shop-Talker

turns on all sides
His shining eyes,
And sees below him
The earth and men.

But he cares nothing for the detachment of the gods, and would prefer to be across the road. The tide of spring books has passed and stands at full ebb waiting for the new flood of fall. And, as a result of this figure of speech, the Shop-Talker finds himself stranded on the carpet of his office, alone and comfortless while the fortunate idle laugh at him from the hills and the sea.