Mince Pie

Publisher Marketing: Those who buy their ink in little stone jugs may prefer to do so because the pottle reminds them of cruiskeen lawn or ginger beer (with its wire-bound cork), but they miss a noble delight. Ink should be bought in the tall, blue glass, quart bottle (with the ingenious non-drip spout), and once every three weeks or so, when you fill your ink-well, it is your privilege to elevate the flask against the brightness of a window, and meditate (with a breath of sadness) on the joys and problems that sacred fluid holds in solution. How blue it shines toward the light! Blue as lupin or larkspur, or cornflower-aye, and even so blue art thou, my scriven, to think how far the written page falls short of the bright ecstasy of thy dream! In the bottle, what magnificence of unpenned stuff lies cool and liquid: what fluency of essay, what fonts of song. As the bottle glints, blue as a squill or a hyacinth, blue as the meadows of Elysium or the eyes of girls loved by young poets, meseems the racing pen might almost gain upon the thoughts that are turning the bend in the road. A jolly throng, those thoughts: I can see them talking and laughing together. But when pen reaches the road's turning, the thoughts are gone far ahead: their delicate figures are silhouettes against the sky. Contributor Bio:  Morley, Christopher Christopher Darlington Morley (1890 1957), American novelist, journalist, poet, and essayist, is the author of more than one hundred novels, books of essays, and volumes of poetry. He was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and after returning to America, he was an editor for "Ladies Home Journal" and wrote for the "New York Evening Post" and other newspapers. He was one of the founders of the "Saturday Review of Literature", and as a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, he helped to found the the Baker Street Irregulars, a group dedicated to the study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle s Sherlock Holmes works. He was also one of the first judges for the Book-of-the-Month Club. He is probably best known for his novel "Kitty Foyle", which was an instant bestseller and the basis for an Academy Award-winning movie in 1940, a radio serial, and a television series.