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When Blithe To Argument I Come, Though Armed With Facts, And Merry, May Providence Protect Me From The Fool As Adversary, Whose Mind To Him A Kingdom Is Where Reason Lacks Dominion, Who Calls Conviction Prejudice And Prejudice Opinion.

-Phyllis McGinley

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When Blithe To Argument

Phyllis McGinley

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When Blithe To Argument I Come, Though Armed With Facts, And Merry, May Providence Protect Me From The Fool As Adversary, Whose Mind To Him A Kingdom Is Where Reason Lacks Dominion, Who Calls Conviction Prejudice And Prejudice Opinion.

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I Sing Connecticut, Her Charms / Of Rivers, Orchards, Blossoming Ridges. / I Sing Her Gardens, Fences, Farms, / Spiders And Midges.

The Knowingness Of Little Girls, Is Hidden Underneath Their Curls.

Not Reading Poetry Amounts To A National Pastime Here.

God Knows That A Mother Needs Fortitude And Courage And Tolerance And Flexibility And Patience And Firmness And Nearly Every Other Brave Aspect Of The Human Soul. But Because I Happen To Be A Parent Of Almost Fiercely Maternal Nature, I Praise Casualness. It Seems To Me The Rarest Of Virtues. It Is Useful Enough When Children Are Small. It Is Useful To The Point Of Necessity When They Are Adolescents.

Stir The Eggnog, Lift The Toddy, Happy New Year Everybody.

Sometimes I Have A Notion That What Might Improve The Situation Is To Have Women Take Over The Occupations Of Government And Trade And To Give Men Their Freedom.

Men Can't Be Trusted With Pruning Shears Any More Than They Can Be Trusted With The Grocery Money In A Delicatessen . . . They Are Like Boys With New Pocket Knives Who Will Not Stop Whittling.

Sisters Are Always Drying Their Hair. Locked Into Rooms, Alone, They Pose At The Mirror, Shoulders Bare, Trying This Way And That Their Hair, Or Fly Importunate Down The Stair To Answer The Telephone.

Oh, Princes Thrive On Caviar, The Poor On Whey And Curds, / And Politicians, I Infer, Must Eat Their Windy Words. / It's Crusts That Feed The Virtuous, It's Cake That Comforts Sinners, / But Writers Live On Bread And Praise At Literary Dinners.

What In Me Is Pure Conviction Is Simple Prejudice In You.

Who Could Deny That Privacy Is A Jewel? It Has Always Been The Mark Of Privilege, The Distinguishing Feature Of A Truly Urbane Culture. Out Of The Cave, The Tribal Teepee, The Pueblo, The Community Fortress, Man Emerged To Build Himself A House Of His Own With A Shelter In It For Himself And His Diversions. Every Age Has Seen It So. The Poor Might Have To Huddle Together In Cities For Need's Sake, And The Frontiersman Cling To His Neighbors For The Sake Of Protection. But In Each Civilization, As It Advanced, Those Who Could Afford It Chose The Luxury Of A Withdrawing-place.

Rain Is My Lover, My Apple Strudel. / It Haunts My Heels Like A Pedigreed Poodle. / Beyond The Seas Or Across The Nation, / It Follows Me Faithful On Every Vacation.

In Australia, Not Reading Poetry Is The National Pastime.

Children From Ten To Twenty Don't Want To Be Understood. Their Whole Ambition Is To Feel Strange And Alien And Misinterpreted So That They Can Live Austerely In Some Stone Tower Of Adolescence, Their Privacies Unviolated.

This Is The Gist Of What I Know: Give Advice And Buy A Foe.

The System - The American One, At Least - Is A Vast And Noble Experiment. It Has Been Polestar And Exemplar For Other Nations. But From Kindergarten Until She Graduates From College The Girl Is Treated In It Exactly Like Her Brothers. She Studies The Same Subjects, Becomes Proficient At The Same Sports. Oh, It Is A Magnificent Lore She Learns, Education For The Mind Beyond Anything Jane Austen Or Saint Theresa Or Even Mrs. Pankhurst Ever Dreamed. It Is Truly Utopian. But Utopia Was Never Meant To Exist On This Disheveled Planet.

I Have Read That During The Process Of Canonization The Catholic Church Demands Proof Of Joy In The Candidate, And Although I Have Not Been Able To Track Down Chapter And Verse I Like The Suggestion That Dourness Is Not A Sacred Attribute.

Of One Thing I Am Certain, The Body Is Not The Measure Of Healing, Peace Is The Measure.

Aunts Are Discreet, A Little Shy / By Instinct. They Forbear To Pry.

Say What You Will, Making Marriage Work Is A Woman's Business. The Institution Was Invented To Do Her Homage; It Was Contrived For Her Protection. Unless She Accepts It As Such --as A Beautiful, Bountiful, But Quite Unequal Association --the Going Will Be Hard Indeed.

The Thing To Remember About Fathers Is, They're Men. A Girl Has To Keep It In Mind: They Are Dragon Seekers, Bent On Improbable Rescues. Scratch Any Father, You Find Someone Chock - Full Of Qualms And Romantic Terrors, Believing Change Is A Threat - Like Your First Shoes With Heels On, Like Your First Bicycle I Took Such Months To Get.

History Must Always Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt. It Is, After All, Not A Science But An Art.

People Are No Longer Sinful, They Are Only Immature Or Underprivileged Or Frightened Or, More Particularly, Sick.

The Enemy, Who Wears Her Mother's Usual Face And Confidential Tone, Has Access; Doubtless Stares Into Her Writing Case And Listens On The Phone.

How Happy Is The Optimist / To Whom Life Shows Its Sunny Side / His Horse May Lose, His Ship May List, / But He Always Sees The Funny Side.

I'm A Middle-bracket Person With A Middle-bracket Spouse / And We Live Together Gaily In A Middle-bracket House. / We've A Fair-to-middlin' Family; We Take The Middle View; / So We're Manna Sent From Heaven To Internal Revenue.

The Saints Differ From Us In Their Exuberance, The Excess Of Our Human Talents. Moderation Is Not Their Secret. It Is In The Wildness Of Their Dreams, The Desperate Vitality Of Their Ambitions, That They Stand Apart From Ordinary People Of Good Will.

Of Course We Women Gossip On Occasion. But Our Appetite For It Is Not As Avid As A Man S. It Is In The Boys Gyms, The College Fraternity Houses, The Club Locker Rooms, The Paneled Offices Of Business That Gossip Reaches Its Luxuriant Flower.

Getting Along With Men Isn't What's Truly Important. The Vital Knowledge Is How To Get Along With One Man.

Of The Small Gifts Of Heaven, / It Seems To Me A More Than Equal Share / At Birth Was Given / To Girls With Curly Hair.

Praise Is Warming And Desirable. But It Is An Earned Thing. It Has To Be Deserved, Like A Hug From A Child.

Tomorrow Will Come And Today Will Pass, / But The Hearts Of The Young Are Brittle As Glass.

Cocktail Parties ... Are Usually Not Parties At All But Mass Ceremonials Designed To Clear Up At One Great Stroke A Wealth Of Obligations.

Cocktail Parties

Nothing Fails Like Success; Nothing Is So Defeated As Yesterday's Triumphant Cause.

Sons Do Not Need You. They Are Always Out Of Your Reach, Walking Strange Waters.

Oh, High Is The Price Of Parenthood, And Daughters May Cost You Double. You Dare Not Forget, As You Thought You Could, That Youth Is A Plague And A Trouble.

The Trouble With Gardening Is That Is Does Not Remain An Avocation. It Becomes An Obsession.

I Do Not Know Who First Invented The Myth Of Sexual Equality. But It Is A Myth Willfully Fostered And Nourished By Certain Semi-scientists And Other Fiction Writers. And It Has Done More, I Suspect, To Unsettle Marital Happiness Than Any Other False Doctrine Of This Myth-ridden Age.

Women Like Other Women Fine. The More Feminine She Is, The More Comfortable A Woman Feels With Her Own Sex. It Is Only The Occasional And Therefore Noticeable Adventuress Who Refuses To Make Friends With Us.

Wherever Conversation's Flowing, / Why Must I Feel It Falls On Me / To Keep Things Going?

For The Hearts Of Nurses Are Solid Gold, / But Their Heels Are Flat And Their Hands Are Cold, / And Their Voices Lilt With A Lilt That's Falser / Than The Smile Of An Exhibition Waltzer. / Yes, Nurses Can Cure You, Nurses Restore You, / But Nurses Are Bound That They Do Things For You.

Shunning The Upstart Shower, / The Cold And Cursory Scrub, / I Celebrate The Power / That Lies Within The Tub.

Behind Every Myth Lies A Truth; Beyond Every Legend Is Reality, As Radiant (sometimes As Chilling) As The Story Itself.

To Be A Housewife Is A Difficult, A Wrenching, Sometimes An Ungrateful Job If It Is Looked On Only As A Job. Regarded As A Profession, It Is The Noblest As It Is The Most Ancient Of The Catalogue. Let None Persuade Us Differently Or The World Is Lost Indeed.

The Mass Of Men Live Lives Of Quiet Exasperation.

Scratch Any Father, You Find / Someone Chock-full Of Qualms And Romantic Terrors, / Believing Change Is A Threat.

Mere Wealth, I Am Above It, / It Is The Reputation Wide, / The Playwright's Pomp, The Poet's Pride / That Eagerly I Covet.

It's Hard / Keeping Up With The Avant-garde.

Women Are Not Men's Equals In Anything Except Responsibility. We Are Not Their Inferiors, Either, Or Even Their Superiors. We Are Quite Simply Different Races.

If Childhood Is Still A State, It Is Now Chiefly A State Of Confusion.

Relations Are Errors That Nature Makes. / Your Spouse You Can Put On The Shelf. / But Your Friends, Dear Friends, Are The Quaint Mistakes / You Always Commit Yourself.

Women Are The Fulfilled Sex. Through Our Children We Are Able To Produce Our Own Immortality, So We Lack That Divine Restlessness Which Sends Men Charging Off In Pursuit Of Fortune Or Fame Or An Imagined Utopia. That Is Why We Number So Few Geniuses Among Us. The Wholesome Oyster Wears No Pearl, The Healthy Whale No Ambergris, And As Long As We Can Keep On Adding To The Race, We Harbor A Sort Of Health Within Ourselves.

God Know That A Mother Need Fortitude And Courage And Tolerance And Flexibility And Patience And Firmness And Nearly Every Other Brave Aspect Of The Human Soul.

When Blithe To Argument I Come, Though Armed With Facts, And Merry, May Providence Protect Me From The Fool As Adversary, Whose Mind To Him A Kingdom Is Where Reason Lacks Dominion, Who Calls Conviction Prejudice And Prejudice Opinion.

Gossip Isn't Scandal And It's Not Merely Malicious. It's Chatter About The Human Race By Lovers Of The Same. Gossip Is The Tool Of The Poet, The Shop-talk Of The Scientist, And The Consolation Of The Housewife, Wit, Tycoon And Intellectual. It Begins In The Nursery And Ends When Speech Is Past.

Marriage Was All A Woman's Idea And For Man's Acceptance Of The Pretty Yoke, It Becomes Us To Be Grateful.

A Bit Of Trash Now And Then Is Good For The Severest Reader. It Provides The Necessary Roughage In The Literary Diet.

A Lover Would Find Life Less Broken Apart After A Misguided Love Affair If They Could Feel That They Had Been Sinful Rather Than Foolish.

The Ability To Forget A Sorrow Is Childhood's Most Enchanting Feature.

For Little Boys Are Rancorous When Robbed Of Any Myth, And Spiteful And Cantankerous To All Their Kin And Kith. But Little Girls Can Draw Conclusions And Profit From Their Lost Illusions.

A Bookworm In Bed With A New Novel And A Good Reading Lamp Is As Much Prepared For Pleasure As A Pretty Girl At A College Dance.

The East Is The Hearthside Of America. Like Any Home, Therefore, It Has The Defects Of Its Virtues. Because It Is A Long-lived-inhouse, It Bursts Its Seams, Is Inconvenient, Needs Constant Refurbishing. And Some Of The Family Resources Have Been Spent. To Attain The Privacy That Grown-up People Find So Desirable, Easterners Live A Harder Life Than People Elsewhere. Today It Is We And Not The Frontiersman Who Must Be Rugged To Survive.

Suffering Is As Necessary To Entertaining As Vermouth Is To A Martini - A Small But Vital Ingredient.

Words Can Sting Like Anything, But Silence Breaks The Heart.

Troubled Relationship

Ah! Some Love Paris, / And Some Purdue. / But Love Is An Archer With A Low I.q. / A Bold, Bad Bowman, And Innocent Of Pity. / So I'm In Love With / New York City.

In A Successful Marriage, There Is No Such Thing As One's Way. There Is Only The Way Of Both, Only The Bumpy, Dusty, Difficult, But Always Mutual Path.

Children Are Forced To Live Very Rapidly In Order To Live At All. They Are Given Only A Few Years In Which To Learn Hundreds Of Thousands Of Things About Life And The Planet And Themselves.

Ah, Snug Lie Those That Slumber Beneath Conviction's Roof. Their Floors Are Sturdy Lumber, Their Windows Weatherproof. But I Sleep Cold Forever And Cold Sleep All My Kind, For I Was Born To Shiver In The Draft From An Open Mind.

It's This No-nonsense Side Of Women That Is Pleasant To Deal With. They Are The Real Sportsmen.

I Am He / Who Champions Total Liberty - / Intolerance Being, Ma'am, A State / No Tolerant Man Can Tolerate.

One Applauds The Industry Of Professional Philanthropy. But It Has Its Dangers. After A While The Private Heart Begins To Harden. We Fling Letters Into The Wastebasket, Are Abrupt To Telephoned Solicitations. Charity Withers In The Incessant Gale.

Compromise, If Not The Spice Of Life, Is Its Solidity. It Is What Makes Nations Great And Marriages Happy

Happiness Puts On As Many Shapes As Discontent, And There Is Nothing Odder Than The Satisfaction Of One's Neighbor.

The Wonderful Thing About Saints Is That They Were Human. They Lost Their Tempers, Got Hungry, Scolded God, Were Egotistical Or Impatient In Their Turns, Made Mistakes And Regretted Them. Still They Went On Doggedly Blundering Toward Heaven.

It Is The Leisured, I Have Noticed, Who Rebel The Most At An Interruption Of Routine.

A Hobby A Day Keeps The Doldrums Away.

Time Is The Thief You Cannot Banish.

O, Merry Is The Optimist, With The Troops Of Courage Leaguing. But A Dour Trend In Any Friend Is Somehow Less Fatiguing.

Say What You Will, Making A Marriage Work Is A Woman's Business.

Frigidity Is Largely Nonsense. It Is This Generation's Catchword, One Only Vaguely Understood And Constantly Misused. Frigid Women Are Few. There Is A Host Of Diffident And Slow-ripening Ones.

This Generation

Meanness Inherits A Set Of Silverware And Keeps It In The Bank. Economy Uses It Only On Important Occasions, For Fear Of Loss. Thrift Sets The Table With It Every Night For Pure Pleasure, But Counts The Butter Spreaders Before They Are Put Away.

Sin Has Always Been An Ugly Word, But It Has Been Made So In A New Sense Over The Last Half-century. It Has Been Made Not Only Ugly But Pass?. People Are No Longer Sinful, They Are Only Immature Or Underprivileged Or Frightened Or, More Particularly, Sick.

Borrow My Umbrellas, My Clothes, My Money, And I Will Likely Not Think Of Them Again. But Borrow My Books And I Will Be On Your Track Like A Bloodhound Until They Are Returned.

Pressed For Rules And Verities, All I Recolelct Are These: Feed A Cold And Starve A Fever. Argue With No True Believer. Think-too-long Is Never-act. Scratch A Myth And Find A Fact.

Please To Put A Nickel, Please To Put A Dime. How Petitions Trickle In At Christmas Time!

The East Is A Montage. It Is Old And It Is Young, Very Green In Summer, Very White In Winter, Gregarious, Withdrawn And At Once Both Sophisticated And Provincial.

There Is Satisfaction In Seeing One's Household Prosper; In Being Both Bountiful And Provident.

Seventy Is Wormwood, Seventy Is Gall But Its Better To Be Seventy, Than Not Alive At All.

Let Others, Worn With Living / And Living's Aftermath, / Take Sleep To Heal The Heart's Distress, / Take Love To Be Their Comfortress, / Take Song Or Food Or Fancy Dress, / But I Shall Take A Bath.

A Lady Is Smarter Than A Gentleman, Maybe, She Can Sew A Fine Seam, She Can Have A Baby, She Can Use Her Intuition Instead Of Her Brain, But She Can't Fold A Paper In A Crowded Train.

Love Or Perish" We Are Told And We Tell Ourselves. The Phrase Is True Enough So Long As We Do Not Interpret It As "mingle Or Be A Failure.

Meek-eyed Parents Hasten Down The Ramps To Greet Their Offspring, Terrible From Camps.

Kindness Is A Virtue Neither Modern Nor Urban. One Almost Unlearns It In A City. Towns Have Their Own Beatitude; They Are Not Unfriendly; They Offer A Vast And Solacing Anonymity Or An Equally Vast And Solacing Gregariousness. But One Needs A Neighbor On Whom To Practice Compassion.

Marriage Is A Lot Of Things-an Alliance, A Sacrament, A Comedy, Or A Mistake; But It Is Definitely Not A Partnership Because That Implies Equal Gain. And Every Right-thinking Woman Knows The Profit In Matrimony Is By All Odds Hers.

Ladies With Curly Hair / Have Time To Spare.

Gardening Has Compensations Out Of All Proportion To Its Goals. It Is Creation In The Pure Sense.

Gossip Isn't Scandal And It's Not Merely Malicious. It's Chatter About The Human Race By Lovers Of The Same.

The Successful Truck Gardener Can Never Go Out To Dinner In The Summer Or Spend A Week End Away, Because His Conscience Tells Him He Has To Be At Home Eating Up His Corn Or Packaging His Beans For The Freezer.

A Mother's Hardest To Forgive. Life Is The Fruit She Longs To Hand You Ripe On A Plate. And While You Live, Relentlessly She Understands You.

Those Wearing Tolerance For A Label Call Other Views Intolerable.

There Are Books That One Needs Maturity To Enjoy Just As There Are Books An Adult Can Come On Too Late To Savor.

The Human Animal Needs A Freedom Seldom Mentioned, Freedom From Intrusion. He Needs A Little Privacy As Much As He Wants Understanding Or Vitamins Or Exercise Or Praise.

These Are My Daughters, I Suppose. But Where In The World Did The Children Vanish?

In Spring When Maple Buds Are Red, We Turn The Clock An Hour Ahead; Which Means, Each April That Arrives, We Lose An Hour Out Of Our Lives. Who Cares? When Autumn Birds In Flocks Fly Southward, Back We Turn The Clocks, And So Regain A Lovely Thing That Missing Hour We Lost In Spring.

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