Explore "Editor Whedon" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
To be able to see every side of every question;
To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long;
To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose, / To use great feelings and passions of the human family / For base designs, for cunning ends, / To wear a mask like the Greek actors --
Your eight-page paper -- behind which you huddle, / Bawling through the megaphone of big type:
"This is I, the giant."
Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief, / Poisoned with the anonymous words / Of your clandestine soul.
To scratch dirt over scandal for money, / And exhume it to the winds for revenge, / Or to sell papers, / Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be, / To win at any cost, save your own life.
To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization, / As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track / And derails the express train.
To be an editor, as I was.
Then to lie here close by the river over the place / Where the sewage flows from the village, / And the empty cans and garbage are dumped, / And abortions are hidden.