Branch Cabell
The Nightmare Had Triplets
The Nightmare Had Triplets
A trilogy
by
(James) Branch Cabell
consisting of the novels
SMIRT—SMITH—SMIRE
Compiled as one volume
for the enjoyment
of the reader.
Table of Contents
SMIRT
An Urbane Nightmare
BY BRANCH CABELL
“
He accepts that middle world in which men take no side in great conflicts, and decide no great causes, and make great refusals. He thus sets for himself the limits within which art, undisturbed by any moral ambition, does its most sincere and surest work.
”
NEW YORK: MCMXXXIV
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
SMIRT
COPYRIGHT, 1934
BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FIRST PUBLISHED, MARCH, 1934
FOURTH EDITION, MARCH, 1934
For
GEORGE JEAN NATHAN
Granting dullness might esteem
Egoistic any dream
Of an author’s loves and laurels,
Rightly I recite its morals …
Gifted, Smirt forever finds
Everywhere inferior minds;
Jesting, Smirt provokes insanely
Each and all reared less urbanely;
And, derided, Smirt derides.
None the less, Smirt too decides
Neither wit nor erudition
Amply bolsters Smirt’s position …
Thereupon, with heart unhurt,
He perceives that Smirt stays Smirt,
And attests this by imploring
Naught of dullness save ignoring.
AUTHOR’S NOTE