from "Tender Buttons: Objects"
By Gertrude Stein
1914

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A PLATE.

An occasion for a plate, an occasional resource is in buying
and how soon does washing enable a selection of the same
thing neater. If the party is small a clever song is in order.

Plates and a dinner set of colored china. Pack together a
string and enough with it to protect the centre, cause a con-
siderable haste and gather more as it is cooling, collect more
trembling and not any even trembling, cause a whole thing
to be a church.

A sad size a size that is not sad is blue as every bit of blue
is precocious. A kind of green a game in green and nothing
flat nothing quite flat and more round, nothing a particular
color strangely, nothing breaking the losing of no little piece.

A splendid address a really splendid address is not shown
by giving a flower freely, it is not shown by a mark or by
wetting.

Cut cut in white, cut in white so lately. Cut more than any
other and show it. Show it in the stem and in starting and in
evening coming complication.

A lamp is not the only sign of glass. The lamp and the
cake are not the only sign of stone. The lamp and the cake
and the cover are not the only necessity altogether.

A plan a hearty plan, a compressed disease and no coffee,
not even a card or a change to incline each way, a plan that
has that excess and that break is the one that shows filling.

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