In Albert Goldbarth’s Delft, the three poles discussed by Aldous Huxley in From the Preface to Collected Essays, are clear and present in his essay.  First, I must add that I am still itching after reading this essay about fleas.  The first pole that Goldbarth shares with the reader is his personal memoir of his relationship with Cynthia.  He states, “They’ve only pestered me once in my life, and that was at Cynthia’s,……sharing its fleas with us seemed its singlemost warmhearted gesture”(255).  He is reflecting back on his romance with Cynthia and what an intricate part the fleas had to do with it.  How picking the fleas off of Cynthia led to more passionate endeavors.  For the second pole he is always referring to historical facts, which I believe to be true, although I am not always sure.  For example he states as a fact, “It’s not this piercing that causes the itch, but enzymes in the fleas saliva,…..keeps the blood from coagulating” (266).  Throughout the text he is throwing out names, places and dates, as history and proof of what he is saying to be true.  He even throows in some passages from the bible:

We first read of plague in Samuel,

Book I, Chapter V: as punishment

for stealing the Ark of the Covenant,….(268).

For the last prose he uses many mythological references to tell his story.  He declares, “Cupid, it turns out, is vexed when an ambrosia-lubricated convocation of deities turns sleepy under Morpheus’s intervening,…..with three days and nights of mad coupling resulting (261).  Cupid’s arrows turn into fleas and everyone is so itchy that they relieve their selves with love making.  Goldbarth goes back and forth with all three of these prose until the end of the essay.  This makes it a far more interesting text than if he had just stuck to the use of one or two.  Huxley explains, “Most essayists are at home  and their best in the neighborhood of one of the essay’s three poles, or at the most only in the neighborhood of two of them (88).  He explains that to be able to use all three poles in an essay is a great gift that few writers possess. Goldbarth is definitely one of those great writers.