It was not altogether the lack of action; it
was more the lack of plain common sense in the literary spoon
victuals which they ladled into us at school that caused our
youthful souls to revolt. In the final analysis it was this more
than any other cause which sent us up to the haymow for delicious,
forbidden hours in the company of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill
Hickok.
Midway of the old dog-eared reader which I picked up that day I
came across a typical example of the sort of stuff I mean. I
hadn't seen it before in twenty-five years; but now, seeing it,
I remembered it as clearly almost as though it had been the week
before instead of a quarter of a century before when for the first
time it had been brought to my attention. It was a piece entitled,
The Shipwreck, and it began as follows:
In the winter of 1824 Lieutenant G-----, of the United States
Navy, with his beautiful wife and child, embarked in a packet
at Norfolk bound to South Carolina.
So far so good. At least, here is a direct beginning. A family
group is going somewhere. There is an implied promise that before
they have traveled very far something of interest to the reader
will happen to them. Sure enough, the packet runs into a storm
and founders.
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