In the novels he is one of his selves, in the
sketches he is many of them. Perhaps this is why he officially spoke
slightingly of them at times, why he walked in some days, flung down a
manuscript, and said: "Here's a rotten story." Yet it must be that he
found pleasure in playing the whole scale, in hopping from the G-string to
the E-, in surprising his public each day with a new whim or a recently
discovered broken image. I suspect, anyhow, that he delighted in making
his editor stare and fumble in the Dictionary of Taboos.
Ben will deny most of this. He denies everything. It doesn't matter. It
doesn't even matter much, Ben, that your typing was sometimes so blind or
that your spelling was occasionally atrocious, or that it took three
proof-readers and a Library of Universal Knowledge to check up your
historical allusions.
* * * * *
The preface is proving horribly inadequate. It is not at all what Ben
wants. It does not seem possible to support his theory that "One Thousand
and One Afternoons," springing from a literary passion so authentic and
continuing so long with a fervor and variety unmatched in newspaper
writing, are hack-work, done for a meal ticket.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25