their boughten canned goods very seriously. We can't help smiling at the
life-and-death discussions of literary people about their preferences in
style and plot and treatment ... their favorite brand on the can, so to
speak.

To tell the truth, all novels seem to us badly written, they are so faint
and faded in comparison to the brilliant colors of the life which
palpitates up and down our village street, called by strangers, "so quaint
and sleepy-looking." What does the author of a novel do for you, after
all, even the best author? He presents to you people not nearly so
interesting as your next-door neighbors, makes them do things not nearly
so exciting as what happened to your grandfather, and doles out to you in
meager paragraphs snatches of that comprehending and consolatory
philosophy of life, which long ago you should have learned to manufacture
for yourself out of every incident in your daily routine. Of course, if
you don't know your next-door neighbors, and have never had time to listen
to what happened to your grandfather and are too busy catching trains to
philosophize on those subjects if you did know them, no more remains to be
said. By all means patronize the next shop you see which displays in its
show windows canned romances, adventures, tragedies, farces, and the like
line of goods. Live vicariously, if you can't at first hand; but don't be
annoyed at our pity for your method of passing blindfold through life.

And don't expect to find such a shop in our village. To open one there
would be like trying to crowd out the great trees on Hemlock Mountain by
planting a Noah's Ark garden among them. Romances, adventures, tragedies,
and farces ... why, we are the characters of those plots. Every child who
runs past the house starts a new story, every old man whom we leave
sleeping in the burying-ground by the Necronsett River is the ending of
another ... or perhaps the beginning of a sequel. Do you say that in the