drugstore again. Cocktails, at first repellent, have at last become
palatable to me. I drink highballs for breakfast. I am saved.




IN DEFENSE OF ASTIGMATISM


This is peculiarly an age where novelists pride themselves on the
breadth of their outlook and the courage with which they refuse to
ignore the realities of life; and never before have authors had such
scope in the matter of the selection of heroes. In the days of the
old-fashioned novel, when the hero was automatically Lord Blank or Sir
Ralph Asterisk, there were, of course, certain rules that had to be
observed, but today--why, you can hardly hear yourself think for the
uproar of earnest young novelists proclaiming how free and unfettered
they are. And yet, no writer has had the pluck to make his hero wear
glasses.

In the old days, as I say, this was all very well. The hero was a
young lordling, sprung from a line of ancestors who had never done
anything with their eyes except wear a piercing glance before which
lesser men quailed. But now novelists go into every class of society
for their heroes, and surely, at least an occasional one of them must
have been astigmatic. Kipps undoubtedly wore glasses; so did Bunker
Bean; so did Mr. Polly, Clayhanger, Bibbs, Sheridan, and a score of
others. Then why not say so?

Novelists are moving with the times in every other direction. Why not