It is last period on a long, sleepy, particularly humdrum day at
school. Shirley sits trying to concentrate on a history text-book, but
her mind will wander, despite her really noble efforts to distinguish
the Valerian Laws from the Licinian Laws.
"What an idiotic law to have to make!" she mutters resentfully. "But
I'm sure I shouldn't be so dumb in History if I had an interesting
text-book. It seems as though someone could write it, even if we
aren't all Van Loons and H. G. Wellses. I bet I could myself--at least
I'd make it a fascinating book if not a strictly exact one ('Yes you
would,' says her Subconscious, but she pays no attention)! When I
think of the generations of defenseless students to be subjected to
these text-books, my heart aches for them!... The Valerian Law
was...."
The scene changes from this lethargic one to a fireside on a winter
evening. She drops the book in her lap, the yells of the savages are
fainter. She shakes the salt spray from her chair and tries to adjust
herself once more to the prosaic of a land-lubber.
"To write a book like that is my only desire on earth," she murmurs,
as she reaches for a volume of Jane Austen.
Now, completely involved in the career of _Emma_, she says, "Oh, for
that gift of the gods Jane Austen had! Her speech--a rippling stream
of perfect and delicious English, the King's English indeed! Each
phrase is as delicately constructed as a watch, and all her watches
tick together as one."
Thus the incorrigible child goes on, unaware how many fascinating
books she has longed to have written. From _Nicholas Nickleby_ to
_Thunder on the Left_, from _Walter H. Page_ to the _Constant Nymph_,
and from _Chaucer_ to _Edna St. Vincent Millay_! A veritable
gourmande, she is.
But forgive her. Who has not felt that he might improve a text-book?
Who has not longed, in reading a glorious book, for similar
brilliance? What lover of books is unmoved to an occasional effort at
emulation, even if he afterwards destroy it? You who do these things,
sympathize with Shirley, who, by her own hand we do confess, is
bitterly disillusioned every time she tries to write a theme.