Once upon a time Christopher Morley was coerced, against the
objections of a well-nigh blushing modesty, to dictate some notes
which we may go so far as to call autobiographical. In part they
were:
"Born at Haverford, Pa., in 1890; father, professor of mathematics
and a poet; mother a musician, poet, and fine cook. I was
handicapped by intellectual society and good nourishment. I am and
always have been too well fed. Great literature proceeds from an
empty stomach. My proudest achievement is having been asked by a
college president to give a course of lectures on Chaucer.
"When I was graduated from Haverford in 1910, a benevolent posse of
college presidents in Maryland sent me to New College, Oxford, as a
Rhodes scholar. At Oxford I learned to drink shandygaff. When I came
home from England in 1913 I started to work for Doubleday, Page &
Company at Garden City. I learned to read Conrad, and started my
favorite hobby, which is getting letters from William McFee. By the
way, my favorite amusement is hanging around Leary's second-hand
book store in Philadelphia. My dearest dream is to own some kind of
a boat, write one good novel and about thirty plays which would each
run a year on Broadway. I have written book reviews, editorials,
dramatic notices, worked as a reporter, a librarian, in a bookstore,
and have given lectures." Mr. Morley should have added that he is
now conductor of "The Bowling Green" on the editorial page of the
New York _Evening Post_.