"I always notice that you say 'one' so often—'one does this or that,' and so forth."
"Really, dear? That is curious. Now I always notice that you say 'I' so continually!"
The cut and thrust came with the rapidity of expert fencers.
And this brings me to the real gist of my story.
It is considered the most heinous offence "to say I," and every conceivable device is resorted to, no matter how clumsy, in order to prevent the catastrophe of a writer being forced to speak of himself in the first person.
To my mind, there is a good deal of affectation and pose about this, and in anything of an autobiography it becomes insupportable.
"The writer happened upon one occasion to be present, etc." "He who pens these unworthy pages was once travelling to Scotland, etc. etc."
Which of us has not groaned under these self-conscious euphemisms? "Why not say 'I' and have done with it?" we are wont to exclaim in desperation after pages of this kind of thing.
Now I propose "to say I" and "have done with it," and not waste time in trying to find ingenious and wearisome equivalents.
That is my first point.