On the other hand, we feel certain that Harold Bell Wright composes on a typewriter, pausing only once every twenty-four hours to oil the machine with a little treacle.
Robert W. Chambers uses an adding machine and Theodore Dreiser favors an ax.
"Man is a machine," writes Dr. David Orr Edson in Getting What We Want, "with the directions for use written on his physiognomy—which society in general neglects to read. Through this omission much of the unrest in the world has developed, and psychologists have been forced to recognize and attempt to cope with the protests of the psychophysical against unendurable conditions of life."
To us these seem true words. It isn't only that society neglects to read, but also that it reads awry. Again and again our legible physiognomy has been taken to mean, "Shake well before using," when anybody with half an eye ought to know that it says, "Lay on its side in a cool, dry place."
We were discussing the education of H. 3rd the other day, and when we were asked where he was to go, of course we said, "The Rand School."
"No," said the friend who put the question, "I don't believe it. By the time H. is ready to go to school you'll be saying that the Rand School is a reactionary institution and full of snobs."