CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
Reading edition
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.