The publisher assures me that no one but a book reviewer ever reads prefaces, so I seize upon the opportunity to have a tÊte-À-tÊte with my critics. Gentlemen, my cards are face up on the table. I have declared to the publisher that nearly every American who knows how to read longs to find his way into print, and should appreciate some of the dearly bought hints herein contained upon practical journalism. And, as I kept my face straight when I said it, he may have taken me seriously. Perhaps he thinks he has a best seller. But this is just between ourselves. As he never reads prefaces, he won't suspect unless you tell him. My own view of the matter is that Harold Bell Wright need not fear me, but that the editors of the Baseball Rule Book may be forced to double their annual appropriation for advertising in the literary sections. As the sport of free lance scribbling has a great deal in common with fishing, the author of this little book may be forgiven for suggesting that in intention it is something like Izaak Walton's "The worst of it is that people often are so modest; they think that their own experience is so dull, so unromantic, so uninteresting. It is an entire mistake. If the dullest person in the world would only put down sincerely what he or she thought about his or her life, about work, love, religion and emotion, it would be a fascinating document." But, you may protest, by what right do the experiences of a magazine free lance pass as "adventures"? Then, again, I shall have to introduce expert testimony: "The literary life," says no less an authority than H. G. Wells, "is one of the modern forms of adventure." And this holds as true for the least of scribblers as it does for great |