PARNASSUS ON WHEELS, by CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

Digitized by Cardinalis Press, C.E.K.
Posted to Wiretap in July 1993, as parnass.txt.

Italics are represented as _italics_.

This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

                     PARNASSUS ON WHEELS

                             BY

                     CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

                GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers
                     By arrangement with
              Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.

                       Copyright 1917

                             To
                      H.B.F. and H.F.M.
                 "Trusty, dusky, vivid,true"

                         A LETTER TO
                     David Grayson, Esq.
                   OF HEMPFIELD, U. S. A.

MY DEAR SIR,

Although my name appears on the title page, the real author of
this book is Miss Helen McGill (now Mrs. Roger Mifflin), who
told me the story with her own inimitable vivacity.  And on her
behalf I want to send to you these few words of acknowledgment.

Mrs. Mifflin, I need hardly say, is unskilled in the arts of
authorship:  this is her first book, and I doubt whether she
will ever write another.  She hardly realized, I think, how
much her story owes to your own delightful writings.  There
used to be a well-thumbed copy of "Adventures in Contentment"
on her table at the Sabine Farm, and I have seen her pick it
up, after a long day in the kitchen, read it with chuckles,
and say that the story of you and Harriet reminded her of
herself and Andrew.  She used to mutter something about
"Adventures in Discontentment" and ask why Harriet's side of
the matter was never told?  And so when her own adventure came
to pass, and she was urged to put it on paper, I think she
unconsciously adopted something of the manner and matter that
you have made properly yours.

Surely, sir, you will not disown so innocent a tribute!  At any
rate, Miss Harriet Grayson, whose excellent qualities we have
all so long admired, will find in Mrs. Mifflin a kindred spirit.

Mrs. Mifflin would have said this for herself, with her
characteristic definiteness of speech, had she not been out of
touch with her publishers and foolscap paper.  She and the
Professor are on their Parnassus, somewhere on the high roads,
happily engrossed in the most godly diversion known to
man--selling books.  And I venture to think that there are no
volumes they take more pleasure in recommending than the
wholesome and invigorating books which bear your name.

Believe me, dear Mr. Grayson, with warm regards,
                                        Faithfully yours,
                                        CHRISTOPHER MORLEY.

                         CHAPTER ONE

I wonder if there isn't a lot of bunkum in higher education?
I never found that people who were learned in logarithms and
other kinds of poetry were any quicker in washing dishes or
darning socks.  I've done a good deal of reading when I could,
and I don't want to "admit impediments" to the love of books,
but I've also seen lots of good, practical folk spoiled by too
much fine print.  Reading sonnets always gives me hiccups, too.

I never expected to be an author!  But I do think there are
some amusing things about the story of Andrew and myself and
how books broke up our placid life.  When John Gutenberg,
whose real name (so the Professor says) was John Gooseflesh,
borrowed that money to set up his printing press he launched
a lot of troubles on the world.

Andrew and I were wonderfully happy on the farm until he
became an author.  If I could have foreseen all the bother his
writings were to cause us, I would certainly have burnt the
first manuscript in the kitchen stove.

Andrew McGill, the author of those books every one reads, is
my brother.  In other words, I am his sister, ten years
younger.  Years ago Andrew was a business man, but his health
failed and, like so many people in the story books, he fled to
the country, or, as he called it, to the bosom of Nature.  He
and I were the only ones left in an unsuccessful family.  I
was slowly perishing as a conscientious governess in the
brownstone region of New York.  He rescued me from that and we
bought a farm with our combined savings.  We became real