The Project Gutenberg eBook, Shandygaff, by Christopher Morley

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Title: Shandygaff

Author: Christopher Morley

Release Date: October 13, 2004 [eBook #13739]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHANDYGAFF***

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SHANDYGAFF

by

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

1918

A number of most agreeable Inquirendoes upon Life & Letters,
interspersed with Short Stories & Skits, the whole most Diverting to
the Reader

[Illustration: Photo by Charles H. Davis

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY, AUTHOR OF SHANDYGAFF, WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS, THUNDER
ON THE LEFT, ETC.]

TITLES AND DEDICATIONS

I wanted to call these exercises "Casual Ablutions," in memory of the
immortal sign in the washroom of the British Museum, but my arbiter of
elegance forbade it. You remember that George Gissing, homeless and
penniless on London streets, used to enjoy the lavatory of the Museum
Reading Room as a fountain and a shrine. But the flinty hearted
trustees, finding him using the wash-stand for bath-tub and laundry,
were exceeding wroth, and set up the notice

+----------------------------+
| |
| THESE BASINS ARE FOR |
| CASUAL ABLUTIONS ONLY |
| |
+----------------------------+

I would like to issue the same warning to the implacable reader: these
fugitive pieces, very casual rinsings in the great basin of letters,
must not be too bitterly resented, even by their publishers. To borrow
O. Henry's joke, they are more demitasso than Tasso.

The real purpose in writing books is to have the pleasure of dedicating
them to someone, and here I am in a quandary. So many dedications have
occurred to me, it seems only fair to give them all a chance.

I thought of dedicating the book to
CLAYTON SEDGWICK COOPER
The Laird of Westcolang

I thought of dedicating to the
TWO BEST BOOK SHOPS IN THE WORLD
Blackwell's in Oxford and
Leary's in Philadelphia

I thought of dedicating to