A Wodehouse Miscellany | Page 6

thousands of short-sighted men will polish their glasses and plunge into his pages. It is
absurd to go on writing in these days for a normal-sighted public. The growing tenseness
of life, with its small print, its newspapers read by artificial light, and its flickering
motion pictures, is whittling down the section of the populace which has perfect sight to a
mere handful.

I seem to see that romance. In fact, I think I shall write it myself. "'Evadne,' murmured
Clarence, removing his pince-nez and polishing them tenderly....'" "'See,' cried Clarence,
'how clearly every leaf of yonder tree is mirrored in the still water of the lake. I can't see
myself, unfortunately, for I have left my glasses on the parlor piano, but don't worry
about me: go ahead and see!" ... "Clarence adjusted his tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles
with a careless gesture, and faced the assassins without a tremor." Hot stuff? Got the
punch? I should say so. Do you imagine that there will be a single man in this country
with the price of the book in his pocket and a pair of pince-nez on his face who will not
scream and kick like an angry child if you withhold my novel from him?
And just pause for a moment to think of the serial and dramatic rights of the story. All
editors wear glasses, so do all theatrical managers. My appeal will be irresistible. All I
shall have to do will be to see that the check is for the right figure and to supervise the
placing of the electric sign
SPECTACLES OF FATE
BY P. G. WODEHOUSE
over the doors of whichever theatre I happen to select for the production of the play.
Have you ever considered the latent possibilities for dramatic situations in short sight?
You know how your glasses cloud over when you come into a warm room out of the cold?
Well, imagine your hero in such a position. He has been waiting outside the murderer's
den preparatory to dashing in and saving the heroine. He dashes in. "Hands up, you
scoundrels," he cries. And then his glasses get all misty, and there he is, temporarily blind,
with a full-size desperado backing away and measuring the distance in order to hand him
one with a pickaxe.
Or would you prefer something less sensational, something more in the romantic line?
Very well. Hero, on his way to the Dowager Duchess's ball, slips on a banana-peel and
smashes his only pair of spectacles. He dare not fail to attend the ball, for the dear
Duchess would never forgive him; so he goes in and proposes to a girl he particularly
dislikes because she is dressed in pink, and the heroine told him that she was going to
wear pink. But the heroine's pink dress was late in coming home from the modiste's and
she had to turn up in blue. The heroine comes in just as the other girl is accepting him,
and there you have a nice, live, peppy, kick-off for your tale of passion and human
interest.
But I have said enough to show that the time has come when novelists, if they do not
wish to be left behind in the race, must adapt themselves to modern conditions. One does
not wish to threaten, but, as I say, we astigmatics are in a large minority and can, if we
get together, make our presence felt. Roused by this article to a sense of the injustice of
their treatment, the great army of glass-wearing citizens could very easily make novelists
see reason. A boycott of non-spectacled heroes would soon achieve the necessary reform.
Perhaps there will be no need to let matters go as far as that. I hope not. But, if this
warning should be neglected, if we have any more of these novels about men with keen
gray eyes or snapping black eyes or cheerful blue eyes--any sort of eyes, in fact, lacking
some muscular affliction, we shall know what to do.

PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ME
I look in my glass, dear reader, and what do I see? Nothing so frightfully hot, believe me.
The face is slablike, the ears are large and fastened on at right-angles. Above the

eyebrows comes a stagnant sea of bald forehead, stretching away into the distance with
nothing to relieve it but a few wisps of lonely hair. The nose is blobby, the eyes dull, like
those of a fish not in the best of health. A face, in short, taking it for all in all, which
should be reserved for the gaze of my nearest and dearest who, through long habit, have
got used to it and can see through to the pure white soul beneath. At any rate, a face not
to be scattered about at random