Produced by Ted Garvin Charles Franksand the Online Distributed Proofreading TeamTHE DELICIOUS VICEPipe Dreams and Fond Adventures of an Habitual NovelReader Among SomeGreat Books and Their PeopleBy Young E Allison_Second Edition_Revised and containing new materialCHICAGO THE PRAIRIELAND PUBLISHING CO 1918 Printed originally in theLouisville CourierJournal Reprinted by courtesyFirst edition Cleveland Burrows Bros 1907Copyright 19071918IA RHAPSODY ON THE NOBLE PROFESSION OF NOVEL READINGIt must have been at about the goodbye age of forty that Thomas Moorethat choleric and pompous yet genial little Irish gentleman turned asigh into good marketable copy for Grub Street and with shrewd economygot two full pecuniary bites out of one melancholy apple of reflection  Kind friends around me fall  Like leaves in wintry weather  he sang of his own dead heart in the stilly night  Thus kindly I scatter thy leaves on the bed  Where thy mates of the garden lie scentless and deadhe sang to the dying rose In the red month of October the rose isforty years old as roses go How small the world has grown to a man offorty if he has put his eyes his ears and his brain to the uses forwhich they are adapted And as for timewhy it is no longer than akite string At about the age of forty everything that can happen to aman death excepted has happened happiness has gone to the devil or isa mere habit the blessing of poverty has been permanently secured oryou are exhausted with the cares of wealth you can see around thecorner or you do not care to see around it in a wordthat isconsidering mental existencethe bell has rung on you and you are upagainst a steady grind for the remainder of your life It is then therecomes to the habitual novel reader the inevitable day when in anguishof heart looking back over his life hewishes he hadnt then he askshimself the bitter question if there are not things he has done that hewishes he hadnt Melancholy marks him for its own He sits in his roomsome winter evening the lamp swarming shadowy seductions the grateglowing with siren invitation the cigar box within easy reach for thatmoment when the pending sacrifice between his teeth shall be burned outhis feet upon the familiar corner of the mantel at that automaticallycalculated altitude which permits the weight of the upper part of thebody to fall exactly upon the second joint from the lower end of thevertebral column as it rests in the comfortable depression created bycontinuous wear in the cushion of that particular chair to which everyhonest man who has acquired the library vice sooner or later getsattached with a love no misfortune can destroy As he sits thus havingclosed the lids of say some old favorite of his youth he willinevitably ask himself if it would not have been better for him if hehadnt And the question once asked must be answered and it will be anhonest answer too For no scoundrel was ever addicted to the deliciousvice of novelreading It is too tame for him There is no money init                                   And every habitual novelreader will answer that question he has askedhimself after a sigh A sigh that will echo from the tropic desertedisland of Juan Fernandez to that utmost icebound point of Siberia whereby chance or destiny the seven nails in the sole of a certain mysteriouspersons shoe in the month of October 1831 formed a crossthus                    while on the American promontory opposite a young and handsome womanreplied to the mans despairing gesture by silently pointing to heavenThe Wandering Jew may be gone but the theater of that appallingprologue still exists unchanged That sigh will penetrate the gloomycell of the Abbe Faria the frightful dungeons of the Inquisition thegilded halls of Vanity Fair the deep forests of Brahmin and fakir thejousting list the audience halls and the petits cabinets of kings ofFrance sound over the trackless and stormbeaten oceanwill echo inshort wherever warm blood has jumped in the veins of honest men andwherever vice has sooner or later been stretched groveling in the dustat the feet of triumphant virtueAnd so sighing to the uttermost ends of the earth the old novelreaderwill confess that he wishes he hadnt Had not read all those novelsthat troop through his memory Because if he hadntand it is theimpossibility of the alternative that chills his soul with the despairof cruel realizationif he hadnt you see he could begin at the veryfirst right then and there and read the whole blessed business throughfor the first time For the FIRST TIME mark you Is there anywhere inthis great round world a novel reader of true genius who would not dothat with the joy of a child and the thankfulness of a sageSuch a dream would be the foundation of the story of a really noble DrFaustus How contemptible is the man who having staked his life freelyupon a career whines at the close and begs for another chance justone moreand a different career It is no more than Mr Jack Hamlin afriend from Calaveras County California would call the baby actor his compeer Mr John Oakhurst would denominate a squeal Howglorious on the other hand is the man who has spent his life in hisown way and at its eventide waves his hand to the sinking sun andcries out Goodbye but if I could do so I should be glad to go overit all again with youjust as it was If honesty is rated in heavenas we have been taught to believe depend upon it the novelreaderwho sighs to eat the apple he has just devoured will have no troublehereafterWhat a great flutter was created a few years ago