Your editor has asked me to write a column. Now just suppose he asked you to do that--how would you feel? Well, I feel the same way. It was a shock. But the flattery of the thing is irresistible.What kind of a column? Ah! He did not lay down one blooming specification. Just seven or eight hundred words (I don't know yet just how much it takes) of what-ever pops into my head. And that is fortunate for me, for I am a human critter, and subject to moods. So if by any chance you read this stuff at all, you should be prepared to gossip, admire the beautiful, growl at everything in general, be preached to, analyze human motives, be hilarious, view with alarm, and point with pride. In a word: back-yard philosophy.
Now I realize that this column may very well be a dud, and your editor may very well regret the impulse that prompted him to suggest such a thing. In justice to him, I therefore lay down the law. If I give too much offense to his readers--for I am very likely to get somebody's fur up before I am through--or, which is far worse, if I fail to interest enough to justify the continued use of valuable space in his excellent paper--this sentence is terrible; so I'll start over. If the afore-mentioned happens, he is commanded to stop the column without fear of personal offense.
For reasons of my own, the author will have to conceal identity. Have you ever noticed the most worthy writings of :Anon"? So posterity is cheated out of another famous name. But don't expect poetry.
Now for a discussion of the title, and we may consider the column properly introduced. To save you the trouble of looking it up--a hunch is an intuitive impression. A few years ago you could not find it in the dictionary, but my "Webster" doesn't even brand it colloquial. At any rate I do not pretend to present a polished rhetorical style, nor profound logic. Since I write primarily for my own pleasure--maybe someday I'll give you a theme of self-expression. I choose to make this job an easy one. As soon as it becomes a burden I shall drop it like a hot coal. If you have ever attempted to collect material and assemble it for the purpose of coming to certain logical conclusions, you know such a task is hard work. Such is not my purpose. I intend to catch thoughts on the wing, and whether or not they prove or disprove anything does not matter. Although my main concern is selfish, I am not insensible to your reactions, for after all, the written word is meaningless without a reader. But the most I can hope to do for you is to stimulate. I am a seeker of wisdom; not a Solomon. My Style will be conversational, and conversations are rarely anything but transient interests. Psychologists tell us we have two separate mental functions--conscious and subconscious. It takes conscious effort to compose a finished literary thesis; experience, facts and history must be corelated, and from these certain conclusions are deduced--that is the conscious mind working. But a hunch springs from the sub-conscious mind. And this particular kink in our cranium or medulla oblongata, or what have you, is the store room for all our past impressions, including those of our ancestors. and it is the hardest working part of our anatomy, in spite of the fact that is doesn't have a single blessed original thought. Now that I have classified my hunch for a title, I am not sure I am very proud of it. The truth hurts. But maybe you get my drift anyway, and we shall let it go at that.
This is a sort of an experimental attempt. Have I written enough or too much to call it a column? I could count the words, but what's the use if the linotype gentleman will do it for me.
