Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/185



We live in an age of fascinating literary movements. First the poets organized a movement, which became so comprehensive that there was no public left to view the procession, and the only distinction attainable in connection with it was not to participate. Then the new truth-telling novelists started a parade along Main Street, clad in their dismalest togs and attended by bands of mismated, rebellious wives, and joyless, unmated females of New England. (It is generally understood that every female residing in New England is a spinster.) And now a third movement, of the essayists, is forming and sweeping down upon us, a somewhat rollicking movement, preluded by the victorious blast of Professor Stephen Leacock's trumpet: "The appearance of Benchley's first book is an event in the history of literature not equaled since Milton produced his 'Paradise Lost.