Writers of biography are wont to keep us waiting too long for
happenings that are really worth our while. They tell us that some
one was born at such a time, as if that were really important. Why,
anybody can be born, but it requires some years to determine whether
his being born was a matter of importance either to himself or to
others. When I write my biographical sketch of William Shakespeare I
shall say that in a certain year he wrote "Hamlet," which fact
clearly justified his being born so many years earlier.

The good old lady said of her pastor: "He enters the pulpit, takes
his text, and then the dear man just goes everywhere preaching the
Gospel." That man had a special aptitude for the _in medias res_
method of procedure. Many children in school who are not versed in
Latin would be glad to have their teachers endowed with this
aptitude. They are impatient of preliminaries, both in the school
and at the dinner-table. And it is pretty difficult to discover just
where childhood leaves off in this respect.

So I am grateful to Horace for the expression. Having started right
in the midst of things, one can never get off the subject, and that
is a great comfort. Sometimes college graduates confess (or perhaps
boast) that they have forgotten their Latin. I fear to follow their
example lest my neighbor, who often drops in for a friendly chat,
might get to wondering whether I have not also forgotten much of the
English I am supposed to have acquired in college. He might regard
my English as quite as feeble when compared with Shakespeare or
Milton as my Latin when compared with Cicero or Virgil. So I take
counsel with prudence and keep silent on the subject of Latin.