"punch" is better than a true one that lacks a fire-spitting
climax. The audience which judge a play by the effect of its
"curtain," will not complain of a trifling illogicality in
narrative, or a little juggling with what might happen if the
story were life. Of what the editor wants I find a typical example
in a recent number of a popular magazine. The story is well
written; it is interesting until it begins to lie; moreover it is
"featured" as one of the best short stories of the year. An
American girl, brought up in luxury, has fed her heart with
romantic sentiment. The world is a Christmas tree. If you are good
and pretty and "nice," you have only to wait until you get big
enough to shake it, and then down will come some present--respect
from one's friends and family, perhaps a lover. And then she wakes
up. Her father points out that she is pinching him by her
extravagance. Nobody seems to want her kind of "nice-ness"; which
indeed does no one much good. There is nothing that she can do
that is useful in the world, for she has never learned. She begins
to doubt the Christmas tree. There enters a man--a young
electrical engineer, highly trained, highly ambitious, but caught
in the wheels of a great corporation where he is merely a cog;
wanting to live, wanting to love, wanting to be married, yet
condemned to labor for many years more upon a salary which perhaps
would little more than pay for her clothes. By an ingenious device
they are thrown together in a bit of wild country near town, and
are made to exchange confidences. So far, no one can complain of
the truth of this story; and furthermore it is well told. Here are
two products of our social machine, both true to type. Suppose
they want to marry? What can we do about it? The story-teller has
posed his question with a force not to be denied.