Letters To Cynthia

I. IN PRAISE OF BOOBS

    Dear Sir--What is a Boob? Will you please discuss the subject a
    little? Perhaps I'm a boob for asking--but I'd like to know.



    CYNTHIA.

BE FRIENDLY WITH BOOBS

The Boob, my dear Cynthia, is Nature's device for mitigating the
quaintly blended infelicities of existence. Never be too bitter about
the Boob. The Boob is you and me and the man in the elevator.

THE BOOB IS HUMANITY'S HOPE

As long as the Boob ratio remains high, humanity is safe. The Boob is
the last repository of the stalwart virtues. The Boob is faith, hope and
charity. The Boob is the hope of conservatives, the terror of radicals
and the meal check of cynics. If you are run over on Market Street and
left groaning under the mailed fist of a flivver, the Bolsheviki and
I.W.W. will be watching the shop windows. It will be the Boob who will
come to your aid, even before the cop gets there.

1653 BOOBS

If you were to dig a deep and terrible pit in the middle of Chestnut
Street, and illuminate it with signs and red lights and placards
reading, _DO NOT WALK INTO THIS PIT_, 1653 Boobs would tumble into it
during the course of the day. Boobs have faith. They are eager to plunge
in where an angel wouldn't even show his periscope.

THE BOOB RATIO

But that does not prove anything creditable to human nature. For though
1653 people would fall into our pit (which any Rapid Transit Company
will dig for us free of charge) 26,448 would cautiously and
suspiciously and contemptuously avoid it. The Boob ratio is just about 1
to 16.

HE LOOKS FOR ANGELS

It does not pay to make fun of the Boob. There is no malice in him, no
insolence, no passion to thrive at the expense of his fellows. If he
sees some one on a street corner gazing open-mouthed at the sky, he will
do likewise, and stand there for half hour with his apple of Adam
expectantly vibrating. But is that a shameful trait? May not a Boob
expect to see angels in the shimmering blue of heaven? Is he more
disreputable than the knave who frisks his watch meanwhile? And suppose
he does see an angel, or even only a blue acre of sky--is that not worth
as much as the dial in his poke?

HE SEES THEM

It is the Boob who is always willing to look hopefully for angels who
will see them ultimately. And the man who is only looking for the Boob's
timepiece will do time of his own by and by.

HE BEARS NO MALICE

The Boob is convinced that the world is conducted on genteel and
friendly principles. He feels in his heart that even the law of gravity
will do him no harm. That is why he steps unabashed into our pit on
Chestnut Street; and finding himself sprawling in the bottom of it, he
bears no ill will to Sir Isaac Newton. He simply knows that the law of
gravity took him for some one else--a street-cleaning contractor,
perhaps.

A DEFINITION

A small boy once defined a Boob as one who always treats other people
better than he does himself.

HE IS UNSUSPICIOUS

The Boob is hopeful, cheery, more concerned over other people's troubles
than his own. He goes serenely unsuspicious of the brick under the silk
hat, even when the silk hat is on the head of a Mayor or City
Councilman. He will pull every trigger he meets, regardless that the
whole world is loaded and aimed at him. He will keep on running for the
5:42 train, even though the timetable was changed the day before
yesterday. He goes through the revolving doors the wrong way. He forgets
that the banks close at noon on Saturdays. He asks for oysters on the
first of June. He will wait for hours at the Chestnut Street door, even
though his wife told him to meet her at the ribbon counter.

HIS WIFE

Yes, he has a wife. But if he was not a Boob before marriage he will
never become so after. Women are the natural antidotes of Boobs.

RECEPTIVE

The Boob is not quarrelsome. He is willing to believe that you know more
about it than he does. He is always at home for ideas.

HE IS HAPPY

Of course, what bothers other people is that the Boob is so happy. He
enjoys himself. He falls into that Rapid Transit pit of ours and has
more fun out of the tumble than the sneering 26,448 who stand above
untumbled. The happy simp prefers a 4 per cent that pays to a 15 per
cent investment that returns only engraved prospectuses. He stands on
that street corner looking for an imaginary angel parachuting down, and
enjoys himself more than the Mephistopheles who is laughing up his
sleeve.

NATURE'S DARLING

Nature must love the Boob, because she is a good deal of a Boob herself.
How she has squandered herself upon mountain peaks that are useless
except for the Alpenstock Trust; upon violets that can't be eaten; upon
giraffes whose backs slope too steeply to carry a pack! Can it be that
the Boob is Nature's darling, that she intends him to outlive all the
rest?

A BRIEF MAXIM

Be sure you're a Boob, and then go ahead.

IN CONCLUSION

But never, dear Cynthia, confuse the Boob with the Poor Fish. The Poor
Fish, as an Emersonian thinker has observed, is the Boob gone wrong. The
Poor Fish is the cynical, sneering simpleton who, if he did see an
angel, would think it was only some one dressed up for the movies. The
Poor Fish is Why Boobs Leave Home.

II. SIMPLIFICATION

    Dear Sir--How can life be simplified? In the office where I work
    the pressure of affairs is very exacting. Often I do not have a
    moment to think over my own affairs before 4 p.m. There are a great
    many matters that puzzle me, and I am afraid that if I go on working
    so hard the sweetest hours of my youth may pass before I have given
    them proper consideration. It is very irassible. Can you help me?
    CYNTHIA.

Cynthia, my child: How are you? It is very delightful to hear from you
again. During the recent months I have been very lonely indeed without
your comradeship and counsel with regard to the great matters which were
under consideration.

THINKING IT OVER

Well, Cynthia, when your inquiry reached me I propped my feet on the
desk, got out the corncob pipe and thought things over. How to simplify
life? How, indeed! It is a subject that interests me strangely. Of
course, the easiest method is to let one's ancestors do it for one. If
you have been lucky enough to choose a simple-minded, quiet-natured
quartet of grandparents, frugal, thrifty and foresighted, who had the
good sense to buy property in an improving neighborhood and keep their
money compounding at a fair rate of interest, the problem is greatly
clarified. If they have hung on to the old farmstead, with its
huckleberry pasture and cowbells tankling homeward at sunset and a
bright brown brook cascading down over ledges of rock into a swimming
hole, then again your problem has possible solutions. Just go out to the
farm, with a copy of Matthew Arnold's "Scholar Gipsy" (you remember the
poem, in which he praises the guy who had sense enough to leave town and
live in the suburbs where the Bolsheviki wouldn't bother him), and don't
leave any forwarding address with the postoffice. But if, as I fear from
an examination of your pink-scalloped notepaper with its exhalation of
lilac essence, the vortex of modern jazz life has swept you in, the
crisis is far more intricate.

TAKE THE MATTER IN YOUR OWN HANDS

Of course, my dear Cynthia, it is better to simplify your own life than
to have some one else do it for you. The Kaiser, for instance, has had
his career greatly simplified, but hardly in a way he himself would have
chosen. The first thing to do is to come to a clear understanding of
(and to let your employer know you understand) the two principles that
underlie modern business. There are only two kinds of affairs that are
attended to in an office. First, things that absolutely must be done.
These are often numerous; but remember, that since they _have_ to be
done, if you don't do them some one else will. Second, things that don't
have to be done. And since they don't have to be done, why do them? This
will simplify matters a great deal.

FURTHER SUGGESTIONS

The next thing to do is to stop answering letters. Even the firm's most
persistent customers will cease troubling you by and bye if you persist.
Then, stop answering the telephone. A pair of office shears can sever a
telephone wire much faster than any mechanician can keep it repaired. If
the matter is really urgent, let the other people telegraph. While you
are perfecting this scheme look about, in a dignified way, for another
job. Don't take the first thing that offers itself, but wait until
something really congenial appears. It is a good thing to choose some
occupation that will keep you a great deal in the open air, preferably
something that involves looking at shop windows and frequent visits to
the receiving teller at the bank. It is nice to have a job in a tall
building overlooking the sea, with office hours from 3 to 5 p.m.

HOW EASY, AFTER ALL!

Many people, dear Cynthia, are harassed because they do not realize how
easy it is to get out of a job which involves severe and concentrated
effort. My child, you must not allow yourself to become discouraged.
Almost any job can be shaken off in time and with perseverance. Looking
out of the window is a great help. There are very few businesses where
what goes on in the office is half as interesting as what is happening
on the street outside. If your desk does not happen to be near a window,
so much the better. You can watch the sunset admirably from the window
of the advertising manager's office. Call his attention to the rosy
tints in the afterglow or the glorious pallor of the clouds. Advertising
managers are apt to be insufficiently appreciative of these things.
Sometimes, when they are closeted with the Boss in conference, open the
ground-glass door and say, "I think it is going to rain shortly." Carry
your love of the beautiful into your office life. This will inevitably
pave the way to simplification.

ENVELOPES WITH LOOP HOLES

And never open envelopes with little transparent panes of isinglass in
their fronts. Never keep copies of your correspondence. For, if your
letters are correct, no copy will be necessary. And, if incorrect, it is
far better not to have a copy. If you were to tell me the exact nature
of your work I could offer many more specific hints.

YOUR INQUIRY, CHILD, TOUCHES MY HEART

I am intimately interested in your problem, my child, for I am a great
believer in simplification. It is hard to follow out one's own precepts;
but the root of happiness is never to contradict any one and never agree
with any one. For if you contradict people, they will try to convince
you; and if you agree with them, they will enlarge upon their views
until they say something you will feel bound to contradict. Let me hear
from you again.