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Title: Moonbeams From the LargerLunacy

Author: Stephen Leacock

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[The actual date this file first posted =10/30/01]

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PREFACE

The prudent husbandman, after havingtaken from his field all the straw that isthere, rakes it over with a wooden rakeand gets as much again The wise child,after the lemonade jug is empty, takes thelemons from the bottom of it and squeezesthem into a still larger brew So does thesagacious author, after having sold hismaterial to the magazines and been paidfor it, clap it into book-covers and give itanother squeeze But in the present casethe author is of a nice conscience andanxious to place responsibility where it isdue He therefore wishes to make allproper acknowledgments to the editors ofVanity Fair, The American Magazine, ThePopular Magazine, Life, Puck, The

Century, Methuen's Annual, and all otherswho are in any way implicated in the

making of this book.

I SPOOF: A Thousand-Guinea Novel

II THE READING PUBLIC

III AFTERNOON ADVENTURES AT

MY CLUB

l—The Anecdotes of Dr So and So 2—The Shattered Health of Mr

8—The Ground Floor

9—The Hallucination of Mr Butt

IV RAM SPUDD

V ARISTOCRATIC ANECDOTES

VI EDUCATION MADE AGREEABLE VII AN EVERY-DAY EXPERIENCE VIII TRUTHFUL ORATORY

IX OUR LITERARY BUREAU

X SPEEDING UP BUSINESS

XI WHO IS ALSO WHO

XII PASSIONATE PARAGRAPHS XIII WEEJEE THE PET DOG

XIV SIDELIGHTS ON THE

Readers are requested to note that thisnovel has taken our special prize of acheque for a thousand guineas This aloneguarantees for all intelligent readers apalpitating interest in every line of it.Among the thousands of MSS whichreached us—many of them coming in cartsearly in the morning, and moving in adense phalanx, indistinguishable from theCovent Garden Market waggons; otherspouring down our coal-chute during theworking hours of the day; and others againbeing slipped surreptitiously into ourletter-box by pale, timid girls, scarcelymore than children, after nightfall (in factmany of them came in their night-gowns),

—this manuscript alone was the sole one

—in fact the only one—to receive theprize of a cheque of a thousand guineas

To other competitors we may have given,inadvertently perhaps, a bag of sovereigns

or a string of pearls, but to this story alone

is awarded the first prize by the

unanimous decision of our judges

When we say that the latter body includedtwo members of the Cabinet, two Lords ofthe Admiralty, and two bishops, withpower in case of dispute to send all theMSS to the Czar of Russia, our readerswill breathe a sigh of relief to learn thatthe decision was instant and unanimous.Each one of them, in reply to our telegram,answered immediately SPOOF

This novel represents the last word in to-date fiction It is well known that themodern novel has got far beyond the point

up-of mere story-telling The childish attempt

to INTEREST the reader has long sincebeen abandoned by all the best writers.They refuse to do it The modern novelmust convey a message, or else it mustpaint a picture, or remove a veil, or open

a new chapter in human psychology

Otherwise it is no good SPOOF does all

of these things The reader rises from itsperusal perplexed, troubled, and yet sofilled with information that rising itself is

a difficulty

We cannot, for obvious reasons, insert thewhole of the first chapter But the portionhere presented was praised by The

Saturday Afternoon Review as giving one

of the most graphic and at the same timerealistic pictures of America ever written

in fiction.

Of the characters whom our readers are toimagine seated on the deck—on one of themany decks (all connected by elevators)

—of the Gloritania, one word may besaid Vere de Lancy is (as the reviewershave under oath declared) a typical youngEnglishman of the upper class He isnephew to the Duke of—, but of this fact

no one on the ship, except the captain, thepurser, the steward, and the passengersare, or is, aware

In order entirely to conceal his identity,Vere de Lancy is travelling under theassumed name of Lancy de Vere In orderthe better to hide the object of his journey,Lancy de Vere (as we shall now call him,

though our readers will be able at anymoment to turn his name backwards) hasgiven it to be understood that he is

travelling merely as a gentleman anxious

to see America This naturally baffles allthose in contact with him

The girl at his side—but perhaps we maybest let her speak for herself

Somehow as they sat together on the deck

of the great steamer in the afterglow of thesunken sun, listening to the throbbing ofthe propeller (a rare sound which neither

of them of course had ever heard before),

de Vere felt that he must speak to her.Something of the mystery of the girl

fascinated him What was she doing herealone with no one but her mother and her

maid, on the bosom of the Atlantic? Whywas she here? Why was she not

somewhere else? The thing puzzled,perplexed him It would not let him alone

It fastened upon his brain Somehow hefelt that if he tried to drive it away, itmight nip him in the ankle

In the end he spoke

"And you, too," he said, leaning over herdeck-chair, "are going to America?"

He had suspected this ever since the boatleft Liverpool

Now at length he framed his growingconviction into words

"Yes," she assented, and then timidly, "it

is 3,213 miles wide, is it not?"

"Yes," he said, "and 1,781 miles deep! Itreaches from the forty-ninth parallel to theGulf of Mexico."

"Oh," cried the girl, "what a vivid picture!

I seem to see it."

"Its major axis," he went on, his voicesinking almost to a caress, "is formed bythe Rocky Mountains, which are

practically a prolongation of the

Cordilleran Range It is drained," he

continued—

"How splendid!" said the girl

"Yes, is it not? It is drained by the

Mississippi, by the St Lawrence, and—

dare I say it?—by the Upper Colorado."

Somehow his hand had found hers in thehalf gloaming, but she did not check him

"Go on," she said very simply; "I think Iought to hear it."

"The great central plain of the interior," hecontinued, "is formed by a vast alluvialdeposit carried down as silt by the

Mississippi East of this the range of theAlleghanies, nowhere more than eightthousand feet in height, forms a secondary

or subordinate axis from which the

watershed falls to the Atlantic."

He was speaking very quietly but

earnestly No man had ever spoken to her