Abstract

This Week. Millions of Words

Not long ago a young man whose age is six presented the author with a book, hand made, from illustrations to binding. Its back was sewed with darning wool; its pages were embellished with pictures, most of them originals in color, a few pasted inserts clipped from other publications. Around the pictures were pleasantly uneven margins, under them occasional very small spaces. The only thing the volume lacked was words. The book maker said rather nonchalantly as he handed it to the author, "The bare places are for the stories." Until then the author had not missed the stories. This incident gave the author new hope for the future of writing. The lack of words in this book was not due to any poverty of language in its creator; it was the result of something more fundamental in his training, something which seems to the author, as he contemplates the flood of words that has poured over his various desks in the last twelve or fourteen years, both exciting and consoling.