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96
The Inventions of the Idiot
·
John Kendrick Bangs
49
"How
would
you
show
nerve
in
writing?"
queried
the
Bibliomaniac.
"If
I
knew
I'd
write
and
make
my
fortune,"
said
the
Idiot.
"Unfortunately,
I
don't
know
how
one
can
show
nerve
in
writing,
unless
it
be
in
taking
hold
of
some
particularly
popular
idiosyncrasy
of
mankind
and
treating
it
so
contemptuously
that
every
one
would
want
to
mob
you.
If
you
could
get
the
public
mad
enough
at
you
to
want
to
mob
you
they'd
read
everything
you'd
write,
simply
to
nourish
their
wrath,
and
you'd
soon
be
cutting
coupons
for
a
living,
and
could
then
afford
to
take
up
more
ideas--coupon-cutters
can
afford
theories.
For
my
own
part,
one
reason
why
I
do
not
myself
take
up
literature
for
a
profession
is
that
I
have
neither
the
nerve
nor
the
coupons.
I'd
probably
run
along
in
the
rut
like
a
majority
of
the
writers
of
to-day,
and
wouldn't
have
the
grit
to
strike
out
in
a
new
line
of
my
own.
Men
say,
and
perhaps
very
properly,
this
is
the
thing
that
has
succeeded
in
the
past.
I'll
do
this.
Something
else
that
appears
alluring
enough
in
the
abstract
has
never
been
done,
and
for
that
reason
I
won't
do
it.
There
have
been
clever
men
before
me,
men
clever
enough
to
think
of
this
something
that
I
fondly
imagine
is
original,
and
they
haven't
done
it.
Doubtless
they
refrained
from
doing
it
for
good
and
sufficient
reasons,
and
I
am
not
going
to
be
fool
enough
to
set
my
judgment
up
against
theirs.
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