Paragraphs From Our Own Portfolio
The Fixed Purpose of Our Souls
Do you remember how the Sunday School Superintendent used to get up along toward the end of the session, just when you were getting hungry, and ask, "What ought to be the fixed purpose of our souls?" And you wished that he wasn't so almighty particular about everybody's soul, including yours, when his own was rather a shriveled-up affair. Besides you were not interested in souls just at that moment. You were getting hungrier every minute. And what business was it of his anyway?
Everybody else stood up and answered, so you did too, without in the least knowing or caring what it was all about.
"What ought to be the fixed purpose of our souls? Huh? Oh, yes—'To be a worker together with God toward so great a good,'" etc. You mumbled along trying to keep up with the rest of the school, but never quite succeeding.
After that, they let you go home—a thoroughly prophylactic Christian, if there ever was one.
That disposes of your youth and brings us down to the present moment and more especially to the business of the present moment, which is to find out what really ought to be the fixed purpose of our souls as literati—or rather your soul.
You are buying The Black Cat every month because you have always liked Black Cat stories. Yet you are a trifle uneasy, a bit critical. You think you would enjoy it a little more, if you could correct the editor's mistakes. In short, you think you should have his job; and he should be—well, you'd hate to tell him just what you think he should be doing for a living.
"If I were the editor," you begin.
"Is that so?" we want to know.
And right there we go to the mat together with the result that The Black Cat Club is formed. It is created for just such people as you because we have a sneaking respect for your likes and dislikes in the way of fiction and want to know how you like The Black Cat and The Thriller and what you know about the magazine business anyway.
So there you are.
Now what ought to be the fixed purpose of your soul? And the answer is—To Be a Worker Together With the Editor.
The Black Cat Club is merely the vehicle designed to make possible such ideal relations between editor and readers. Whether or not it flourishes depends largely upon the fixed purpose of your soul.
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