The Magical Chance — Key Ideas to Explore

A Voice of Contradiction

Sharp's prose is built on contradiction. He calls the modern young 'a dry tree' and 'sad state,' yet insists they are 'better stories, sweeter songs, mightier deeds.' He mocks the Yale president's interview that claims all great deeds are done, then counters with his own experience teaching college youth for twenty-three years. The diction is blunt: 'I am no judge of story matter' if youth is not epic. He uses the niece's metaphor of 'plain bread and butter' to reject a utilitarian view of life. The opening chapter establishes a speaker who is both nostalgic and defiant, refusing to accept that romance has vanished.

The Duty to Dig

In 'The Duty to Dig,' Sharp turns to gardening as a literal and metaphorical act. He references Thoreau's bean field in Walden to argue that digging yields 'the fruits of life.' The essay contrasts gardening with golf, which he calls 'one of life's post-Edenic precautions' and a product of 'the Machine.' His language is playful but pointed: golf clubs lack 'character and comeliness,' while a spade has 'the touch of poetry.' Sharp insists that digging is a duty, not just for profit but for a 'sense of living.' He even suggests planting a flag on a lima-bean pole as a patriotic act.

War and Self-Sufficiency

Sharp extends his argument to war, noting that a soldier must carry a shovel but also a hoe to be self-supporting. He critiques the Rathenau plan of war, calling it 'everything German left out.' The tone shifts to irony: 'Men of the navy must die for a living.' A captain's letter is quoted, expressing anxiety about missing 'the big game.' Sharp uses this to question the value of a life that depends on others for food. The passage ties back to the theme of digging: true independence comes from literal cultivation of the earth, not from mechanized warfare.

The Radium of Romance

Though the excerpt is limited, the chapter title 'The Radium of Romance' suggests Sharp's metaphorical style. He uses scientific imagery—radium—to describe an invisible, potent force. The earlier essays set up a pattern: Sharp contrasts despair with hidden value. The niece's thirty cents becomes a symbol of undervaluation. The author's method is to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, much like radium's hidden energy. The structure of the book, with essays on 'copy,' 'duty,' and 'the man and the book,' indicates a deliberate progression from personal anecdote to broader philosophical reflection.

Sharp's essays are best read as performances of a contrarian mind. He does not offer systematic philosophy but a series of provocations, each anchored in a concrete image: a niece, a bean field, a golf club. Readers should attend to the rhythm of his sentences and the way he pivots from complaint to celebration. The book rewards those who enjoy a writer arguing with his own time, using wit and stubbornness to insist that the magical chance is still there, waiting to be dug up.