One Third Off by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

The way I look at this thing is this way: If something happens to you and / by writing about it you can make a bit of money and at the same time be a / benefactor to the race, then why not? Does not the philanthropic aspect of / the proposition more than balance off the mercenary side? I hold that it / does, or at least that it should, in the estimation of all fair-minded / persons. It is to this class that I particularly address myself. / Unfair-minded persons are advised to take warning and stop right here with / the contemporary paragraph. That which follows in this little volume is / not for them.

An even stronger motive impels me. In hereinafter setting forth at length / and in detail the steps taken by me in making myself thin, or, let us / say, thinner, I am patterning after the tasteful and benevolent examples / of some of the most illustrious ex-fat men of letters in our country. Take / Samuel G. Blythe now. Mr. Blythe is the present international bant-weight / champion. There was a time, though, when he was what the world is pleased / to call over-sized. In writing on several occasions, and always / entertainingly and helpfully, upon the subject of the methods employed by / him to reduce himself to his current proportions I hold that he had the / right idea about it.