it is surprising that twenty-three stories about old people

should make bright reading. Being conventional, I started

through FullMeasure in my persona (that buttoned cassock of

the personality): I was a high-minded learner about old age, all

set to be compassionate and all willingness to be instructed.

Of course, no one is remiss in practising compassion or

docile learning, yet what a waste it would be to approach this

particular anthology with only those churchy virtues! The best

way to read FullMeasure is leisurely, richly, to sink into it the

way we sink ourselves into adventure stories. Here are twenty-

three stories full of psychological and physical danger, and we

can read them for the action, f~)r the particular occasions of the

forty-odd characters, for their ingenuity or valor or bad luck or

ghastly decision making. I found myself taking note of" their

doings, the way a midshipman might read letters from recent

graduates now out on the great waters. Whatever these charac-

ters are coming to, beset by, licked by, or able to alter--all that

ies ahead. I found myself fascinated by how well or how poorly

hese story people took hold: I made role models out of some of

hem.