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If more Thurber movies are made—and there is plenty of material to draw on—it is conceivable that the people and creatures of his imagination may one day be figures in international folklore. Already The Lancet, a learned British medical journal, has used the term "Walter Mitty syndrome" in referring to daydreaming on a grandiose scale.
*Although they would probably give the accolade for funniest, saddest and best single Thurber story to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
†Convinced that if Jim could write and make money, he could too, William once sent his famous brother a MS. which began: "Columbus is a town with an alley between every street." Commented their mother: "William is twice as crazy as Jamie, only he can't put it down."
*In 1939, they wrote a hit play, The Male Animal, in which Nugent starred. Its root idea: "What might have happened if we had stayed on at Ohio State?" Later it was a successful movie, directed by Nugent. Perhaps disgruntled by the play, Ohio State has never granted Distinguished Son Thurber an honorary degree. Even before Williams College honored him, however, small, urbane Kenyon College (Gambier, Ohio) had made him a Doctor of Letters.