A Wasted Day — Inside the Classic

From Correggio to Courtroom

The opening pages establish Thorndike's world through two competing concerns: a cable about a genuine Correggio in Florence and a plea for a character letter for Spear, a former stenographer convicted of theft. The secretary's description of Spear's downfall—'met a woman, and woke up without the money'—is met with Thorndike's shrug. Yet Davis subtly undermines this indifference. Thorndike's memory of Spear picking flowers for his mother surfaces unbidden, a detail that lingers. The contrast between the 'blue flint' road Thorndike rejects for looking 'like a cemetery' and the 'running wild' flowers he recalls suggests a man who values untamed nature over artifice, a preference that will later draw him toward the raw human scenes in court.

The Courtroom as Theater

Once inside the Court of General Sessions, Thorndike's perspective shifts. Davis describes the proceedings as 'as good as a play,' comparing the defendants to 'Sicilians he had seen in London in their little sordid tragedies.' The key difference: these actors appear 'in their proper persons in real dramas of a life he did not know.' Thorndike's growing engagement is physical—he moves 'into a chair nearer to the rail' and makes notes on an envelope. His praise for the young judge and the probation officer, Mrs. Austin, reveals a man seeking an 'outlet' for a 'restless' sensation. The story's structure mirrors this awakening: the reader watches Thorndike watch others, his judgments softening from abstraction to personal interest.

A Personal Stake in Failure

Thorndike's transformation crystallizes when he decides to help the defendants financially, finding it 'much more satisfactory than giving an Old Master to his private chapel.' Yet Davis undercuts this newfound purpose with irony. When Thorndike's chief clerk tries to reach him with urgent news, the banker waves him away: 'I can’t see him now, I’m busy.' The line echoes his earlier dismissal of Spear's case. The story leaves unresolved whether Thorndike's interest is genuine empathy or another form of self-gratification. The final image of Spear standing 'almost at his elbow' suggests the past he tried to ignore has returned, demanding attention.

Davis never reveals what the chief clerk's paper contained, nor whether Thorndike's charitable impulses outlast the morning. Readers should attend to these gaps: the story's power lies in what it withholds. The title itself—'A Wasted Day'—hovers between Thorndike's perspective and the reader's judgment. Is the day wasted because he neglected business, or because his awakening may prove fleeting? The excerpts offer no answer, only the tension between a man's habitual world and the one he briefly inhabits.

There’s a moment in that old Davis story where the courtroom humbles the collector, and I was reminded how often we shelve our grand pursuits for quieter, human ones. It put me in mind of flipping through The best British short stories of 1922 — Story, Setting & Ideas—not for answers, just for company. Some afternoons, ordinary sorrows feel like the truest art.