One Born Every Decade

In the autumn of 1917, young F. Scott Fitzgerald decided that a Great Writer is born every ten years. He noted that Shaw was 61, Wells was 51, Chesterton was 41, biographer Shane Leslie was 31 and he, F. Scott, was 21. His one demur was that he could not think of a better example for age 31. [Letters, New York: Scribner's, 1963]