Last night, having written what you have just read about the benefits
of fairy literature, I bethought me to renew my acquaintance with some
of those tales which so often have delighted and solaced me. So I
piled at least twenty chosen volumes on the table at the head of my
bed, and I daresay it was nigh daylight when I fell asleep. I began my
entertainment with several pages from Keightley's "Fairy Mythology,"
and followed it up with random bits from Crofton Croker's "Traditions
of the South of Ireland," Mrs. Carey's "Legends of the French
Provinces," Andrew Lang's Green, Blue and Red fairy books, Laboulaye's
"Last Fairy Tales," Hauff's "The Inn in the Spessart," Julia Goddard's
"Golden Weathercock," Frere's "Eastern Fairy Legends," Asbjornsen's
"Folk Tales," Susan Pindar's "Midsummer Fays," Nisbit Bain's "Cossack
Fairy Tales," etc., etc.
I fell asleep with a copy of Villamaria's fairy stories in my hands,
and I had a delightful dream wherein, under the protection and guidance
of my fairy godmother, I undertook the rescue of a beautiful princess
who had been enchanted by a cruel witch and was kept in prison by the
witch's son, a hideous ogre with seven heads, whose companions were
four equally hideous dragons.
This undertaking in which I was engaged involved a period of five
years, but time is of precious little consideration to one when he is
dreaming of exploits achieved in behalf of a beautiful princess. My
fairy godmother (she wore a mob-cap and was hunchbacked) took good care
of me, and conducted me safely through all my encounters with demons,
giants, dragons, witches, serpents, hippogriffins, ogres, etc.; and I
had just rescued the princess and broken the spell which bound her, and
we were about to "live in peace to the end of our lives," when I awoke
to find it was all a dream, and that the gas-light over my bed had been
blazing away during the entire period of my five-year war for the
delectable maiden.
This incident gives me an opportunity to say that observation has
convinced me that all good and true book-lovers practise the pleasing
and improving avocation of reading in bed. Indeed, I fully believe
with Judge Methuen that no book can be appreciated until it has been
slept with and dreamed over. You recall, perhaps, that eloquent
passage in his noble defence of the poet Archias, wherein Cicero (not
Kikero) refers to his own pursuit of literary studies: "Haec studia
adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant; secundas res ornant,
adversis perfugium ac solatium praebent; delectant domi, non impediunt
foris; PERNOCTANT nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur!"
By the gods! you spoke tally, friend Cicero; for it is indeed so, that
these pursuits nourish our earlier and delight our later years,
dignifying the minor details of life and affording a perennial refuge
and solace; at home they please us and in no vocation elsewhere do they
embarrass us; they are with us by night, they go with us upon our
travels, and even upon our retirement into the country do they
accompany us!
I have italicized pernoctant because it is that word which demonstrates
beyond all possibility of doubt that Cicero made a practice of reading
in bed. Why, I can almost see him now, propped up in his couch,
unrolling scroll after scroll of his favorite literature, and enjoying
it mightily, too, which enjoyment is interrupted now and then by the
occasion which the noble reader takes to mutter maledictions upon the
slave who has let the lamp run low of oil or has neglected to trim the
wick.
"Peregrinantur?" Indeed, they do share our peregrinations, these
literary pursuits do. If Thomas Hearne (of blessed memory!) were alive
to-day he would tell us that he used always to take a book along with
him whenever he went walking, and was wont to read it as he strolled
along. On several occasions (as he tells us in his diary) he became so
absorbed in his reading that he missed his way and darkness came upon
him before he knew it.
I have always wondered why book-lovers have not had more to say of
Hearne, for assuredly he was as glorious a collector as ever felt the
divine fire glow within him. His character is exemplified in this
prayer, which is preserved among other papers of his in the Bodleian
Library:
"O most gracious and merciful Lord God, wonderful is Thy providence. I
return all possible thanks to Thee for the care Thou hast always taken
of me. I continually meet with most signal instances of this Thy
providence, and one act yesterday, when I unexpectedly met with three
old MSS., for which, in a particular manner, I return my thanks,
beseeching Thee to continue the same protection to me, a poor, helpless
sinner," etc.
Another prayer of Hearne's, illustrative of his faith in dependence
upon Divine counsel, was made at the time Hearne was importuned by Dr.
Bray, commissary to my Lord Bishop of London, "to go to Mary-Land" in
the character of a missionary. "O Lord God, Heavenly Father, look down
upon me with pity," cries this pious soul, "and be pleased to be my
guide, now I am importuned to leave the place where I have been
educated in the university. And of Thy great goodness I humbly desire
Thee to signify to me what is most proper for me to do in this affair."
Another famous man who made a practice of reading books as he walked
the highways was Dr. Johnson, and it is recorded that he presented a
curious spectacle indeed, for his shortsightedness compelled him to
hold the volume close to his nose, and he shuffled along, rather than
walked, stepping high over shadows and stumbling over sticks and stones.
But, perhaps, the most interesting story illustrative of the practice
of carrying one's reading around with one is that which is told of
Professor Porson, the Greek scholar. This human monument of learning
happened to be travelling in the same coach with a coxcomb who sought
to air his pretended learning by quotations from the ancients. At last
old Porson asked:
"Pri'thee, sir, whence comes that quotation?"
"From Sophocles," quoth the vain fellow.
"Be so kind as to find it for me?" asked Porson, producing a copy of
Sophocles from his pocket.
Then the coxcomb, not at all abashed, said that he meant not Sophocles,
but Euripides. Whereupon Porson drew from another pocket a copy of
Euripides and challenged the upstart to find the quotation in question.
Full of confusion, the fellow thrust his head out of the window of the
coach and cried to the driver:
"In heaven's name, put me down at once; for there is an old gentleman
in here that hath the Bodleian Library in his pocket!"
Porson himself was a veritable slave to the habit of reading in bed.
He would lie down with his books piled around him, then light his pipe
and start in upon some favorite volume. A jug of liquor was invariably
at hand, for Porson was a famous drinker. It is related that on one
occasion he fell into a boosy slumber, his pipe dropped out of his
mouth and set fire to the bed-clothes. But for the arrival of succor
the tipsy scholar would surely have been cremated.
Another very slovenly fellow was De Quincey, and he was devoted to
reading in bed. But De Quincey was a very vandal when it came to the
care and use of books. He never returned volumes he borrowed, and he
never hesitated to mutilate a rare book in order to save himself the
labor and trouble of writing out a quotation.
But perhaps the person who did most to bring reading in bed into evil
repute was Mrs. Charles Elstob, ward and sister of the Canon of
Canterbury (circa 1700). In his "Dissertation on Letter-Founders,"
Rowe Mores describes this woman as the "indefessa comes" of her
brother's studies, a female student in Oxford. She was, says Mores, a
northern lady of an ancient family and a genteel fortune, "but she
pursued too much the drug called learning, and in that pursuit failed
of being careful of any one thing necessary. In her latter years she
was tutoress in the family of the Duke of Portland, where we visited
her in her sleeping-room at Bulstrode, surrounded with books and
dirtiness, the usual appendages of folk of learning!"
There is another word which Cicero uses--for I have still somewhat more
to say of that passage from the oration "pro Archia poeta"--the word
"rusticantur," which indicates that civilization twenty centuries ago
made a practice of taking books out into the country for summer
reading. "These literary pursuits rusticate with us," says Cicero, and
thus he presents to us a pen-picture of the Roman patrician stretched
upon the cool grass under the trees, perusing the latest popular
romance, while, forsooth, in yonder hammock his dignified spouse swings
slowly to and fro, conning the pages and the colored plates of the
current fashion journal. Surely in the telltale word "rusticantur" you
and I and the rest of human nature find a worthy precedent and much
encouragement for our practice of loading up with plenty of good
reading before we start for the scene of our annual summering.
As for myself, I never go away from home that I do not take a trunkful
of books with me, for experience has taught me that there is no
companionship better than that of these friends, who, however much all
things else may vary, always give the same response to my demand upon
their solace and their cheer. My sister, Miss Susan, has often
inveighed against this practice of mine, and it was only yesterday that
she informed me that I was the most exasperating man in the world.
However, as Miss Susan's experience with men during the sixty-seven hot
summers and sixty-eight hard winters of her life has been somewhat
limited, I think I should bear her criticism without a murmur. Miss
Susan is really one of the kindest creatures in all the world. It is
her misfortune that she has had all her life an insane passion for
collecting crockery, old pewter, old brass, old glass, old furniture
and other trumpery of that character; a passion with which I have
little sympathy. I do not know that Miss Susan is prouder of her
collection of all this folderol than she is of the fact that she is a
spinster.
This latter peculiarity asserts itself upon every occasion possible.
I recall an unpleasant scene in the omnibus last winter, when the
obsequious conductor, taking advantage of my sister's white hair and
furrowed cheeks, addressed that estimable lady as "Madam." I'd have
you know that my sister gave the fellow to understand very shortly and
in very vigorous English (emphasized with her blue silk umbrella) that
she was Miss Susan, and that she did not intend to be Madamed by
anybody, under any condition.