PICNICS
The code of table etiquette in the days of my boyhood, as I now
recall it, was expressed something like: "Eat what is set before you
and ask no questions." We heeded this injunction with religious
fidelity, but yearned to ask why they didn't set more before us.
About the only time that a real boy gets enough to eat is when he
goes to a picnic and, even there and then, the rounding out of the
programme is connected with clandestine visits to the baskets after
the formal ceremonies have been concluded. At a picnic there is no
such expression as "from soup to nuts," for there is no soup, and
perhaps no nuts, but there is everything else in tantalizing
abundance. If I find a plate of deviled eggs near me, I begin with
deviled eggs; or, if the cold tongue is nearer, I begin with that.
In this way I reveal, for the pleasure of the hostesses, my
unrestricted and democratic appetite. Or, in order to obviate any
possible embarrassment during the progress of the chicken toward me,
I may take a piece of pie or a slice of cake, thinking that they may
not return once they have been put in circulation. Certainly I take
jelly when it passes along, as well as pickles, olives, and cheese.
There is no incongruity, at such a time, in having a slice of baked
ham and a slice of angel-food cake on one's plate or in one's hands.
They harmonize beautifully both in the color scheme and in the
gastronomic scheme. At a picnic my boyhood training reaches its full
fruition: "Eat what is set before you and ask no questions." These
things I do.
That's a good rule for reading, too, just to read what is set before
you and ask no questions. I'm thinking now of the reader member of
my dual nature, not the student member. I like to cater somewhat to
both these members. When the reader member is having his inning, I
like to give him free rein and not hamper him by any lock-step or
stereotyped method or course. I like to lead him to a picnic table
and dismiss him with the mere statement that "Heaven helps those who
help themselves," and thus leave him to his own devices. If
Southey's, "The Curse of Kehama," happens to be nearest his plate, he
will naturally begin with that as I did with the deviled eggs. Or he
may nibble at "The House-Boat on the Styx" while some one is passing
the Shakespeare along. He may like Emerson, and ask for a second
helping, and that's all right, too, for that's a nourishing sort of
food. Having partaken of this generously, he will enjoy all the more
the jelly when it comes along in the form of "Nonsense Anthology."
The more I think of it the more I see that reading is very like a
picnic dinner. It is all good, and one takes the food which is
nearest him, whether pie or pickles.
When any one asks me what I am reading, I become much embarrassed. I
may be reading a catalogue of books at the time, or the book notices
in some magazine, but such reading may not seem orthodox at all to
the one who asks the question. My reading may be too desultory or
too personal to be paraded in public. I don't make it a practice to
tell all the neighbors what I ate for breakfast. I like to saunter
along through the book just as I ride in a gondola when in Venice.
I'm not going anywhere, but get my enjoyment from merely being on the
way. I pay the gondolier and then let him have his own way with me.
So with the book. I pay the money and then abandon myself to it. If
it can make me laugh, why, well and good, and I'll laugh. If it
causes me to shed tears, why, let the tears flow. They may do me
good. If I ever become conscious of the number of the page of the
book I am reading, I know there is something the matter with that
book or else with me. If I ever become conscious of the page number
in David Grayson's "Adventures in Contentment," or "The Friendly
Road," I shall certainly consult a physician. I do become
semiconscious at times that I am approaching the end of the feast,
and feel regret that the book is not larger.
I have spasms and enjoy them. Sometimes, I have a Dickens spasm, and
read some of his books for the _n_th time. I have frittered away
much time in my life trying to discover whether a book is worth a
second reading. If it isn't, it is hardly worth a first reading, I
don't get tired of my friend Brown, so why should I put Dickens off
with a mere society call? If I didn't enjoy Brown I'd not visit him
so frequently; but, liking him, I go again and again. So with
Dickens, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare. The story goes that a second
Uncle Remus was sitting on a stump in the depths of a forest sawing
away on an old discordant violin. A man, who chanced to come upon
him, asked what he was doing. With no interruption of his musical
activities, he answered: "Boss, I'se serenadin' m' soul." Book or
violin, 'tis all the same. Uncle Remus and I are serenading our
souls and the exercise is good for us.
I was laid by with typhoid fever for a few weeks once, and the doctor
came at eleven o'clock in the morning and at five o'clock in the
afternoon. If he happened to be a bit late I grew impatient, and my
fever increased. He discovered this fact, and was no more tardy. He
was reading "John Fiske" at the time, and Grant's "Memoirs," and at
each visit reviewed for me what he had read since the previous visit.
He must have been glad when I no longer needed to take my history by
proxy, for I kept him up to the mark, and bullied him into reciting
twice a day. I don't know what drugs he gave me, but I do know that
"Fiske" and "Grant" are good for typhoid, and heartily commend them
to the general public. I am rather glad now that I had typhoid fever.
I listen with amused tolerance to people who grow voluble on the
weather and their symptoms, and often wish they would ask me to
prescribe for them. I'd probably tell them to become readers of
William J. Locke. But, perhaps, their symptoms might seem preferable
to the remedy. A neighbor came in to borrow a book, and I gave her
"Les Miserables," which she returned in a day or so, saying that she
could not read it. I knew that I had overestimated her, and that I
didn't have a book around of her size. I had loaned my "Robin Hood,"
"Rudder Grange," "Uncle Remus," and "Sonny" to the children round
about.
I like to browse around among my books, and am trying to have my boys
and girls acquire the same habit. Reading for pure enjoyment isn't a
formal affair any more than eating. Sometimes I feel in the mood for
a grapefruit for breakfast, sometimes for an orange, and sometimes
for neither. I'm glad not to board at a place where they have
standardized breakfasts and reading. If I feel in the mood for an
orange I want an orange, even if my neighbor has a casaba melon. So,
if I want my "Middlemarch," I'm quite eager for that book, and am
quite willing for my neighbor to have his "Henry Esmond." The
appetite for books is variable, the same as for food, and I'd rather
consult my appetite than my neighbor when choosing a book as a
companion through a lazy afternoon beneath the maple-tree, I refuse
to try to supervise the reading of my pupils. Why, I couldn't
supervise their eating. I'd have to find out whether the boy was
yearning for porterhouse steak or ice-cream, first; then I might help
him make a selection. The best I can do is to have plenty of steak,
potatoes, pie, and ice-cream around, and allow him to help himself.