Chapter 19

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.