T’ enjoy myself; that place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
IT is good to think of the many captivating personalities one has met on one’s rambles through ‘Bookland’—to greet again with extended hands the genial Vicar immortalized by Goldsmith, to ponder in one’s mind his godly charity, to listen enthralled to his delicate and gracious observations. It is good, I say, to set forth on a ‘mental pilgrimage’ to the homes of the entertaining folk who were first made known to us through those ‘little sheets of paper,’ and who are ever ready to ‘amuse us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.’
One may select one’s own company, and may, as the mood takes one, be learned or flippant, grave or gay. One may visit the famous Vicarage, or, in another mood and with another end in view, go in the enchanting company of Goldsmith to the home of Beau Tibbs, there to laugh at poor Tibbs’ foibles, to learn from his old Scotch servant that his good lady is away washing his ‘twa shirts’ at the next door, because they have taken an oath against lending their tub out any longer. But eventually the good lady presents herself, making ‘twenty apologies’ for the carelessness of her attire, and explaining in a grand manner that she had stayed the night at Vauxhall Gardens with a certain countess.
We are invited to dinner, something elegant being suggested by Mr. Tibbs—a turbot or an ortolan. Whereupon Mrs. Tibbs cries, ‘What do you think, my dear, of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with a little of my own sauce?’ ‘The very thing!’ cries Mr. Tibbs. ‘I hate your immense loads of meat; that is country all over; extreme disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with high life.’ But we do not remain for the dainty morsel. For, as our guide whispers, ‘the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last never fails of rendering us melancholy.’ And so we take our leave, assured by Beau Tibbs that had we remained, dinner would have been ready in less than two hours.