Reveries of a Schoolmaster

by Francis B. Pearson

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.

CHAPTER XIX

MAKE-BELIEVE

The text may be found in "Over Bemerton's," by E. V. Lucas, and reads as follows: "A gentle hypocrisy is not only the basis but the salt of civilized life." This statement startled me a bit at first; but when I got to thinking of my experience in having a photograph of myself made I saw that Mr. Lucas has some warrant for his statement. There has been only one Oliver Cromwell to say: "Paint me as I am." The rest of us humans prefer to have the wart omitted. If my photograph is true to life I don't want it. I'm going to send it away, and I don't want the folks who get it to think I look like that. If I were a woman and could wear a disguise of cosmetics when sitting for a picture the case might not be quite so bad. The subtle flattery of the photograph is very grateful to us mortals whether we admit it or not. My friend Baxter introduced me once as a man who is not two-faced, and went on to explain that if I had had two faces I'd have brought the other instead of this one. And that's true. I expect the photographer to evoke another face for me, and hence my generous gift of money to him. I like that chap immensely. He takes my money, gives me another face, bows me out with the grace of a finished courtier, and never, by word or look, reveals his knowledge of my hypocrisy.

As a boy I had a full suit of company manners which I wore only when guests were present, and so was always sorry to have guests come. I sat back on the chair instead of on its edge; I didn't swing my legs unless I had a lapse of memory; I said, "Yes, ma'am," and, "No, ma'am," like any other parrot, just as I did at rehearsal; and, in short, I was a most exemplary child save for occasional reactions to unlooked-for situations. The folks knew I was posing, and were on nettles all the while from fear of a breakdown; the guests knew I was posing, and I knew I was posing. But we all pretended to one another that that was the regular order of procedure in our house. So we had a very gratifying concert exercise in hypocrisy. We said our prayers that night just as usual.