Chapter Twenty Eight.
Caravanning for Health.
“Life is not to live, but to be well.”
This chapter, and indeed the whole of this appendix, may be considered nothing more or less than an apology for my favourite way of spending my summer outing.
Now there are no doubt thousands who would gladly follow my example, and become for a portion of the year lady or gentlemen gipsies, did not circumstances over which they have no control raise insuperable barriers between them and a realisation of their wishes. For these I can only express my sorrow. On the other hand, I know there are many people who have both leisure and means at command, people who are perhaps bored with all ordinary ways of travelling for pleasure; people, mayhap, who suffer from debility of nerves, from indigestion, and from that disease of modern times we call ennui, which so often precedes a thorough break-up and a speedy march to the grave. It is for the benefit of these I write my appendix; it is to them I most cordially dedicate it.
There may be some who, having read thus far, may say to themselves:—
“I feel tired and bored with the worry of the ordinary everyday method of travelling, rushing along in stuffy railway carriages, residing in crowded hotels, dwelling in hackneyed seaside towns, following in the wake of other travellers to Scotland or the Continent, over-eating and over-drinking; I feel tired of ball, concert, theatre, and at homes, tired of scandal, tired of the tinselled show and the businesslike insincerity of society, and I really think I am not half well. And if ennui, as doctors say, does lead the way to the grave, I do begin to think I’m going there fast enough. I wonder if I am truly getting ill, or old, or something; and if a complete change would do me good?” I would make answer thus:—You may be getting ill, or you may be getting old, or both at once, for remember age is not to be reckoned by years, and nothing ages one sooner than boredom and ennui. But if there be any doubts in your mind as regards the state of your health, and seeing that ennui does not weaken any one organ more than another, but that its evil effects are manifested in a deterioration of every organ and portion of the body and tissues at once, let us consider for a moment what health really is.
It was Emerson, I think, who said, “Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.”