“Just fetch your traps right up here, Mister, I’d be mighty glad to have you,” was his cordial response. But I was obliged to decline; it was too much of a good thing.
That afternoon the Doctor and I again made our camp on the banks of the Blue. I had had three days of genuine enjoyment, but when I laid down that night the heavens were overcast. We were to experience the felicity of sleeping with the rain pelting on us. I wished for a tent, a tree, a clump of willows, but it was too late; we had made our bed and must lie in it; there was no shelter anywhere, nor even the means to erect the poncho, so we spread it on top of us. When the drops began to fall, I pulled it over my head, and as they came thicker and faster, thought of “The Rain on the Roof,” and in about half an hour felt a chill on my weather side, put my hand down to straighten the cover and felt a pool of water. It crept up that side and under me. I told the Doctor of my condition. He said it was nothing; that it would do me good, in fact. I told him I thought I’d get up. He wanted to know where I would go. I said I did not know. Then he advised me to go to sleep. I asked him if he was under water, but he said he was dry as a bone and warm. I offered to change places with him, but he said he was sleepy, and that I had better say my prayers and go to sleep as he was about to do. I thought of all I had heard of the danger of damp sheets, of rheumatisms, fevers—chills I had—colds, and other ills resulting from such exposure; then of the men who had slept that way and lied about the comfort of it; then I wished it was day, and wondered how many hours I would have to lie there; then I felt that Coates Kinney was a fraud, and his “Rain on the Roof” a satire, and registered a vow that if I ever allowed myself to be again caught in such a d—amp fix, I hoped some fellow would hit me with a club; then I went to sleep, and awoke at sunrise. I would have had no reluctance in moving about had my clothes been dry, but the sensation to me of the clinging garments was—well, we kindled a fire; I got a cup of hot coffee under my waistband and felt better, and have been feeling better ever since. We reached the Springs about four o’clock, tired, of course, but with the memory of a four days’ jaunt to look back upon that half-a-dozen rainstorms could not wash out.
EGOTISM AND—RODS.
A writer in The Angler, I think, apologized for giving his personal experiences, in that they savored of egotism. To my mind he should not have done so. What a world this would be if every man kept his personal experience to himself.
Egotism may not perhaps be a cardinal virtue; but good may come out of Nazareth. One’s personal experiences are more novel than romances; the egotist need not necessarily be a follower of Des Cartes. If my egotism affords a brother a few moments’ pleasure, or he is in any way profited, then my life has not been a total failure.
Then, again, what is the use of apologizing for a universal weakness. If we do not talk about ourselves, we are always tickled to have others talk of us, and many would rather be abused than not be noticed at all. Doubtless vanity and egotism are at the bottom of most of the good things of this life, just as discontent is the father of perfected things.
De Quincey would make a martyr of Judas; looked at from the De Quincey stand-point, Judas was a broad-gauge man. If so eminent a scholar may make a nobleman but of the King of Traitors, as we have been taught to regard him, certainly one, even so poor as I, may take up the cudgels in defense of mine own and my brother’s folly. I flatter myself, too, that I should be more successful in carrying conviction than the learned author of “murder considered as a fine art.” He combated a prejudice; I should tickle the tender side of nine out of ten—if the nine would only confess.