Books: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
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Jerome K. Jerome >> Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
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THE IDLE THOUGHTS
OF
AN IDLE FELLOW.
by JEROME K. JEROME.
TO
THE VERY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED
FRIEND
OF MY PROSPEROUS AND EVIL DAYS--
TO THE FRIEND
WHO, THOUGH IN THE EARLY STAGES OF OUR ACQUAINTANCESHIP
DID OFTTIMES DISAGREE WITH ME, HAS SINCE
BECOME TO BE MY VERY WARMEST COMRADE--
TO THE FRIEND
WHO, HOWEVER OFTEN I MAY PUT HIM OUT, NEVER (NOW)
UPSETS ME IN REVENGE--
TO THE FRIEND
WHO, TREATED WITH MARKED COOLNESS BY ALL THE FEMALE
MEMBERS OF MY HOUSEHOLD, AND REGARDED WITH SUSPICION
BY MY VERY DOG, NEVERTHELESS SEEMS DAY BY
DAY TO BE MORE DRAWN BY ME, AND IN RETURN
TO MORE AND MORE IMPREGNATE ME WITH
THE ODOR OF HIS FRIENDSHIP--
TO THE FRIEND
WHO NEVER TELLS ME OF MY FAULTS, NEVER WANTS TO
BORROW MONEY, AND NEVER TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF--
TO THE COMPANION
OF MY IDLE HOURS, THE SOOTHER OF MY SORROWS,
THE CONFIDANT OF MY JOYS AND HOPES--
MY OLDEST AND STRONGEST
PIPE,
THIS LITTLE VOLUME
IS
GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED.
PREFACE
One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. having
observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having
promised to buy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right
to longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public
demand, I perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle
thoughts" of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of
the earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should
improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I
cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever.
All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best
hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a
change.
CONTENTS.
IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW.
ON BEING IDLE
ON BEING IN LOVE
ON BEING IN THE BLUES
ON BEING HARD UP
ON VANITY AND VANITIES
ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD
ON THE WEATHER
ON CATS AND DOGS
ON BEING SHY
ON BABIES
ON EATING AND DRINKING
ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS
ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT
ON MEMORY
The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.
ON BEING IDLE.
Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am _au
fait_. The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's
font for nine guineas a term--no extras--used to say he never knew a
boy who could do less work in more time; and I remember my poor
grandmother once incidentally observing, in the course of an
instruction upon the use of the Prayer-book, that it was highly
improbable that I should ever do much that I ought not to do, but that
she felt convinced beyond a doubt that I should leave undone pretty
well everything that I ought to do.
I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the dear old lady's prophecy.
Heaven help me! I have done a good many things that I ought not to
have done, in spite of my laziness. But I have fully confirmed the
accuracy of her judgment so far as neglecting much that I ought not to
have neglected is concerned. Idling always has been my strong point.
I take no credit to myself in the matter--it is a gift. Few possess
it. There are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slow-coaches, but a
genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with
his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling
characteristic is that he is always intensely busy.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of
work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to
do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting
one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
Many years ago, when I was a young man, I was taken very ill--I never
could see myself that much was the matter with me, except that I had a
beastly cold. But I suppose it was something very serious, for the
doctor said that I ought to have come to him a month before, and that
if it (whatever it was) had gone on for another week he would not have
answered for the consequences. It is an extraordinary thing, but I
never knew a doctor called into any case yet but what it transpired
that another day's delay would have rendered cure hopeless. Our
medical guide, philosopher, and friend is like the hero in a
melodrama--he always comes upon the scene just, and only just, in the
nick of time. It is Providence, that is what it is.
Well, as I was saying, I was very ill and was ordered to Buxton for a
month, with strict injunctions to do nothing whatever all the while
that I was there. "Rest is what you require," said the doctor,
"perfect rest."
It seemed a delightful prospect. "This man evidently understands my
complaint," said I, and I pictured to myself a glorious time--a four
weeks' _dolce far niente_ with a dash of illness in it. Not too much
illness, but just illness enough--just sufficient to give it the
flavor of suffering and make it poetical. I should get up late, sip
chocolate, and have my breakfast in slippers and a dressing-gown. I
should lie out in the garden in a hammock and read sentimental novels
with a melancholy ending, until the books should fall from my listless
hand, and I should recline there, dreamily gazing into the deep blue
of the firmament, watching the fleecy clouds floating like
white-sailed ships across its depths, and listening to the joyous song
of the birds and the low rustling of the trees. Or, on becoming too
weak to go out of doors, I should sit propped up with pillows at the
open window of the ground-floor front, and look wasted and
interesting, so that all the pretty girls would sigh as they passed
by.
And twice a day I should go down in a Bath chair to the Colonnade to
drink the waters. Oh, those waters! I knew nothing about them then,
and was rather taken with the idea. "Drinking the waters" sounded
fashionable and Queen Anne-fied, and I thought I should like them.
But, ugh! after the first three or four mornings! Sam Weller's
description of them as "having a taste of warm flat-irons" conveys
only a faint idea of their hideous nauseousness. If anything could
make a sick man get well quickly, it would be the knowledge that he
must drink a glassful of them every day until he was recovered. I
drank them neat for six consecutive days, and they nearly killed me;
but after then I adopted the plan of taking a stiff glass of
brandy-and-water immediately on the top of them, and found much relief
thereby. I have been informed since, by various eminent medical
gentlemen, that the alcohol must have entirely counteracted the
effects of the chalybeate properties contained in the water. I am
glad I was lucky enough to hit upon the right thing.
But "drinking the waters" was only a small portion of the torture I
experienced during that memorable month--a month which was, without
exception, the most miserable I have ever spent. During the best part
of it I religiously followed the doctor's mandate and did nothing
whatever, except moon about the house and garden and go out for two
hours a day in a Bath chair. That did break the monotony to a certain
extent. There is more excitement about Bath-chairing--especially if
you are not used to the exhilarating exercise--than might appear to
the casual observer. A sense of danger, such as a mere outsider might
not understand, is ever present to the mind of the occupant. He feels
convinced every minute that the whole concern is going over, a
conviction which becomes especially lively whenever a ditch or a
stretch of newly macadamized road comes in sight. Every vehicle that
passes he expects is going to run into him; and he never finds himself
ascending or descending a hill without immediately beginning to
speculate upon his chances, supposing--as seems extremely
probable--that the weak-kneed controller of his destiny should let go.
But even this diversion failed to enliven after awhile, and the
_ennui_ became perfectly unbearable. I felt my mind giving way under
it. It is not a strong mind, and I thought it would be unwise to tax
it too far. So somewhere about the twentieth morning I got up early,
had a good breakfast, and walked straight off to Hayfield, at the foot
of the Kinder Scout--a pleasant, busy little town, reached through a
lovely valley, and with two sweetly pretty women in it. At least they
were sweetly pretty then; one passed me on the bridge and, I think,
smiled; and the other was standing at an open door, making an
unremunerative investment of kisses upon a red-faced baby. But it is
years ago, and I dare say they have both grown stout and snappish
since that time. Coming back, I saw an old man breaking stones, and
it roused such strong longing in me to use my arms that I offered him
a drink to let me take his place. He was a kindly old man and he
humored me. I went for those stones with the accumulated energy of
three weeks, and did more work in half an hour than he had done all
day. But it did not make him jealous.
Having taken the plunge, I went further and further into dissipation,
going out for a long walk every morning and listening to the band in
the pavilion every evening. But the days still passed slowly
notwithstanding, and I was heartily glad when the last one came and I
was being whirled away from gouty, consumptive Buxton to London with
its stern work and life. I looked out of the carriage as we rushed
through Hendon in the evening. The lurid glare overhanging the mighty
city seemed to warm my heart, and when, later on, my cab rattled out
of St. Pancras' station, the old familiar roar that came swelling up
around me sounded the sweetest music I had heard for many a long day.
I certainly did not enjoy that month's idling. I like idling when I
ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do.
That is my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with
my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is
heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post.
When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy
evening's work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to
be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any
other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed.
Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just for
five minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero
of a Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever gets up willingly? There
are some men to whom getting up at the proper time is an utter
impossibility. If eight o'clock happens to be the time that they
should turn out, then they lie till half-past. If circumstances
change and half-past eight becomes early enough for them, then it is
nine before they can rise. They are like the statesman of whom it was
said that he was always punctually half an hour late. They try all
manner of schemes. They buy alarm-clocks (artful contrivances that go
off at the wrong time and alarm the wrong people). They tell Sarah
Jane to knock at the door and call them, and Sarah Jane does knock at
the door and does call them, and they grunt back "awri" and then go
comfortably to sleep again. I knew one man who would actually get out
and have a cold bath; and even that was of no use, for afterward he
would jump into bed again to warm himself.
I think myself that I could keep out of bed all right if I once got
out. It is the wrenching away of the head from the pillow that I find
so hard, and no amount of over-night determination makes it easier. I
say to myself, after having wasted the whole evening, "Well, I won't
do any more work to-night; I'll get up early to-morrow morning;" and I
am thoroughly resolved to do so--then. In the morning, however, I
feel less enthusiastic about the idea, and reflect that it would have
been much better if I had stopped up last night. And then there is
the trouble of dressing, and the more one thinks about that the more
one wants to put it off.
It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic grave, where we stretch our
tired limbs and sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. "O
bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as
sang poor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls.
Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly
lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care--the
sick man full of pain--the little maiden sobbing for her faithless
lover--like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and
you gently soothe us off to by-by.
Our trouble is sore indeed when you turn away and will not comfort us.
How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! those
hideous nights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie,
like living men among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that
drift so slowly between us and the light. And oh! those still more
hideous nights when we sit by another in pain, when the low fire
startles us every now and then with a falling cinder, and the tick of
the clock seems a hammer beating out the life that we are watching.
But enough of beds and bedrooms. I have kept to them too long, even
for an idle fellow. Let us come out and have a smoke. That wastes
time just as well and does not look so bad. Tobacco has been a
blessing to us idlers. What the civil-service clerk before Sir
Walter's time found to occupy their minds with it is hard to imagine.
I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men
entirely to the want of the soothing weed. They had no work to do and
could not smoke, and the consequence was they were forever fighting
and rowing. If, by any extraordinary chance, there was no war going,
then they got up a deadly family feud with the next-door neighbor, and
if, in spite of this, they still had a few spare moments on their
hands, they occupied them with discussions as to whose sweetheart was
the best looking, the arguments employed on both sides being
battle-axes, clubs, etc. Questions of taste were soon decided in
those days. When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take
three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too
beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it.
And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head--the other
man's head, I mean--then that proved that his--the first
fellow's--girl was a pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke _his_
head--not his own, you know, but the other fellow's--the other fellow
to the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow
would only be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who--well,
if he broke his head, then _his_ girl--not the other fellow's, but the
fellow who _was_ the-- Look here, if A broke B's head, then A's girl
was a pretty girl; but if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a
pretty girl, but B's girl was. That was their method of conducting
art criticism.
Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls fight it out among
themselves.
They do it very well. They are getting to do all our work. They are
doctors, and barristers, and artists. They manage theaters, and
promote swindles, and edit newspapers. I am looking forward to the
time when we men shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till twelve,
read two novels a day, have nice little five-o'clock teas all to
ourselves, and tax our brains with nothing more trying than
discussions upon the latest patterns in trousers and arguments as to
what Mr. Jones' coat was made of and whether it fitted him. It is a
glorious prospect--for idle fellows.
ON BEING IN LOVE.
You've been in love, of course! If not you've got it to come. Love
is like the measles; we all have to go through it. Also like the
measles, we take it only once. One never need be afraid of catching
it a second time. The man who has had it can go into the most
dangerous places and play the most foolhardy tricks with perfect
safety. He can picnic in shady woods, ramble through leafy aisles,
and linger on mossy seats to watch the sunset. He fears a quiet
country-house no more than he would his own club. He can join a
family party to go down the Rhine. He can, to see the last of a
friend, venture into the very jaws of the marriage ceremony itself.
He can keep his head through the whirl of a ravishing waltz, and rest
afterward in a dark conservatory, catching nothing more lasting than a
cold. He can brave a moonlight walk adown sweet-scented lanes or a
twilight pull among the somber rushes. He can get over a stile
without danger, scramble through a tangled hedge without being caught,
come down a slippery path without falling. He can look into sunny
eyes and not be dazzled. He listens to the siren voices, yet sails on
with unveered helm. He clasps white hands in his, but no electric
"Lulu"-like force holds him bound in their dainty pressure.
No, we never sicken with love twice. Cupid spends no second arrow on
the same heart. Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. Respect,
and admiration, and affection, our doors may always be left open for,
but their great celestial master, in his royal progress, pays but one
visit and departs. We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond
of--but we never love again. A man's heart is a firework that once in
its time flashes heavenward. Meteor-like, it blazes for a moment and
lights with its glory the whole world beneath. Then the night of our
sordid commonplace life closes in around it, and the burned-out case,
falling back to earth, lies useless and uncared for, slowly smoldering
into ashes. Once, breaking loose from our prison bonds, we dare, as
mighty old Prometheus dared, to scale the Olympian mount and snatch
from Phoebus' chariot the fire of the gods. Happy those who,
hastening down again ere it dies out, can kindle their earthly altars
at its flame. Love is too pure a light to burn long among the noisome
gases that we breathe, but before it is choked out we may use it as a
torch to ignite the cozy fire of affection.
And, after all, that warming glow is more suited to our cold little
back parlor of a world than is the burning spirit love. Love should
be the vestal fire of some mighty temple--some vast dim fane whose
organ music is the rolling of the spheres. Affection will burn
cheerily when the white flame of love is flickered out. Affection is
a fire that can be fed from day to day and be piled up ever higher as
the wintry years draw nigh. Old men and women can sit by it with
their thin hands clasped, the little children can nestle down in
front, the friend and neighbor has his welcome corner by its side, and
even shaggy Fido and sleek Titty can toast their noses at the bars.
Let us heap the coals of kindness upon that fire. Throw on your
pleasant words, your gentle pressures of the hand, your thoughtful and
unselfish deeds. Fan it with good-humor, patience, and forbearance.
You can let the wind blow and the rain fall unheeded then, for your
hearth will be warm and bright, and the faces round it will make
sunshine in spite of the clouds without.
I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you expect too much from love.
You think there is enough of your little hearts to feed this fierce,
devouring passion for all your long lives. Ah, young folk! don't rely
too much upon that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle and dwindle as
the months roll on, and there is no replenishing the fuel. You will
watch it die out in anger and disappointment. To each it will seem
that it is the other who is growing colder. Edwin sees with
bitterness that Angelina no longer runs to the gate to meet him, all
smiles and blushes; and when he has a cough now she doesn't begin to
cry and, putting her arms round his neck, say that she cannot live
without him. The most she will probably do is to suggest a lozenge,
and even that in a tone implying that it is the noise more than
anything else she is anxious to get rid of.
Poor little Angelina, too, sheds silent tears, for Edwin has given up
carrying her old handkerchief in the inside pocket of his waistcoat.
Both are astonished at the falling off in the other one, but neither
sees their own change. If they did they would not suffer as they do.
They would look for the cause in the right quarter--in the littleness
of poor human nature--join hands over their common failing, and start
building their house anew on a more earthly and enduring foundation.
But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of
others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person's
fault. Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin forever and ever and
ever if only Edwin had not grown so strange and different. Edwin
would have adored Angelina through eternity if Angelina had only
remained the same as when he first adored her.
It is a cheerless hour for you both when the lamp of love has gone out
and the fire of affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope about
in the cold, raw dawn of life to kindle it. God grant it catches
light before the day is too far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead
coals till night come.
But, there, of what use is it to preach? Who that feels the rush of
young love through his veins can think it will ever flow feeble and
slow! To the boy of twenty it seems impossible that he will not love
as wildly at sixty as he does then. He cannot call to mind any
middle-aged or elderly gentleman of his acquaintance who is known to
exhibit symptoms of frantic attachment, but that does not interfere in
his belief in himself. His love will never fall, whoever else's may.
Nobody ever loved as he loves, and so, of course, the rest of the
world's experience can be no guide in his case. Alas! alas! ere
thirty he has joined the ranks of the sneerers. It is not his fault.
Our passions, both the good and bad, cease with our blushes. We do
not hate, nor grieve, nor joy, nor despair in our thirties like we did
in our teens. Disappointment does not suggest suicide, and we quaff
success without intoxication.
We take all things in a minor key as we grow older. There are few
majestic passages in the later acts of life's opera. Ambition takes a
less ambitious aim. Honor becomes more reasonable and conveniently
adapts itself to circumstances. And love--love dies. "Irreverence
for the dreams of youth" soon creeps like a killing frost upon our
hearts. The tender shoots and the expanding flowers are nipped and
withered, and of a vine that yearned to stretch its tendrils round the
world there is left but a sapless stump.
My fair friends will deem all this rank heresy, I know. So far from a
man's not loving after he has passed boyhood, it is not till there is
a good deal of gray in his hair that they think his protestations at
all worthy of attention. Young ladies take their notions of our sex
from the novels written by their own, and compared with the
monstrosities that masquerade for men in the pages of that nightmare
literature, Pythagoras' plucked bird and Frankenstein's demon were
fair average specimens of humanity.
In these so-called books, the chief lover, or Greek god, as he is
admiringly referred to--by the way, they do not say which "Greek god"
it is that the gentleman bears such a striking likeness to; it might
be hump-backed Vulcan, or double-faced Janus, or even driveling
Silenus, the god of abstruse mysteries. He resembles the whole family
of them, however, in being a blackguard, and perhaps this is what is
meant. To even the little manliness his classical prototypes
possessed, though, he can lay no claim whatever, being a listless
effeminate noodle, on the shady side of forty. But oh! the depth and
strength of this elderly party's emotion for some bread-and-butter
school-girl! Hide your heads, ye young Romeos and Leanders! this
_blase_ old beau loves with an hysterical fervor that requires four
adjectives to every noun to properly describe.
It is well, dear ladies, for us old sinners that you study only books.
Did you read mankind, you would know that the lad's shy stammering
tells a truer tale than our bold eloquence. A boy's love comes from a
full heart; a man's is more often the result of a full stomach.
Indeed, a man's sluggish current may not be called love, compared with
the rushing fountain that wells up when a boy's heart is struck with
the heavenly rod. If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream
that youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a
muddy river before you stoop to catch its waves.
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