The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
The Idle Thoughts of an Idle FellowON 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.Copyright
The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
Jerome K. Jerome
ON BEING IDLE.
Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really
amau 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
nientewith 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
theennuibecame 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 brokehishead—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, thenhisgirl—not the other fellow's, but the fellow whowasthe—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! thisblaseold 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.
