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Page 10
``Item. To my beloved grandnephew and namesake, Matthew, I do
bequeath and give (in addition to the lands devised and the
stocks, bonds and moneys willed to him, as hereinabove specified)
the two mahogany bookcases numbered 11 and 13, and the contents
thereof, being volumes of fairy and folk tales of all nations,
and dictionaries and other treatises upon demonology, witchcraft,
mythology, magic and kindred subjects, to be his, his heirs, and
his assigns, forever.''
III
THE LUXURY OF READING IN BED
Last night, having written what you have just read about the
benefits of fairy literature, I bethought me to renew my
acquaintance with some of those tales which so often have
delighted and solaced me. So I piled at least twenty chosen
volumes on the table at the head of my bed, and I daresay it was
nigh daylight when I fell asleep. I began my entertainment with
several pages from Keightley's ``Fairy Mythology,'' and followed
it up with random bits from Crofton Croker's ``Traditions of the
South of Ireland,'' Mrs. Carey's ``Legends of the French
Provinces,'' Andrew Lang's Green, Blue and Red fairy books,
Laboulaye's ``Last Fairy Tales,'' Hauff's ``The Inn in the
Spessart,'' Julia Goddard's ``Golden Weathercock,'' Frere's
``Eastern Fairy Legends,'' Asbjornsen's ``Folk Tales,'' Susan
Pindar's ``Midsummer Fays,'' Nisbit Bain's ``Cossack Fairy
Tales,'' etc., etc.
I fell asleep with a copy of Villamaria's fairy stories in my
hands, and I had a delightful dream wherein, under the protection
and guidance of my fairy godmother, I undertook the rescue of a
beautiful princess who had been enchanted by a cruel witch and
was kept in prison by the witch's son, a hideous ogre with seven
heads, whose companions were four equally hideous dragons.
This undertaking in which I was engaged involved a period of five
years, but time is of precious little consideration to one when
he is dreaming of exploits achieved in behalf of a beautiful
princess. My fairy godmother (she wore a mob-cap and was
hunchbacked) took good care of me, and conducted me safely
through all my encounters with demons, giants, dragons, witches,
serpents, hippogriffins, ogres, etc.; and I had just rescued the
princess and broken the spell which bound her, and we were about
to ``live in peace to the end of our lives,'' when I awoke to
find it was all a dream, and that the gas-light over my bed had
been blazing away during the entire period of my five-year war
for the delectable maiden.
This incident gives me an opportunity to say that observation has
convinced me that all good and true book-lovers practise the
pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed. Indeed, I
fully believe with Judge Methuen that no book can be appreciated
until it has been slept with and dreamed over. You recall,
perhaps, that eloquent passage in his noble defence of the poet
Archias, wherein Cicero (not Kikero) refers to his own pursuit of
literary studies: ``Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem
oblectant; secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium
praebent; delectant domi, non impediunt foris; PERNOCTANT
nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur!''
By the gods! you spoke tally, friend Cicero; for it is indeed so,
that these pursuits nourish our earlier and delight our later
years, dignifying the minor details of life and affording a
perennial refuge and solace; at home they please us and in no
vocation elsewhere do they embarrass us; they are with us by
night, they go with us upon our travels, and even upon our
retirement into the country do they accompany us!
I have italicized pernoctant because it is that word which
demonstrates beyond all possibility of doubt that Cicero made a
practice of reading in bed. Why, I can almost see him now,
propped up in his couch, unrolling scroll after scroll of his
favorite literature, and enjoying it mightily, too, which
enjoyment is interrupted now and then by the occasion which the
noble reader takes to mutter maledictions upon the slave who has
let the lamp run low of oil or has neglected to trim the wick.
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