|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 12
There is another word which Cicero uses--for I have still
somewhat more to say of that passage from the oration ``pro
Archia poeta''--the word ``rusticantur,'' which indicates that
civilization twenty centuries ago made a practice of taking books
out into the country for summer reading. ``These literary
pursuits rusticate with us,'' says Cicero, and thus he presents
to us a pen-picture of the Roman patrician stretched upon the
cool grass under the trees, perusing the latest popular romance,
while, forsooth, in yonder hammock his dignified spouse swings
slowly to and fro, conning the pages and the colored plates of
the current fashion journal. Surely in the telltale word
``rusticantur'' you and I and the rest of human nature find a
worthy precedent and much encouragement for our practice of
loading up with plenty of good reading before we start for the
scene of our annual summering.
As for myself, I never go away from home that I do not take a
trunkful of books with me, for experience has taught me that
there is no companionship better than that of these friends, who,
however much all things else may vary, always give the same
response to my demand upon their solace and their cheer. My
sister, Miss Susan, has often inveighed against this practice of
mine, and it was only yesterday that she informed me that I was
the most exasperating man in the world.
However, as Miss Susan's experience with men during the
sixty-seven hot summers and sixty-eight hard winters of her life
has been somewhat limited, I think I should bear her criticism
without a murmur. Miss Susan is really one of the kindest
creatures in all the world. It is her misfortune that she has
had all her life an insane passion for collecting crockery, old
pewter, old brass, old glass, old furniture and other trumpery of
that character; a passion with which I have little sympathy. I
do not know that Miss Susan is prouder of her collection of all
this folderol than she is of the fact that she is a spinster.
This latter peculiarity asserts itself upon every occasion
possible. I recall an unpleasant scene in the omnibus last
winter, when the obsequious conductor, taking advantage of my
sister's white hair and furrowed cheeks, addressed that estimable
lady as ``Madam.'' I'd have you know that my sister gave the
fellow to understand very shortly and in very vigorous English
(emphasized with her blue silk umbrella) that she was Miss Susan,
and that she did not intend to be Madamed by anybody, under any
condition.
IV
THE MANIA OF COLLECTING SEIZES ME
Captivity Waite never approved of my fondness for fairy
literature. She shared the enthusiasm which I expressed whenever
``Robinson Crusoe'' was mentioned; there was just enough
seriousness in De Foe's romance, just enough piety to appeal for
sympathy to one of Captivity Waite's religious turn of mind.
When it came to fiction involving witches, ogres, and flubdubs,
that was too much for Captivity, and the spirit of the little
Puritan revolted.
Yet I have the documentary evidence to prove that Captivity's
ancestors (both paternal and maternal) were, in the palmy
colonial times, as abject slaves to superstition as could well be
imagined. The Waites of Salem were famous persecutors of
witches, and Sinai Higginbotham (Captivity's great-great-
grandfather on her mother's side of the family) was Cotton
Mather's boon companion, and rode around the gallows with that
zealous theologian on that memorable occasion when five young
women were hanged at Danvers upon the charge of having tormented
little children with their damnable arts of witchcraft. Human
thought is like a monstrous pendulum: it keeps swinging from one
extreme to the other. Within the compass of five generations we
find the Puritan first an uncompromising believer in demonology
and magic, and then a scoffer at everything involving the play of
fancy.
I felt harshly toward Captivity Waite for a time, but I harbor
her no ill-will now; on the contrary, I recall with very tender
feelings the distant time when our sympathies were the same and
when we journeyed the pathway of early youth in a companionship
sanctified by the innocence and the loyalty and the truth of
childhood. Indeed, I am not sure that that early friendship did
not make a lasting impression upon my life; I have thought of
Captivity Waite a great many times, and I have not unfrequently
wondered what might have been but for that book of fairy tales
which my Uncle Cephas sent me.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|