The Deck-Chair

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 6, 2 October 1937, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Deck-Chair

((■wi isr USING in the garden awhile, as Byron mused at Marathon, U /I 1 dwe lt with satisfaction upon the simplicity and effectiveness %/ | of the common deck-chair,” writes Quintus Quiz in the “Christ b 7 £ ti an Century.”

“A few sticks, a stretch of canvas, and there you are! You might spend fabulous sums and come no nearer to the perfect chair. Here at least Providence has been kind in making the best chair to be also the cheapest. It is the best, not only in its resistance to what a learned friend describes as ‘super-incumbent mass,’ but in its durability. “And why is it best? Simply because the first unknown designers did not ignore the frame of man. They made-a chair for man ‘being what he is.’ They said to themselves: ‘A chair has one primary end. It is meant to be sat upon, it is true that it may be used for other ends, it may even be a support to an orator, or a property in a game; but first, it is meant to be a seat for man.'

“You will agree that this primary end has often been ignored. I have sat upon chairs constructed in the Gothic style, and very beautiful they were, but uncomfortable beyond endurance. Indeed, the chairs which have come down from medieval times are silent witnesses to the powers of endurance of our fathers. Yet even they did sit down. When they spoke with authority they were said to speak ‘ex cathedra,’ and their kings were seated on most magnificent thrones, but, for comfort, I think the deck-chair would be preferable.

“Everyone who lives a busy life should have at least one chair in which he can subside and take things easy. No man has any right to be always alert and watchful and erect. Sometimes he may be allowed to sink back into his favourite chair and cease to be a Thinker or Leader, or Head of a

Business, and, in a word dear to William James, unclamp. His utterances will not then be ‘ex cathedra,’ nor will the others expect him to be wise and balanced in his words. Even the solemn preacher will be a cause of inno cent merriment. He will be in what was formerly called an easy chair.

"There are friends whom we remember in that mood. We are glad that we knew them not only in their public appearances, but in those evening hours when they would talk easily and merrily out of the shelter of their favourite chair. There was a poet once with a modest fame, Eliza Cook, who wrote a poem—

“ ‘I love it, I love it, And who shall dare To chide me for loving That old armchair?’

“These lines as poetry are open to criticism, but there is nothing in the sentiment that is contemptible. It was the armchair in which her grandmother had sat in the last long chapter of her life, and such associations are worthy of a place in the treasury of our memories.

“Man is a creature who ought to be a pilgrim and a soldier in the march and a traveller with his eyes on the far horizon. Yes! We agree with all that. Yet man cannot always be on the move. There are times in which he ought to take his ease, and be simply a friend and companion. Even in the allegory of Bunyan the pilgrims did sometimes have a time of peace. They sat down, and for that they were all the better pilgrims.

“You will agree, I know, that the thesis witii which I began needs no proof. The deck-chair is a sinking example of economy of effects, achieved by a scientific and style-minded craftsman.”-