Reading in Bed.

Lake County Press, Issue 904, 29 March 1900, Page 2

Reading in Bed.

ir I am ever so unwise as to grati y “ mine enemy” by writing a boos, l earnestly hope that it may fall into the haiads of some prominent book-reviewei who is in the habit of doing the most or his reading in bed. Then, whether it be a treatise on psychological phenomena or a shilling shocker, a tale of the raging main by a land-lubber, who does not know a three-masted schooner catboat, or that most tedious thing w all, a novel with a purpose, I should feel sure of lenient treatment, and, ten chances to one, a favourable verdict. There is a great deal to he said in favour of reading in bed ; we are all familiar with the arguments against it. In the first place, it has the distinct charm of being considered a bad habit; in the second place, it is universally condemned by the medical faculty. There is something peculiarly subtle and attractive in doing anything that is frowned upon by one’s physician. It is forbidden fruit with au epicurean flavour. The mind undergoes a marvellous change as soon as the body is divested of its customary clothing. The mere fact of being swathed in the bedclothing gives you a feeling of tolerance. You seem to be all soul. Note, for instance, the wide intellectual scope you attain if you lie in bed in the morning instead of responding to the breakfast bell. If you rise, you must at once be-, gin to occupy yourself with the petty cares of the day—bathing, dressing, won J dering if the cook will have your coffee just right and your toast a tempting brown. If you remain in bed, in that half-atvake, blissful state which comes at such a time, you plan no end of usefulness and spiritual deeds. You do countloss benevolent things ; you forgive the 1 cutting sarcasm of your bosom friend ; you regard with composure the fact that you laid down three aces the night before only to find that your opponent raked in the pot with a bob-tailed flush, or that your mother-in-law is about to' pay you her annual visit Even that letter, which, read at 10 o’clock yesterday morning, made you feel that life was' not worth living, simply because the fair writer intimated that she could be nothing more than a sister to you, loses much of its bitterness, and you reflect that there Is a deal of comfort in bachelor freedom, after all. Reading in bed is the golden bridge over which we pass from wakefulness to the land of dreams without having the day’s misdeeds pass in spectral review before us—that bad quarter of an hour which comes to the very best of us ! And even when you have been guilty of something unusually atrocious, such as unloading a few shares on a friend, or forgetting to return a borrowed umbrella, a book still acts as an anodyne. Seated, dressed, in an easy chair, you sneer at the high moral ground taken by the author ; you treat with a derisive . smile the tears of the heroine or the martial airs of the hero ; and when, near the end of the volume, you come upon the sudden death of the villain and the married-and-lived-happily-after fate of the hero and the heroine, you are apt, in a spasm of disgust, to shy it into the grate. But lying in bed. you are too tolerant to sneer. You are prepared to accept not only the sudden death, but the finding of the Inst will, which completes the happiness of the aforesaid married pair, in the recesses of the old kitchen clock, or the sudden return of the rich uncle from Australian goldfields, who scatters his wealth with a kingly prodigality.

Tlio hero, stretching himself vertically to the ceiling to emphasise his haughty scorn of the villain, or prostrating himself at the feet of the heroine to declare his love, does not cause a single cynical curve of the lip ; on the contrary, it seems quite the proper thing, and nothing more than you would do yourself under like circumstances. And thus you mingle your spirit with the author's weep with his heroines, and march with his heroes to your heart's content. Although any author, from Henry James to Sylvanus Cobb, jun.. acquires a fresh charm from being read in bed, there are certain writers whose productions lend themselves more readily to this sweet influence than others. In fact, they cannot be read with any degree of patience anywhere else. Novels that deal with some new theology or some phase of the everlasting woman question —from suffrage, the higher education, and marital rights, down to the naive articles in the weekly paper, "Precious Hours,'" which tell you how " we surprised clear papa" by constructing an easy-chair out of an ash-barrel, or how we converted a tomato can into a walpocket with some gold paint and a few yards of baby-blue ribbon. Men. coming across such publications as these, are at a loss to understand how any sane human being can waste their time over them. That is because they do not read them, where they are especially adapted to be read, and where nine-tenths 'of their feminine subscribers do read them —in bed. There their full flavour comes out. You can read a mixture of " The Heavenly Twins," "The Yellow Aster." and " The Woman Who Did," rolled into one, and. with a sympathy born of the soft environment of the bed-clothing, be so fired with the zeal of the author that you then and there resolve to throw off the shackles selfish man has throughout the centuries riveted upon you. or you can sink to the sweetly feminine level of " Precious Hours." and become engrossed in plans for refurbishing the sit-ting-room at an infinitesimal outlay. Yes, I repeat my hope that, if I should ever be so bold as to launch my frail bark on the sea of literature, the reviews thereof may be written by critics, who are addicted to the baleful habit of rea '.-' Ing in bed. And then, possessing my soul in patience, I shall await without a single misgiving the favourable notices my book will be sure to receive.—Emma O. Phlnn, in " N. Y. Home Journal."