Part 8 (2/2)
It would be worth while to recite ”King Lear,” ”Macbeth,” ”Othello,”
”Hamlet,” ”The Tempest,” and ”As You Like It,” the last week of the year just before I take my vacation of teeks If I can recite even these six plays in those six evenings I shall feel that I did well in deciding for Shakespeare instead of tiddledywinks
Next year I shall read history, and that will be rare fun, too In the nine hundred hours I shall certainly be able to read all of Fiske, Mo, Bryce, Hart, Motley, Gibbon, and von Holst not to mention American statesmen
About the Ides of December I shall hold a levee and sit in state as the characters of history file by I shall be able to call thes they did and why they did them, and to connect their deeds with the world as it now is I can't conceive of any picture-show equal to that, and all through erly to hbors will not need to bring in any playthings to arateful to them for their kindly interest Then, the next year I shall devote tofor nine hundred hours, I cannot acquire a good degree of facility ina piano or a violin, I must be too dull to ever aspire to the favor of Terpsichore If I butthis year I shall be saved the expense of buying my music ready- one entire evening with a single artist I shall thus become acquainted with three hundred of them If I become intimate with this number I shall not be lonesoive an art party at the holiday time of that year, and have three hundred people iood review of ate receipts of the picture-show for a few evenings, but I suspect the world will be able to wag along
Then the next year I shall study poetry, the next astronomy, and the next botany Thus I shall come to know the plants of earth, the stars of heaven, and the eht to ward off ennui and afford entertain twelve years I shall want to acquire as uistic attainments even if I must yield to hie and read the literature of that language each year, possibly soree for work _in absentia_ If not, I shall poke along the best I can and try to drown rief in more copious drafts of work
And I shall have quite enough to do, for mathematics, the sciences, and the arts and crafts all lie ahead of ame of tiddledywinks and solitaire But I'll have fun anyhow If I gain a half-year in each twelve-raain of thirty-five years Then, when Atropos co I have reached h in her face and let her know, between laughs, that I am really one hundred and five, and have played a thirty-five-year joke on her Then I shall quote Bacon at her to clinch the joke: ”Ain years but old in hours if he have lost no time”
CHAPTER xxx
FOUR-LEAF CLOVER
I have no ambition to become either a cynic, a pessimist, or an iconoclast To aspire in either of these directions is bad for the digestion, and good digestion is the foundation and source of much that is desirable in human affairs Introspection has its uses, to be sure, but the stomach should have exemption as an objective A stomach is a valuable asset if only one is not conscious of it One of the e is the opportunity it affords for co with elect souls whose very presence is a tonic Will is one of these He has a way of shunting my introspection over to the track of the head or the heart He just talks along and the first thing I know the heart is singing its way through and above the storm, while the head has been connected up to the heart, and they are doing teaood for all whothe hy couplet is:
”I'll dropaway”
I co that couplet, for I like it In a human sense, that is just what happens when I chat with Will for an hour
When I ask hiives ood, white bread, and a bit of cake, besides
In one of our chats the other day he was dilating upon Henry van dyke's four rules, and very soon had banished all ht When I get around to evolving a definition of education I think I shall say that it is the process of furnishi+ng people with resources for profitable and pleasant conversation Why, those four rules just oozed into the talk, without any sort of flutter or forreeable and fruitful Henry Ward Beecher said ht in the school reader in ht can have friends all about hi safely by the help of its rays and he be not defrauded” Education is just such a lantern and this schoolht to the friends about him
Well, the first of van dyke's rules is: ”You shall learn to desire nothing in the world so much but that you can be happy without it”
I do wonder if he had been reading in Proverbs: ”Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith” Or hethe statement of St Paul: ”For I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content” Or, possibly, heof the lines of Paul Laurence Dunbar,
”Soarden ht upon the tree Takes all my fruit away from me; And then with throes of bitter pain Rebellious passions rise and swell-- But life is , and all is well”
I ah to be fond of milk and crackers as a luncheon; but I have just a dash of the patrician in my make-up and prefer the milk unskimmed Sometimes, I find that the creaher, uses and that my crackers must associate perforce with milk of cerulean hue Such a situation is a severe test of character, and I ahway I may find some support in the philosophy of Mr van dyke
I suspect that he is trying to make me understand that happiness is subjective rather than objective--that happiness depends not upon e have, but upon e do e have I couldn't be an anarchist if I'd try I don't grudge the millionaire his turtle soup and caviar But I do feel a bit sorry for him that he does not knohat a royal feast crackers and unski and the anarchist would but join et his crown and the anarchist his plots, and we'd be just three good fellows together, living at the very su that all men could be as happy as we
The next rule is a condensed moral code: ”You shall seek that which you desire only by such means as are fair and lawful, and this will leave you without bitterness toward men or shame before God” No one could possibly dissent frorocer lad he does Otherwise, he would have to close his grocery and that would inconvenience ht to thank hied so invitingly, and for waiting upon me so promptly and so politely I can't really see how any custoht, tells the exact truth as to the quality of the goods, and in all things is fair and lawful I have no quarrel with him and cannot understand why others should, unless they are less fair, lawful, and agreeable than the grocer hirocer and the butcher take on the color of the glasses we happen to be wearing, and that Mr van dyke is adlasses and to keep them clean
The third rule needs to be read at least twice if not oftener: ”You shall take pleasure in the tih you obtain not immediately that which you seek; for the purpose of a journey is not only to arrive at the goal, but also to find enjoy in automobiles at the ether the et to the end of their journey, where a five-cent bag of peanuts awaited theh the streets of Tacolorious cluster of five beautiful roses on a single branch in that attractive lawn Because of them I always think of Tacoma as the city of roses, for I stopped to look at theotten the objective point ofout from Florence on a tram-car to see the ancient Fiesole I plucked a branch from an olive-tree from the platfor olives, the first I had ever seen I have but the haziest recollection of the old theatre and the subterranean passages where Catiline and his crowd had their rendezvous; but I do recall that olive branch most distinctly I cannot improve upon Doctor van dyke's statement of the rule, but I can interpret it in ter it I aht
The fourth rule is worthy of meditation and prayer; ”When you attain that which you have desired, you shall think reatness of your skill This will rateful and ready to share with others that which Providence hath bestowed upon you; and truly this is both reasonable and profitable, for it is but little that any of us would catch in this world were not our luck better than our deserts” I shall omit the lesson in arith, using these four rules as the basis of our lesson My boys and girls are to have ht start if I can Soht have been avoided if , for it is an art and must be learned These rules would have helped, could I have known thelad to know that my pupils have faith in me When I pointed out a nettle to them one day, they avoided it; when I showed them a mushroom that is edible, they accepted the statement without question So I'll see what I can do for them to-morroith these four rules Then, if we have tiinson:
”I know a place where the sun is like gold, And the cherry blooms burst with snow, And down underneath is the loveliest nook, Where the four-leaf clovers grow
One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, And one is for love, you know, And God put another in for luck-- If you search, you will find where they grow