IXBEDSIDE BOOKS
I come to my subject in a sleepy mood. It seems a daring confession to make. But you will allow that only when one’s mind is bent on thoughts of sleep can one hope to speak fittingly of bedside books. ’Tis a subject calling for gentle, quiet thoughts. And what better state of mind? You remember Robert Louis Stevenson’s prayer, ‘Give us the quiet mind.’ How often has a similar prayer been offered! Too often are we disturbed in thought—harassed, perplexed, worried. Let us now turn our attention to books that soothe and lull to rest. Here they stand, ready to hand. But name them I dare not, save in my own heart. For your taste in this matter may be totally different from mine. I dare only say at this point—for here surely I may speak with confidence—that no bedside shelf is complete without a copy of Stevenson’s prayers. With gratitude I confess that of the many volumes which have comforted me during dark hours not one is so dear, so close to my heart, as thelittle volume bearing the golden letters R. L. S.
‘Be with our friends, be with ourselves. Go with each of us to rest. If any awake, temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when the day returns, return to us our sun and comforter, and call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts—eager to labour: eager to be happy, if happiness be our portion; and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure it.’ Certainly the prayers of R. L. S. should have a place on every bedside shelf. That you are familiar with the foregoing prayer, I cannot doubt. ‘Many are the golden passages the lover of good books has by heart.’ It may be that you have upon your own particular bedside shelf many ‘devotional authors’ with whose every word you are familiar—books, small and great, which are as jewels in your shelf. And no doubt you have upon the same shelf many every-day and every-hour books, acting, as it were, as a setting to your gems. For certainly the bedside shelf, if it is to be complete, must contain books to suit all moods. One cannot be certain in what mood the night watches will find one. The over-excited brain, for instance, needs its own particular medicine, and sometimes two, three, or more drugs are required, according to the state and nature of the patient. Inthe majority of cases it is futile to attempt a cure with a book less lively than the patient’s own brain. His abnormal condition must be righted by degrees. One book, or drug, must follow another, till his mind has been restored to a normal state. Then may he resort to his accustomed ‘rest books,’ and so fall asleep.
But I fear that such talk ‘smacks’ of the doctor and his medicine chest, and I desire to conjure up restful thoughts. Well may the reader be forgiven if he starts up in protest. Indeed, here is the difficulty and the danger of seeking to promote a restful condition. One is so apt to make, with the best intentions possible, a remark which has the reverse effect. There is, I say, the risk of naming a book which to the reader might come as a call to action—to daring deeds and mighty enterprises—a mood as far removed from slumber as the North Pole from the South.
I may, however, speak freely enough in the company of book-lovers who wake with the rising sun and take to themselves one of their beloved books. They will not resent my likes and dislikes—they who open the day with a ‘jolly good book.’ In their company I may confess that for the early morning I prefer a book with plenty of ‘go’ in it. Give melife and spirit and enterprise. Thus may I hope to retain some measure of the buoyancy of youth. It is good to have been young in youth, and, as the years go, to growyounger. ‘Many,’ it is written, ‘are already old before they are through their teens; but to travel deliberately through one’s ages is to get the heart out of a liberal education. Times change, opinions vary to their opposite, and still the world appears a brave gymnasium, full of sea-bathing, and horse exercise, and bracing, manly virtues; and what can be more encouraging than to find the friend who was welcome at one age welcome at another?’
LetWestward Ho!stand on your bedside shelf, and many other books of the same brave and lively order—‘the travel and adventure books of our spirited youth.’ These, if you meet fresh days with a book, will brace you for the battle. Stevenson must, of course, remain one of your companions—your faithful friend both night and morning. Bravery he will give you, and grace also.
Forth from the casement, on the plainWhere honour has the world to gain,Pour forth and bravely do your part,O knights of the unshielded heart!Forth and for ever forward!—outFrom prudent turret and redoubt,And in the mellay charge amainTo fall, but yet to rise again!Captive? Ah, still, to honour bright,A captive soldier of the right!Or free and fighting, good with ill?Unconquering but unconquered still!
Forth from the casement, on the plainWhere honour has the world to gain,Pour forth and bravely do your part,O knights of the unshielded heart!Forth and for ever forward!—outFrom prudent turret and redoubt,And in the mellay charge amainTo fall, but yet to rise again!Captive? Ah, still, to honour bright,A captive soldier of the right!Or free and fighting, good with ill?Unconquering but unconquered still!
Forth from the casement, on the plainWhere honour has the world to gain,Pour forth and bravely do your part,O knights of the unshielded heart!Forth and for ever forward!—outFrom prudent turret and redoubt,And in the mellay charge amainTo fall, but yet to rise again!Captive? Ah, still, to honour bright,A captive soldier of the right!Or free and fighting, good with ill?Unconquering but unconquered still!
Forth from the casement, on the plain
Where honour has the world to gain,
Pour forth and bravely do your part,
O knights of the unshielded heart!
Forth and for ever forward!—out
From prudent turret and redoubt,
And in the mellay charge amain
To fall, but yet to rise again!
Captive? Ah, still, to honour bright,
A captive soldier of the right!
Or free and fighting, good with ill?
Unconquering but unconquered still!
And mark again with what ‘manly grace’ and beauty of expression Stevenson turns our thoughts to the ‘Giver of all strength.’
‘Give us grace and strength to bear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another.’
If there is a more helpful bedside author than Stevenson, I should much like to make his acquaintance. To few is it given to speak ‘the word that cheers’ with such a fine combination of tenderness and courage.
‘It is a commonplace,’ he says, ‘that we cannot answer for ourselves before we have been tried. But it is not so common a reflection,and surely more consoling, that we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better than we thought. I believe this is every one’s experience; but an apprehension that they may belie themselves in the future prevents mankind from trumpeting this cheerful sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would have saved me much trouble, there had been some one to put me in a good heart about life when I was younger; to tell me how dangers are most portentous on a distant sight; and how the good in a man’s spirit will not suffer itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in the hour of need.’
To the troubled, relaxed mind such words come as a bracing tonic. Too often have we passed sleepless hours for the want of a word in season—something to put a little ‘grit’ into us for the duties of the morrow. Where the average mortal is concerned Stevenson certainly supplies that need. Should he by any chance fail—well, there is an essayist of our own day, waiting to minister to the most exacting needs. I have in mind the many beautiful and tender pages written by one whom we associate with a certain college window. Certainly of him it may be said that he seeks to comfort and console, and to soothe and lull to rest.