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By CHARLES HANSON TOWNE

(1877—). Managing editor ofMcClure's Magazine.He has written many delightful books, among which are:The Quiet Singer, and Other Poems; Jolly Jaunts with Jim; Autumn Loiterers; Shaking Hands with England.

Over two hundred years ago Joseph Addison imagined a character whom he called “The Spectator” meeting with various friends and discussing with them the life of the times. Through what was said by these imaginary beings Addison gave his own shrewd comments on foibles and follies. Mr. Towne's “young-old philosopher” is a sort of modern “Spectator.” He talks of the drudgery of work, and the glowing joy of a holiday, and comes to the sudden realization that the world is a world of work in which every one must play his part if he is to have real contentment. The essay is Mr. Towne's comment both on a life of unvaried drudgery and on a life of idleness.“I have wondered what it would seem like to be ... jogging along with nowhere to go save where one pleased.”

“I have wondered what it would seem like to be ... jogging along with nowhere to go save where one pleased.”

The young-old philosopher was speaking.

“I had a strange experience yesterday. To have spent twenty years or so at office work, and then suddenly to arrange one's affairs so that a portion of the week became one's own—that is an experience, isn't it?”

We admitted that it was an achievement to be envied.

“How did you manage it?” was the natural question.

“That is a detail of little importance,” he replied. “Let the fact of one's sudden liberty be the point dwelt upon. I found myself walking up the avenue at the miraculous hour of eleven in the morning, and not going to a desk! I was headed for the park, where I knew the trees had long since loaded their branches with leaves, and the grass was so green that it made the heart ache with its loveliness. You know how perfect yesterday was, a summer day to remember and to be grateful for.

“To you who have never known what it is to drudge day in and day out, this may seem a trifling thing to speak of. For myself, a miracle had happened. I could not believe that this golden hour was mine completely. I had never seen shop-windows with quite this slant of the sun on them. Always I had viewed them early or late, or wistfully at noon, when the streets were so crowded with other escaped office men that I could take no pleasure in what I beheld. Shop-windows at eleven in the morning were for the elect of the earth. That hour had always heretofore meant for me a manuscript to be read or edited, a conference to be attended, a telephone call to be answered, a visit from some one seeking advice—something, at any rate, that made it impossible for me to call it my own. I have looked often from a high window at that hour, and seen the people in the streets as they trailed like ribbons round and round the vast city, and I have wondered what it would seem like to be one of them, not hurrying on some commercial errand, but jogging along with nowhere to go save where one pleased.

“At last my dream had come true, and when I found myself projected upon that thrilling avenue, and realized that I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do until luncheon-time, and I could skip that if I wished, I could scarcely believe that it was I who had thus broken the traces.

“The green of the park greeted me, and, like Raleigh's cloak,[55]a gay pattern of flowers was laid at the entrance for even my unworthy feet metaphorically to tread. And to think that these bright blooms unfolded here day after day and I had so seldom seen them! An old man dozed on a bench near at hand, oblivious to the beauty around him; and a septuagenarian gardener leaned over the circular border, just as Narcissus[56]looked into the pool. Perhaps he saw some image of his youth in the uplifted face of a flower.

“I know that I saw paths and byways everywhere thatreminded me of my vanished boyhood; for I am one of those who have always lived in Manhattan, and some of the happiest days I ever spent were those in the park as a child, seeing the menagerie, feeding the squirrels, and rolling a hoop on a graveled pathway.

“I remembered Rossetti's line,[57]'I have been here before,' as I walked along on this exultant morning; and it indeed seemed as if in some previous incarnation, and not in this life, I had known my footsteps to take this perfumed way. For in the hurry of life and in the rush of our modern days we forget too soon the leisure of childhood, plunging as we do into the rough-and-tumble of an agonized manhood.

“And all this was while the park, like a green island set in a throbbing sea, had waited for me to come back to it! No lake isle of Innesfree[58]could have beguiled the poet more. Anchored at a desk, I had dreamed often of such an hour of freedom; and now that it was really mine, I determined that I would not analyze it, but that I would simply drink in its wonder. It would have been as criminal as to pluck a flower apart.

“Policemen went their weary rounds, swinging their sticks, and it suddenly came to me that even in this sylvan retreat there was stern labor to be done. Just as some one, some time, must sweep out a shrine,—possibly nowadays with a vacuum-cleaner!—so papers must be picked from God's grass, and pick-pockets must be diligently looked for in holiday crowds. Men on high and practical sprinkling-carts must keep the roadways clean, and emissaries of the law must see to it that motorists do not speed too fast. You think of ice-cream as being miraculously made in a park pavilion, and unless you visit the city woodland at the hour of eleven or so in the morning, you may keep your dream. But I beheld acommon ice-wagon back up to the door of that cherished house of my childhood, and a strong, rough fellow proved himself the connecting-link between the waitress and her eager little customers.

“At this hour it was as though I had gone behind the scenes of a theater while the stage-hands were busy about their necessary labors. Wiring had to be done,—I had forgotten that they have telephones even in the park,—and a mason was repairing a crumbling wall. How much better to let it crumble, I thought. But all my practicality, through my sense of strange freedom, had left me, and I was ardent for a mad, glad world, where for a long time there would be nothing for anybody to do. I wanted masons and policemen and icemen and nurse-maids and electricians and keepers of zoölogical gardens to be as free as I, forever and ever.

“You see, my unexpected holiday had gone to my head, and it was a summer morning, and I felt somehow that I ought to be working rather than loitering here.

“I suppose I shall be sane to-morrow, but I wonder if I want to be.”

And we all wondered if we didn't like him better when he was just this way, a child with a new toy, or, rather, a child with an old toy that he had almost but not quite forgotten how to play with.

1. School Athletics11. Selfishness2. Home Study12. School Spirit3. Exercise13. Good Manners4. Reading14. Playing Jokes5. Writing Letters15. Carefulness6. Aiding Others16. Honesty in School Work7. Politeness17. Thoughtfulness8. Using Reference Books18. Practising Music Lessons9. Going to Bed Early19. Looking Out for Number One10. Obedience20. “Bluffing”

When you have selected a subject that interests you, write out, in a single sentence, your one most important thought on that subject. Then plan to write an essay that will embody that thought.

If you are to imitate Mr. Towne's method you will think of a typical character who will express your own thought. As soon as you have introduced your character—notice how quickly Mr. Towne introduced the “young-old philosopher”—lead him to relate an experience that made him think about the subject. Write his meditations in such a way that they will show all view-points. Let the end of your essay indicate, rather than state, the view-point that you wish to emphasize.

Mr. Towne gives his essay many elements of originality and much beauty of thought and expression. Imitate his style as well as you can.

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