and canoes are tied up at the dock, the tennis-courts are emptied, and the
simple exercise of swimming is forbidden. This desuetude of natural and
smiling recreation on a day intended for surcease of labor struck me (for
I am in part an ancient Greek, in part a mediaeval Florentine) as strangely
irreligious. All day the organ rumbles in the Amphitheatre (and of this I
approved, because I love the way in which an organ shakes you into
sanctity), and many meetings are held in various sectarian houses, the
mood of which is doubtless reverent--though all the while the rippling
water beckons to the high and dry canoes, and a gathering of many-tinted
clouds is summoned in the windy west to tingle with Olympian laughter and
Universal song. How much more wisely (if I may talk in Greek terms for the
moment) the gods take Sunday, than their followers on this forgetful
earth!

But we must change the mood if I am to speak again of what amused me in
the pagan days of my initiation at Chautauqua. Life, for instance, at the
ginger-bread hotel amused me oddly. To one who lives in a metropolis
throughout the working months, the map of eating at Chautauqua seems
incongruous. Dinner is served in the middle of the day, at an hour when
one is hardly encouraged to the thought of luncheon; and at six P.M. a
sort of breakfast is set forth, which is denominated _Supper_. This Supper
consists of fruit, followed by buckwheat cakes, followed by meat or eggs;
and to eat one's way through it induces a curious sense of standing on
one's head. After two days I discovered a remedy for this undesired
dizziness. I turned the _menu_ upside down, and ordered a meal in the
reverse order. The Supper itself was a success; but the waitress (who, in
the winter, teaches school in Texas) disapproved of what she deemed my
frivolous proceeding. Her eyes took on an inward look beneath the
pedagogical eye-glasses; and there was a distinct furrowing of her
forehead. Thereafter I did not dare to overturn the _menu_, but ate my way
heroically backward. After all, our prandial prejudices are merely the
result of custom. There is no real reason why stewed prunes should not be
eaten at three A.M.

But this philosophical reflection reminds me that there is no such hour at
Chautauqua. At ten P.M. a carol of sweet chimes is rung from the Italian
_campanile_; and at that hour all good Chautauquans go to bed. If you are
by profession (let us say) a writer, and are accustomed