I shall be leading a
more natural life than if I take to hedger's work or plant cacao in
mud-swamps."

HOLIDAY READING

[_4 Aug. '10_]

I came away for a holiday without any books, except one, and I cut off the
whole of my supply of newspapers, except one. As a rule my baggage is most
injurious to railway porters, and on the Continent very costly, because of
the number of books and neckties it contains. I wear the neckties, but I
never read the books. I am always meaning to read them, but something is
always preventing me. Before starting, the awful thought harasses me:
Supposing I wanted to read and I had naught! This time I decided that it
would be agreeably perilous to run the risk. The unique book which I
packed was the sixth volume of Montaigne in the Temple Classics edition.
We are all aware, from the writings of Mr. A.B. Walkley, Sir William
Robertson Nicoll, Mr. Hall Caine, and others, what a peerless companion is
Montaigne; how in Montaigne there is a page to suit every mood; how the
most diverse mentalities--the pious, the refined, the libertine, the
philosophic, the egoistic, the altruistic, the merely silly--may find in
him the food of sympathy. I knew I should be all right with Montaigne. I
invariably read in bed of a night (unless paying in my temples the price
of excess), and nobody who ever talked about bed-books has succeeded in
leaving out Montaigne from his list. My luggage cost much less than usual.
I positively looked forward to reading Montaigne. Yet when the first night
in a little French hotel arrived, and I had perched the candle on the top
of the ewer on the night-table in order to get it high enough, I
discovered that instead of Montaigne I was going to read a verbatim
account of a poisoning trial in the Paris _Journal_. That is about three
weeks ago, and I have not yet opened my Montaigne. I have, however, talked
enthusiastically to sundry French people about Montaigne, and explained to
them that Florio's translation is at least equal to the original, and that
Montaigne is truly beloved and understood in England alone.

* * * * *

It was on the second day of my holiday, in another small provincial town
in Central France, where I was improving my mind and fitting myself for
cultured society in London by the contemplation of cathedrals, that I came
across, in a draper's and fancy-ware shop, a remaindered stock of French
fiction, at 4-1/2d. the volume. A