Florida Pier : writings and about / jmcvey.net
Some Delusive Joys
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (October 1, 1910) : 30
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There are certain things that must be done every three or four years in order to be reminded of their wholly unattractive traits. They seem to have the faculty of taking on a false charm, and of passing successfully as things that you have always longed to do. It is only on a repetition of them that you are again disillusioned and know them in their hollowness. Wading is a glaring example, and it is with pleasure exposed. It is frankly admitted that wading ought to be the most lyrical of experiences. That it is not is just one of those things stupidly and regularly forgotten. Any one who has forgotten the last time she waded and is falling once more under the charm of the idea of wading is expected to be properly grateful for this timely warning. It is frankly admitted that wading ought to be the most lyrical of experiences. That it is not is just one of those things stupidly and regularly forgotten. The dimpling water, glinting pebbles, willows, tiny trout, and hazy screen of things read about brooks and their enjoyment might all be resisted, or at least delighted in, dry shod. But the idea that wading is one of the things that one likes best, that one has always from early childhood adored it, tricks one into the most chill, inconvenient, and flat of diversions.
There one sits, conscious that no other part of one matches those ridiculous, dabbling feet, at a loss to explain how one got in so pointless a predicament. Which extremity is most ill at ease it is difficult to say. One’s mind has little patience with this pastoral burst on the part of two members habitually forgotten, and one’s feet feel their effort at individual enjoyment has not been a success, and blame it entirely on the lack of sympathy in their critical owner. It is difficult to be sportive in the presence of sane people, and it is hardly to be wondered at if the brook is left hurriedly, eyes and toes averted, both deeply aggrieved that they cannot part company at the waist and go off in different directions.
Wading is only an example. There are other things. Wading is only an example. There are other things.Dickens is one of them, and Christmas dinners is a third. Sleeping out-of-doors is one so daring in its appeal even after a recent trial that it requires great patience to write of it at all. The marvel of it all, the thing that makes the subject worthy of our attention, is the persistency of the appeal possessed by these events we ought to know we actively and without an upsetting exception dislike. We never have slept out-of-doors, we have lain in a marvellous world of stars and fearsomely cracking things, until we could have cried with sleep, cold, and discomfort, but we never did sleep, and the next morning always found us tragic figures whom it was well to treat with silent respect. Yet let a mere month pass, and the phrase “sleeping out-of-doors” dilates our nostrils. In six months’ time we regard ourselves as wild woodland spirits, caged against our wills, the better part of our nature slowly dying for lack of a night in its proper element.
How do some things manage to make us forget the boredom and disillusionment they brought? How do some things manage to make us forget the boredom and disillusionment they brought? How can they make us come to them with fresh enthusiasm and what we regard as the fondest of recollections time after time, until we look ahead to a lifetime dotted by this irresistible cozenage? The tenderness with which we regard Dickens and the sincerity of our desire and intention to reread him is equalled only by our pain and embarrassment when we do. We suffer at what appears a diminishment in our merits or his, and we might be permanently saddened were it not for the rapidity with which we again regard him as a source of quaint delight, long unread through force of unfortunate circumstances, not, most certainly, because of any other reason.
Perhaps it is that all these things that seem so good are in reality so, and when we are at sufficient distance not to bring them into contrast with our modern lacks, requirements, nerves, and need of fitness, and form for even a spirit we in the abstract approve of, we catch their flavor, and are right and truthful in our loyalty to them. and the people who loudly remember what they dislike, in the actual experience, and never run the risk of forgetting... The same things brought into contact with us are no longer the same things, and we must not be hurt or unduly disappointed at the mutual regret over what is on both sides a strained situation.
We put the things not of our temperament out of focus, which makes our continued belief in their beauty, in spite of our inherent inability to see them correctly, a matter wholly praiseworthy. The rapidity with which we contrive to deny our distorted view of them on any thing like a close inspection is food for permissible congratulation, and the people who loudly remember what they dislike, in the actual experience, and never run the risk of forgetting, seem somehow not at all compensated by the rarity of their disillusionment.
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