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The “My Room” Habit
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (July 1, 1911) : 21
hathitrust : link
same (University of Michigan scan, via google) : link
 

      In almost every family there is one person who has what can only be called the “my room” habit. Its development may very probably be the result of family life; or the attraction of one’s room may be as strong as it is because one cannot say “my house.” Or, again, it may be a mere matter of temperament. This is undoubtedly the true solution. If one has the “my room” habit it is because one is made that way. To sociable-minded people who enjoy wasting time and find that it can be more unconsciously and comfortably done in company with others there is something enraging about those who softly remark, “I think I will be going to my room now.” It is as though they drew their feet from the sloth of chummy indolence and confused chatter to ascend the stairs publicly to solitude and thought. They seem to enjoy extravagantly the being in their rooms and to find so much to do there. When they are down-stairs there is a condescending, temporary air about them, and one feels constantly pressed by the necessity of being uncommonly nice to them if they are to be retrained from that pitiless and rigorous ascension.
      It has never been absolutely proved that they do anything of great seriousness in their rooms, but one always suspects it. They read and study and write, or so one supposes, because they give every sign of preferring quiet, or requiring opportunities for concentration, and of receiving nourishment from those hours spent alone. People who enjoy being alone are always a little awe-inspiring, and to have such a person occur in one’s own family is almost too stimulating. If they have their best times by themselves, then one lessens their contentment by approaching them, and as for retaining them in the family circle, it can only be done by honest confessions all around that of course a family is but a mob and pretends to nothing more, but won’t the persons with the “my room” habit sink occasionally to human levels and chat with the rabble for a minute?
      If one establishes firmly this method of conducting one’s ways the result is almost as happy as though one were a busy person. The feeling goes through the house that one’s closed door fairly constitutes a sign of “Private,” and in time one is not asked to do tiresome things, because one has an appointment with one’s room which must not for any light reason by broken.

Funny Stories
      Funny stories are frequently funny. This makes it very difficult to say anything dogmatic about them, for at any moment one may find oneself not only uproariously laughing at a funny story, but cherishing it in one’s mind and chuckling over it in private and telling it to friends, and in all ways behaving as though one was precisely the type of person who likes funny stories. Yet in spite of this frequent enjoyment of them, it is staunchly maintained that there are people who laugh at things because they are funny and others who laugh at funny stories. The former are infinitely preferable to the latter — it is, of course, to the former class one belongs oneself — and the latter are a shade, just a shade — well, describable as people who laugh at funny stories. They would not like to be so described; they would hotly cry out against such injustice and say that they had a sense of humor or something equally irrelevant and foreign to the appreciation of a funny story. It is hard to put down their claim, as they do undoubtedly laugh at the precise place where you laugh, and this may be the very ground on which to refute them. They are addicted to funny stories for a number of reasons. They are almost invariably warned that a story is going to be funny, which helps considerably, letting them know as it does where they stand and what they are in for. It is startling on an explicit basis shared by others, and they like that. Then, as it generally takes some moments to tell a funny story, they are never startled when the point comes. They have had plenty of time in which to prepare themselves and arrive without jars at a state of apprehension, so that when the point is all obviously delivered they meet it with a hearty laugh and some pride that they were so easily able to do so. As nothing puts such a stop to conversation as a funny story there is always the pause afterward in which to recover and become comfortably readjusted before some else says, “That reminds me.”
 

28 August 2022