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WHAT SHALL I THINK ABOUT? 285

ESSAYS ON THINGS

SUNRISE

At an uncertain hour before dawn in February 1912, as I lay asleep in my room on the top floor of a hotel in the town of Mentone, in Southern France, I was suddenly awakened by the morning star. It was shining with inquisitive splendour directly into my left eye. At that quiet moment, in the last stages of the dying night, this star seemed enormous. It hung out of the velvet sky so far that I thought it was going to fall, and I went out on the balcony of my room to see it drop. The air was windless and mild, and, instead of going back to bed, I decided to stay on the balcony and watch the unfolding drama of the dawn. For every clear dawn in this spectacular universe is a magnificent drama, rising to a superb climax.

The morning stars sang together and I heard the sons of God shouting for joy. The chief morning star, the one that had roused me from slumber, recited a splendid prologue. Then, as the night paled and the lesser stars withdrew, some of the minor characters in the play began to appear and take their respective parts. The grey background turned red, then gold. Long shafts of preliminary light shot up from the eastern horizon, and then, when the stage was all set, and the minor characters had completed their assigned r?les, the curtains suddenly parted and the sun--the Daystar--the star of the play, entered with all the panoply of majesty. And as I stood there and beheld this incomparable spectacle, and gazed over the mountains, the meadows and the sea, the words of Shakespeare came into my mind:

Full many a glorious morning have I seen, Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye. Kissing with golden face the meadows green. Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.

It is a pity that more people do not see the sunrise. Many do not get up early enough, many do not stay up late enough. Out of the millions and millions of men, women and children on this globe only a comparatively few see the sunrise, and I dare say there are many respectable persons who have never seen it at all. One really should not go through life without seeing the sun rise at least once, because, even if one is fortunate enough to be received at last into heaven, there is one sight wherein this vale of tears surpasses the eternal home of the saints. "There is no night there," hence there can be no dawn, no sunrise; it is therefore better to make the most of it while we can.

As a man feels refreshed after a night's sleep and his morning bath, so the sun seems to rise out of the water like a giant renewed. Milton gave us an excellent description:

So sinks the daystar in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

DAY!

Faster and more fast, O'er night's brim, day boils at last: Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim, Where spurting and suppressed it lay, For not a froth-flake touched the rim Of yonder gap in the solid gray Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; But forth one wavelet, then another, curled. Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

The sunset has a tranquil beauty but to me there is in it always a tinge of sadness, of the sadness of farewell, of the approach of darkness. This mood is expressed in the old hymn which in my childhood I used to hear so often in church:

Fading, still fading, the last beam is shining, Father in heaven! the day is declining. Safety and innocence fly with the light, Temptation and danger walk forth with the night.

Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning, saith the Holy Book. The sunrise has not only inexpressible majesty and splendour, but it has the rapture of promise, the excitement of beginning again. Yesterday has gone forever, the night is over and we may start anew. To how many eyes, weary with wakefulness in the long watches of the night, or flushed with fever, is the first glimmer of the dawn welcome. The night makes every fear and worry worse than the reality, it magnifies every trivial distress. Mark Twain said the night brought madness--none of us is quite sane in the darkness. That particular regret for yesterday or apprehension for tomorrow that strikes you like a whiplash in the face at 2:45 A.M. dwindles into an absurdity in the healthy dawn.

Mark Twain, who had expressed the difference between the night and the morning tragically, also expressed it humorously. He said that when he was lying awake in the middle of the night he felt like an awful sinner, he hated himself with a horrible depression and made innumerable good resolutions; but when at 7:30 he was shaving himself he felt just as cheerful, healthy and unregenerate as ever.

MOLASSES

Well, I was brought up on bread and molasses. Very often that was all we had for supper. I well remember, in the sticky days of childhood, being invited out to supper by my neighbour Arthur Greene. My table manners were primitive and my shyness in formal company overwhelming. When I was ushered into the Greene dining room not only as the guest of honour but as the only guest, I felt like Fra Lippo Lippi in the most august presence in the universe, only I lacked his impudence to help me out.

The conditions of life in those days may be estimated from the fact that the entire formal supper, even with "company," consisted wholly and only of bread, butter and molasses. Around the festive board sat Mr. Greene, a terrifying adult who looked as if he had never been young; Mrs. Greene, tight-lipped and serious; Arthur Greene, his sister Alice, and his younger brother, Freddy. As I was company I was helped first and given a fairly liberal supply of bread, which I unthinkingly spread with butter and then covered with a thick layer of molasses. Ah, I was about to learn something.

Mr. Greene turned to his eldest son, and enquired grimly, "Arthur, which will you have, bread and butter or bread and molasses?"

The wretched Arthur, looking at my plate, and believing that his father, in deference to the "company," would not quite dare to enforce what was evidently the regular evening choice, said, with what I recognised as a pitiful attempt at careless assurance, "I'll take both."

"No, you don't!" countered his father, with a tone as final as that of a judge in court. His father was not to be bluffed by the presence of company; he evidently regarded discipline as more important than manners. The result was I felt like a voluptuary, being the only person at the table who had the luxury of both butter and molasses. They stuck in my throat; I feel them choking me still, after an interval of more than fifty years.

The jug of molasses was on our table at home at every breakfast and at every supper. The only variety lay in the fact that there were two distinct kinds of molasses--sometimes we had one, sometimes the other. There was Porto Rico molasses and there was New Orleans molasses--brunette and blonde. The Porto Rico molasses was so dark it was almost black, and New Orleans molasses was golden brown.

The worst meal of the three was invariably supper, and I imagine this was fairly common among our neighbours. Breakfast was a hearty repast, starting usually with oatmeal, immediately followed by beefsteak and potatoes or mutton chops, sometimes ham and eggs; but usually beef or chops. It had a glorious coda with griddle cakes or waffles; and thus stuffed, we rose from the table like condors from their prey, and began the day's work. Dinner at one was a hearty meal, with soup, roast, vegetables and pie.

Supper consisted of "remainders." There was no relish in it, and I remember that very often my mother, who never complained vocally, looking at the unattractive spread with lack-lustre eye, would either speak to our one servant or would disappear for a moment and return with a cold potato, which it was clear she distinctly preferred to the sickening sweetish "preserves" and cookies or to the bread and molasses which I myself ate copiously.

However remiss and indifferent and selfish I may have been in my conduct toward my mother--and what man does not suffer as he thinks of this particular feature of the irrecoverable past?--it does me good to remember that, after I came to man's estate, I gave my mother what it is clear she always and in vain longed for in earlier years, a good substantial dinner at night.

At breakfast we never put cream and sugar on our porridge; we always put molasses. Then, if griddle cakes followed the meat, we once more had recourse to molasses. And as bread and molasses was the backbone of the evening meal, you will see what I mean when I say I swam to manhood through this viscous sea. In those days youth was sweet.

The transfer of emphasis from breakfast to supper is the chief distinguishing change in the procession of meals as it was and as it became. It now seems incredible that I once ate large slabs of steak or big chops at breakfast, but I certainly did. And supper, which approached the vanishing point, turned into dinner in later years.

Many, many years ago we banished the molasses jug and even the lighter and more patrician maple syrup ceased to flow at the breakfast table. I am quite aware that innumerable persons still eat griddle cakes or waffles and syrup at the first meal of the day. It is supposed that the poet-artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti ruined his health by eating huge portions of ham and eggs, followed by griddle cakes and molasses, for breakfast. To me there has always been something incongruous between syrup and coffee; they are mutually destructive; one spoils the taste of the other.

Yet waffles and syrup are a delectable dish; and I am quite certain that nectar and ambrosia made no better meal. What to do, then? The answer is simple. Eat no griddle cakes, no waffles and no syrup at breakfast; but use these commodities for dessert at lunch. Then comes the full flavour.

Many taverns now have hit upon the excellent idea of serving only two dishes for lunch or dinner--chicken and waffles. This obviates the expense of waste, the worry of choice, the time lost in plans. And what combination could possibly be better?

One of the happiest recollections of my childhood is the marvelous hot, crisp waffle lying on my plate, and my increasing delight as I watched the molasses filling each square cavity in turn. As the English poet remarked, "I hate people who are not serious about their meals."

RESOLUTIONS WHEN I COME TO BE OLD

At the age of thirty-two, Jonathan Swift wrote the following:

RESOLUTIONS WHEN I COME TO BE OLD

Not to marry a young woman.

Not to keep young company, unless they desire it.

Not to be peevish, or morose, or suspicious.

Not to scorn present ways, or wits, or fashions, or men, or war, etc.

Not to be fond of children.

Not to tell the same story over and over to the same people.

Not to be covetous.

Not to neglect decency or cleanliness, for fear of falling into nastiness.

Not to be over severe with young people, but give allowances for their youthful follies and weaknesses.

Not to be influenced by, or give ear to, knavish tattling servants, or others.

Not to be too free of advice, or trouble any but those who desire it.

To desire some good friend to inform me which of these resolutions I break or neglect, and wherein, and reform accordingly.

Not to talk too much, nor of myself.

Not to boast of my former beauty, or strength, or favour with ladies, etc.

Not to hearken to flatteries, nor conceive I can be beloved by a young woman.

Not to be positive or opinionative.

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