A Holiday in Bed (in Short Nonfiction Collection Vol. 026 )

MP3 Audio CD. A Holiday in Bed (in Short Nonfiction Collection Vol. 026 )

PEOPLE have tried a holiday in bed before now, and found it a failure,
but that was because they were ignorant of the rules. They went to bed
with the open intention of staying there, say, three days, and found to
their surprise that each morning they wanted to get up. This was a novel
experience to them; they flung about restlessly, and probably shortened
their holiday. The proper thing is to take your holiday in bed with a
vague intention of getting up in another quarter of an hour. The real
pleasure of lying in bed after you are awake is largely due to the
feeling that you ought to get up. To take another quarter of an hour
then becomes a luxury. You are, in short, in the position of the man who
dined on larks. Had he seen the hundreds that were ready for him, all
set out on one monster dish, they would have alarmed him; but getting
them two at a time, he went on eating till all the larks were gone. His
feeling of uncertainty as to whether these might not be his last two
larks is your feeling that, perhaps, you will have to get up in a
quarter of an hour. Deceive yourself in this way, and your holiday in
bed will pass only too quickly.

Sympathy is what all the world is craving for, and sympathy is what the
ordinary holiday-maker never gets. How can we be expected to sympathise
with you when we know you are off to Perthshire to fish? No; we say we
wish we were you, and forget that your holiday is sure to be a hollow
mockery; that your child will jam her finger in the railway carriage,
and scream to the end of the journey; that you will lose your luggage;
that the guard will notice your dog beneath the seat, and insist on its
being paid for; that you will be caught in a Scotch mist on the top of a
mountain, and be put on gruel fo