Max Beerbohm

“ And except as holiday-literature I cannot possibly recommend these books of mine. Other people there are who may be classed as workers, but not as brain-workers, their duties being merely mechanical duties of routine. Of this class clerks in banks, private members of the House of Commons, and curates, are perhaps the most salient types. Such people have holidays; but it is their bodies merely, not their brains also, that require rest. Their bodies being released from the ordinary routine, their brains are set free, and, like horses that have not been exercised, must be rather restive. ”

“ Such people, I conceive, snatch eagerly at their vacations as opportunities for mental activity, and pack into their trunks, as a necessary item, many stout volumes of history, philosophy, and so forth. That is their holiday-literature. I address myself not to them, but to the many people who, like myself, may be called brain-workers: the people who depend for their comfort on the activity of their brains in this or that direction—in the direction of a business, or of an art, or of a learned profession. ”

“ Not merely, then, are we unwilling to read during a holiday an author who much exercises our brains; it follows from Mr. Mitchell's theory that we cannot do so except at the expense of that physical well-being which our immediate aim is to preserve. To read Meredith without trying to understand him would be absurd, obviously. But while we are physically strong we cannot understand him. By efforts to understand him we could lower our vitality to the point of perfect comprehension. But how foolish to do that! During (on an average) ten months in the year, our brains are in the ascendant. ”

“ We want neither characters of real flesh and blood, nor characters that are mere puppets. We want characters that we have seen before, but not seen too often, nor seen in exactly the same guise. In fact, we want to be illuded mildly. The style in which the book is written must be neither remarkably good nor remarkably bad, else it would mar the mild illusion, and indirectly excite an emotion in us. "But is there," you ask me, "any author on whom we can rely for such books as those which you have so sympathetically adumbrated?" There is. There is one author on whom you may rely implicitly. ”

“ At our destination we settle down, stolidly, to become mere vegetables. Gradually, impalpably, our tissues renew themselves, until, anon, we feel very well indeed. Our cheeks are sanguine in the sunlight, and curve convexly; our eyes are bright and clear ”

“ Chalmers Mitchell, to the effect that the stronger and healthier be our bodies, the less readily do our brains work. Mr. Mitchell argued, in a highly technical and persuasive manner, that in every human being the amount of nervous force is invariable, and that, when the body is weak, this force is absorbed by the brain, whereas, when the body is strong it is absorbed by the body. ”

“ We have already excluded philosophic fiction, on the ground that it forces us to think. Thus pure philosophy, philosophic poetry, history and science are likewise taboo. Our quest is narrowed down to non-philosophic poetry and fiction. ”

“ WHEN people of this kind—when we—periodically are released from work, what is our exact condition? Primarily, of course, we have the desire to go as far away as is possible, to merge ourselves in some environment as little as possible like our own. In that respect we are not at all different from the mere routine-workers. ”

“ The difference between us and them begins to be apparent so soon as we make the actual preparations for our flight. None of us ever dreams of taking away with him a book of any sort or kind. The mere notion of taking away a book would revolt us. ”