The Quest of the Simple LifeDawson, W. J. (William James)
Philosophy
The Quest of the Simple Life
Dawson, W. J. (William James)
Country life
his only method of attaining cleanliness must have been by what is
called 'the dry air process.'
This adventure lives in my memory, not only because it had delightful
elements, but because it was the last of a long series, which might
have been called more truthfully misadventures. For an exhilarating
month I scoured the neighbourhood of London, living in a happy fever of
enterprise and hope, but without result. July came, and my problem was
still unsolved. I had already given notice to terminate the tenancy
of my house in London, and there seemed a fair prospect that September
would find me homeless. At my present height of good spirits I cannot
say that even this prospect dismayed me. If the worst came to the
worst I meant to take to the road in one of those convenient vans much
used by travelling hawkers. I had long envied the extraordinary
snugness of those itinerant habitations; to be a Dr. Marigold seemed
the happiest of fates; rent free, and finally delivered from
tax-collectors and their tribe, I might yet roam the world as a
superior kind of vagrant. I knew indeed a young friend of mine who had
adopted this very life. He sold tracts and Bibles upon village greens,
and I promise you no mansion had a warmer glow of comfort than the
interior of his yellow van when the lamp was lit at night for supper.
He has since found his way to a lonely missionary station in Peru; but
he has often told me that he was never happier than when he played the
part of pious gipsy on the village greens of England. At a pinch I
thought that I could do what he had done; it was a romantic trade, and
a new _Lavengro_ might be written on it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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