On Lying In Bed
On Lying in Bed
Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping and masterly way, and laid on the color in great washes, it might drip down again on one’s face in floods of rich and mingled color like some strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of a white ceiling being put to.
But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, “Il me faut des geants.” But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an endless pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of fine links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them to my surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the wallpaper to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort of smallpox. The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, when it says, “Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do.” I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colors, rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with their childish and barbaric designs.
Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! Like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged - never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all political rights - and even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded. Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am sure that it was only because Michelangelo was engaged in the ancient and honorable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens.
The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous that the exaltation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse that the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite pessimist who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but there is nothing good about it or bad about its opposite.
Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. A man’s minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired candor. If ever that abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. A man can get use to getting up at five o’clock in the morning. A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his opinions; the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little more attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue.
For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac.
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton
On Lying In Bed
On Lying in Bed
Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping and masterly way, and laid on the color in great washes, it might drip down again on one’s face in floods of rich and mingled color like some strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of a white ceiling being put to.
But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, “Il me faut des geants.” But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an endless pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of fine links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them to my surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the wallpaper to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort of smallpox. The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, when it says, “Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do.” I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colors, rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with their childish and barbaric designs.
Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! Like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged - never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all political rights - and even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded. Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am sure that it was only because Michelangelo was engaged in the ancient and honorable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens.
The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous that the exaltation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse that the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite pessimist who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but there is nothing good about it or bad about its opposite.
Sullo starsene a letto
Sullo starsene a letto
Starsene a letto sarebbe un’esperienza del tutto perfetta e suprema se solo si avesse una matita colorata abbastanza lunga da disegnare sul soffitto. Questo, però, non fa in genere parte del corredo domestico presente in casa. Ritengo io stesso che la cosa si potrebbe gestire con qualche secchio di Aspinall e una scopa. Solo che, se si lavorasse in modo davvero ampio e magistrale, e si stendesse il colore a grandi campiture, esso potrebbe ricolare giù sul proprio volto in fiotti di ricco e commisto colore come una strana pioggia fatata; e ciò avrebbe i suoi svantaggi. Temo che sarebbe necessario attenersi al bianco e nero in questa forma di composizione artistica. A tale scopo, in verità, il soffitto bianco sarebbe della maggiore utilità possibile; anzi, è l’unico uso a cui io pensi che un soffitto bianco possa essere destinato.
Se non fosse per il bell’esperimento dello starsene a letto, non l’avrei forse mai scoperto. Da anni andavo cercando qualche spazio bianco in una casa moderna su cui disegnare. La carta è troppo piccola per un disegno davvero allegorico; come dice Cyrano de Bergerac, “Il me faut des géants.” Ma quando cercai di trovare questi begli spazi limpidi nelle stanze moderne quali sono quelle in cui tutti viviamo, restai di continuo deluso. Trovai un interminabile motivo e un’intricata complicazione di piccoli oggetti appesi come una tenda di sottili maglie fra me e il mio desiderio. Esaminai le pareti; le trovai con mia sorpresa già coperte di carta da parati, e trovai la carta da parati già coperta di immagini prive d’interesse, tutte recanti una ridicola somiglianza l’una con l’altra. Non riuscivo a capire perché un simbolo arbitrario (un simbolo apparentemente del tutto privo di qualsiasi significato religioso o filosofico) dovesse così essere spruzzato su tutte le mie belle pareti come una sorta di vaiolo. La Bibbia deve alludere alle carte da parati, credo, quando dice: “Non usate vane ripetizioni, come fanno i pagani.” Trovai il tappeto di Turchia una massa di colori senza senso, piuttosto come l’Impero Turco, o come quel dolciume chiamato Delizia Turca. Non so esattamente che cosa sia in realtà la Delizia Turca; ma suppongo sia Massacri Macedoni. Ovunque andassi sconsolato, con la mia matita o il mio pennello, trovavo che altri mi avevano inspiegabilmente preceduto, guastando le pareti, le tende e i mobili coi loro disegni infantili e barbari.
In nessun luogo trovai uno spazio davvero limpido per schizzare finché in questa occasione prolungai oltre il debito limite il processo dello starmene disteso supino a letto. Allora la luce di quel bianco cielo irruppe sulla mia vista, quell’ampiezza di puro bianco che è in verità quasi la definizione del Paradiso, poiché significa purezza e significa anche libertà. Ma ahimè! Come tutti i cieli, ora che è visto lo si trova irraggiungibile; appare più austero e più distante del cielo azzurro fuori dalla finestra. Poiché la mia proposta di dipingervi con l’estremità setolosa di una scopa è stata scoraggiata—non importa da chi; da una persona esclusa da ogni diritto politico— e persino la mia minore proposta di mettere l’altra estremità della scopa nel fuoco della cucina e ridurla a carbone non è stata concessa. Eppure sono certo che fu da persone nella mia posizione che venne tutta l’ispirazione originale per ricoprire i soffitti dei palazzi e delle cattedrali con un tripudio di angeli caduti o dèi vittoriosi. Sono sicuro che fu soltanto perché Michelangelo era intento all’antica e onorevole occupazione dello starsene a letto che egli mai si rese conto di come il soffitto della Cappella Sistina potesse essere fatto in una tremenda imitazione di un dramma divino che poteva essere recitato soltanto nei cieli.
Il tono comunemente assunto oggi verso la pratica dello starsene a letto è ipocrita e malsano. Fra tutti i segni della modernità che paiono significare una sorta di decadenza, non ve n’è alcuno più minaccioso e pericoloso dell’esaltazione di questioni di condotta molto piccole e secondarie a spese di quelle molto grandi e primarie, a spese dei legami eterni e della tragica moralità umana. Se c’è una cosa peggiore del moderno indebolimento delle morali maggiori, è il moderno rafforzamento delle morali minori. Così si considera più annientante accusare un uomo di cattivo gusto che di cattiva etica. La pulizia non è più vicina alla santità di questi tempi, poiché la pulizia è resa essenziale e la santità è ritenuta un’offesa. Un drammaturgo può attaccare l’istituzione del matrimonio purché non travisi i costumi della società, e ho incontrato pessimisti ibseniani che ritenevano sbagliato prendere birra ma giusto prendere acido prussico. Ciò vale specialmente in materia d’igiene; segnatamente questioni come lo starsene a letto. Invece di essere considerato, come dovrebbe essere, una questione di comodità e di regolazione personale, è giunto a essere considerato da molti come se fosse parte delle morali essenziali alzarsi presto al mattino. Nel complesso è parte della saggezza pratica; ma non vi è nulla di buono in esso né di cattivo nel suo opposto.
Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. A man’s minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired candor. If ever that abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. A man can get use to getting up at five o’clock in the morning. A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his opinions; the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little more attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue.
For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac.
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Gli avari si alzano di buon mattino; e i ladri, mi si informa, si alzano la notte prima. È il grande pericolo della nostra società che tutti i suoi meccanismi si facciano più fissi mentre il suo spirito si fa più volubile. Le azioni e le disposizioni minori di un uomo dovrebbero essere libere, flessibili, creative; le cose che dovrebbero essere immutabili sono i suoi princìpi, i suoi ideali. Ma da noi è vero l’inverso; le nostre opinioni cambiano di continuo; ma il nostro pranzo non cambia. Ora, io vorrei che gli uomini avessero concezioni forti e radicate, ma quanto al loro pranzo, che lo facciano talvolta nel giardino, talvolta a letto, talvolta sul tetto, talvolta in cima a un albero. Che ragionino dai medesimi primi princìpi, ma che lo facciano in un letto, o in una barca, o in una mongolfiera. Questa allarmante crescita delle buone abitudini significa in realtà un’enfasi eccessiva su quelle virtù che la mera consuetudine può garantire, significa troppo poca enfasi su quelle virtù che la consuetudine non può mai del tutto garantire, improvvise e splendide virtù di ispirata pietà o di ispirato candore. Se mai quell’improvviso appello ci viene rivolto, possiamo fallire. Un uomo può abituarsi ad alzarsi alle cinque in punto del mattino. Un uomo non può granché abituarsi a essere arso per le sue opinioni; il primo esperimento è di solito fatale. Prestiamo un po’ più attenzione a queste possibilità dell’eroico e dell’inatteso. Oserei dire che quando uscirò da questo letto compirò qualche gesto di una virtù quasi terribile.
Per coloro che studiano la grande arte di starsene a letto v’è un’enfatica ammonizione da aggiungere. Anche per coloro che possono svolgere il proprio lavoro a letto (come i giornalisti), e ancor più per coloro il cui lavoro non può svolgersi a letto (come, per esempio, i ramponieri di professione delle balene), è ovvio che l’indulgenza deve essere assai occasionale. Ma non è questa l’ammonizione che intendo. L’ammonizione è questa: se proprio ve ne state a letto, badate di farlo senza alcuna ragione o giustificazione di sorta. Non parlo, s’intende, dei gravemente malati. Ma se un uomo sano se ne sta a letto, che lo faccia senza uno straccio di scusa; allora si alzerà uomo sano. Se lo fa per qualche ragione secondaria igienica, se ha qualche spiegazione scientifica, potrà alzarsi ipocondriaco.
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton