This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Nov. 4, 1939.
A library publication stated recently that when a democracy is at war it ceases to be a democracy, for people cease to use the library. Its buildings are often used for war work, and the sale and reading of books is at a standstill.
I think the writer of this is wrong. I mean I hope he is wrong, and we should endeavour to make him wrong. If ever people needed the solace and comfort of books, it is in wartime.
England, with her blackouts and her closed theatres, is reading more than she has for years, reading and playing games. Writers tell us the old-time games are being brought down from the attic and the long evenings are enlivened thereby. With the drawn blinds, and everyone at home, a cheerful fire, plates of apples, toast and tea, or toasted chestnuts, the evening passes pleasantly.
Reading aloud, that best of all ways to read a book, has come into its own again. One cannot always listen to the radio, and there are times when it seems just as well not to know the latest war news. Families might be surprised now to discover new veins of conversation.
Newspapers are being read more than ever, bearing out the contention that listening to the radio stimulates the reading of newspapers. News seems more authentic when it appears in print. Print affords the verifying second glance, while the words on the air are gone forever.
I recently stumbled on an interesting fund of reading, which is especially significant in wartime, for its practical value. Now that the powers of destruction are let loose on mankind, all kinds of conversations are being revived. Children are told to eat their crusts, save paper, and all of us are wondering how best to serve our country.
For years, the Women’s Institutes have given instruction to their members on the art of shopping and how to get the greatest mileage out of a dollar. No one can sell shoddy or starch-filled print to a well-grounded WI woman. She knows the tests of every fabric.
But now there is available to anyone who wants it the findings of a group of experts who have made tests for everything from automobiles to cosmetics, from fountain pens to obesity cures. I looked up the obesity cures and found that the preparations that will reduce are dangerous, and harmless ones are useless, and yet I know in spite of all warnings the makers of these go on living on the fat of the land.
There is only one way to reduce, say the Wise Men. The best reducing exercise are the movements you make, plump reader, when you push yourself away from the table or the movement of your lips when you say, “No thank you,” to second helpings. The little books know about foods, too, and their value.
Fortified by the knowledge contained in these pamphlets in regard to fabrics, I went forth to buy a mattress recently, and as it was an odd size, I found the factory would have to make it, and so I had a choice of covers.
Would I have the pink chrysanthemums on a blue ground? Or the purple hydrangeas on a pink ground? The salesman asked me as he showed me the samples.
I would not have either. I would have the old-fashioned blue-and-white-striped ticking, which I knew was cheaper and would wear longer. The salesman expressed his surprise, saying: “We never make up a good mattress in that now. No one wants it. They like the pretty patterns.”
My mother’s cure for burns was an application of cold tea leaves. I thought these were used because they would keep out the air and were cool and soothing. Now I find this homely remedy is scientifically sound, and is placed beside the well-known caron oil.
So here is a large field for a fascinating study. Trial and error in buying is ended. Every one of us can have the services of an expert shopping guide, and besides the saving, think how flattering it is to our pride to know so much about the goods we buy.
Some of the books we do well to avoid at this time are stories of horrors, concentrations camps, spy confessions, stories of the occult and mysterious. There is a great out-cropping of them, too, arrayed in dazzling colours.
If we indulge in these, we will find ourselves emotionally exhausted and good for nothing. Indeed, it was hearing of the mental breakdown of four people in the past few days that suggested the need of writing this article. We must remain normal, as a patriotic duty, as well as for our own comfort and well-being.
These are days of testing for us, for even though we are far away in miles, the shadow of war has fallen on every home.
So let us definitely set ourselves to build up our souls to meet what comes. Let us make our reading work for us!
I have had real pleasure in reading a little pocket edition of G. F. Benson’s memoirs, As We Were, which begins in Queen Victoria’s substantial days. The description of the life they lived then, how they dressed, how they ate, comes as a definite assurance.
The English must be a hardy race. The women, with their innumerable petticoats, their shawls, their interlinings, were not dressed, they were upholstered and yet they carried on. And the incredible meals they ate. Thick and thin soup, boiled turbot, the four entrées, made of beef, mutton or venison, the heavy puddings, the jewels of angelica and ornamental sugarings.
He tells it all. And the book is like a pleasant journey to another country. It certainly took me away from the problems of today. We can read books for information, books for escape, and best of all, we can read the books that hold us up to our highest and best, and assure us that God still rules.
I am writing this on a bright October morning in Ottawa. Leaves are burning below my window, sending up a thin column of blue smoke that catches in the golden trees that deck the hillside.
Before me on the writing table is a Gideon Bible, the gift of the Gideons to the travelling public. I open it at random and this is what I read:
“He shall not fail, nor be discouraged till He have set judgment on the earth and the isles shall wait for His law.”
