Princess Mary's Gift Book

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. 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 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 N O 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 for a fortnight; that your wife will fret herself into a fever about the way the servant, who has been left at home, is treating her cousins, the milkman, and the policeman; and that you will be had up for tres passing. Yet, when you tell us