HELAS, JEAN-JACQUES—!
By Durbin Rowland
I was young: and I had been reading Rousseau’s *"Confessions.” You may rememnber that the dear old sentimentalist tells us that, next to being in love with two women at the same time, he never knew a greater pleasure than that derived from stretching himself out full length in a rowboat on a summer’s day to be carried downstream in complete al andonment. To me, an imaginative reader, this kind of diversion sounded alluring: moreover, I fear it was one of the few diversions of the erratic Jean-Jacques that 1 in these times and in our sadly prosaic country town could safely imitate without running a grave risk of putting myself under the surveillance of the police. You see, although I was past twenty, I was still a member of the Banner Class in the Presbyterian Sunday School.
I thought the thing over a good deal, and finally decided to try out Rousseau’s jolly little idea on our unromantic Maumee River at Toledo, Ohio. So one Saturday afternoon I went to Walbridge, which is a park above the town, and hired a rowboat. Everything went well at the start. Removing the cross-seat, I filled the rowboat with rented and launched from one of the ittle docks that lay along the wooded bank. I stretched myself out on my couch of pillows in a perfect ecstasy while I floated gently down with the current. It was magnificent: regular Maxfield Parish stuff! There was the great blue sky above, with some small, fleecy clouds drifting high overhead: now and then a twittering swallow would dart across the prow of my craft, or a huge dragon-fly would hover on golden wings in nud-air above me. Rousseau was right: this was the life! It was all very fine while it lasted. But it did not last long.
The Lady of Shalott kind of thing may have proved a success when perpetrated on a stream that runs past some finc sleepy old English town like Camelot; but in a matter-of-fact setting like the Maumee River at Toledo, Ohio, I have found to my sorrow that it doesn’t work by a long shot. Before my little craft had reached the first bridge that spans the river where the town begins and had glided serencly under it, some wharf-rat dangling from a pier yelled out to me: “lli there! Y’ain’t sick or anything, are you?”
And before 1 had floated on, still stretched out at ease, to the second towering bridge a sputtering police-boat came alongside to tow me ashore. 1 was somewhat assiduously conducted to the nearest station-house, where I was presented to the desk-sergeant. When questioned concerning my conduct, I endeavored to explain hastily to the desk-sergeant that I had been simply trying out a little 1dea suggested to me by J. J. Rousseau. The desk-sergeant frowned and reached for the city directory. After some patient research, he closed the book with a bang. “Say!” he thundered at me, “who in hell is this guy J. J. Rousseau anyway!”
Hélas, Jean-Jacques!—que la vie est
sorne de nos jours!
