Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog)

- By Jerome K. Jerome
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English writer and humorist (1859-1927) Jerome K. JeromePhotograph of Jerome published in the 1890sBornJerome Clapp Jerome(1859-05-02)2 May 1859Caldmore, Walsall, EnglandDied14 June 1927(1927-06-14) (aged 68)Northampton, Northamptonshire, EnglandResting placeSt Mary's Church, Ewelme, OxfordshireOccupationAuthor, playwright, editorGenreHumourSpouse Georgina Elizabeth Henrietta Stanley Marris ​ ​(m. 1888)​ Jerome Klapka Jerome (2 May 1859 – 14 June 1927) was an English writer and humourist , best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat; and several other novels. Jerome was born in Walsall, England, and, although he was able to attend grammar school, his family suffered from poverty at times, as did he as a young man trying to earn a living in various occupations. In his twenties, he was able to publish some work, and success followed. He married in 1888, and the honeymoon was spent on a boat on the Thames; he published Three Men in a Boat soon afterwards. He continued to write fiction, non-fiction and plays over the next few decades, though never with the same level of success. Early life[edit] Jerome was born at Belsize House, 1 Caldmore Road,[1] in Caldmore, Walsall, England. He was the fourth child of Marguerite Jones and Jerome Clapp (who later renamed himself Jerome Clapp Jerome),[2] an ironmonger and lay preacher who dabbled in architecture.[3] He had two sisters, Paulina and Blandina, and one brother, Milton, who died at an early age. Jerome was registered as Jerome Clapp Jerome,[4] like his father's amended name, and the Klapka appears to be a later variation (after the exiled Hungarian general György Klapka). The family fell into poverty owing to bad investments in the local mining industry, and debt collectors visited often, an experience that Jerome described vividly in his autobiography My Life and Times (1926).[5] At the age of two Jerome moved with his parents to Stourbridge, Worcestershire, then later to East London.[3] The young Jerome attended St Marylebone Grammar School. He wished to go into politics or be a man of letters, but the death of his father when Jerome was 13 and of his mother when he was 15 forced him to quit his studies and find work to support himself. He was employed at the London and North Western Railway, initially collecting coal that fell along the railway, and he remained there for four years.[3] Acting career and early literary works[edit] Jerome was inspired by his elder sister Blandina's love for the theatre, and he decided to try his hand at acting in 1877, under the stage name Harold Crichton.[3] He joined a repertory troupe that produced plays on a shoestring budget, often drawing on the actors' own meagre resources – Jerome was penniless at the time – to purchase costumes and props. After three years on the road with no evident success, the 21-year-old Jerome decided that he had had enough of stage life and sought other occupations. He tried to become a journalist, writing essays, satires, and short stories, but most of these were rejected. Over the next few years, he was a school teacher, a packer, and a solicitor's clerk. Finally, in 1885, he had some success with On the Stage – and Off (1885), a comic memoir of his experiences with the acting troupe, followed by Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886), a collection of humorous essays which had previously appeared in the newly founded magazine, Home Chimes,[6] the same magazine that would later serialise Three Men in a Boat.[6] On 21 June 1888, Jerome married Georgina Elizabeth Henrietta Stanley Marris ("Ettie"), nine days after she divorced her first husband. She had a daughter from her previous five-year marriage nicknamed Elsie (her actual name was also Georgina). The honeymoon took place on the Thames "in a little boat,"[7] a fact that was to have a significant influence on his next and most important work, Three Men in a Boat. Three Men in a Boat and later career[edit] Jerome in about 1889 Jerome sat down to write Three Men in a Boat as soon as the couple returned from their honeymoon. In the novel, his wife was replaced by his longtime friends George Wingrave (George) and Carl Hentschel (Harris). This allowed him to create comic (and non-sentimental) situations which were nonetheless intertwined with the history of the Thames region. The book, published in 1889, became an instant success and has never been out of print. Its popularity was such that the number of registered Thames boats went up fifty per cent in the year following its publication, and it contributed significantly to the Thames becoming a tourist attraction. In its first twenty years alone, the book sold over a million copies worldwide. It has been adapted into films, TV, radio shows, stage plays, and even a musical. Its writing style has influenced many humourists and satirists in England and elsewhere. With the financial security that the sales of the book provided, Jerome was able to dedicate all of his time to writing. He wrote a number of plays, essays, and novels, but was never able to recapture the success of Three Men in a Boat. In 1892, he was chosen by Robert Barr to edit The Idler (over Rudyard Kipling). The magazine was an illustrated satirical monthly catering to gentlemen (who, following the theme of the publication, appreciated idleness). In 1893, he founded To-Day, but had to withdraw from both publications because of financial difficulties and a libel suit. Jerome's play Biarritz had a run of two months at the Prince of Wales Theatre between April and June 1896.[8] In 1898, a short stay in Germany inspired Three Men on the Bummel, the sequel to Three Men in a Boat, reintroducing the same characters in the setting of a foreign bicycle tour. The book was nonetheless unable quite to recapture the sheer comic energy and historic rootedness of its celebrated predecessor (lacking as it does the unifying thread that is the river Thames itself) and it has enjoyed only modest success by comparison. However, some of the individual comic vignettes that make up "Bummel" have been praised as highly as those of "Boat".[9] In 1902, he published the novel Paul Kelver, which is widely regarded as autobiographical. His 1908 play The Passing of the Third Floor Back introduced a more sombre and religious Jerome. The main character was played by one of the leading actors of the time, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, and the play was a tremendous commercial success. It was twice made into film, in 1918 and in 1935. However, the play was condemned by critics – Max Beerbohm described it as "vilely stupid" and as written by a "tenth-rate writer".[10] First World War and last years[edit] Jerome's grave at Ewelme (2009) Jerome volunteered to serve his country at the outbreak of the First World War but being 55 years old, he was rejected by the British Army. Eager to serve in some capacity, he volunteered as an ambulance driver for the French Army. In 1926, Jerome published his autobiography, My Life and Times. Shortly afterwards, the Borough of Walsall conferred on him the title Freeman of the Borough. During these last years, Jerome spent more time at his farmhouse Gould's Grove south-east of Ewelme near Wallingford. Jerome suffered a paralytic stroke and a cerebral haemorrhage in June 1927, on a motoring tour from Devon to London via Cheltenham and Northampton. He lay in Northampton General Hospital for two weeks before dying on 14 June.[11] He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his ashes buried at St Mary's Church, Ewelme, Oxfordshire. Elsie, Ettie and his sister Blandina are buried beside him. His gravestone reads "For we are labourers together with God". A small museum dedicated to his life and works was opened in 1984 at his birth home in Walsall, but it closed in 2008 and the contents were returned to Walsall Museum. Legacy[edit] Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl, a book by the pseudonymous "Jenny Wren", was published in 1891. The author is anonymous. The book has the same form as Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow but is from the point of view of a woman.[12][13] Science-fiction author Connie Willis credited Jerome as the source for the title of her novel To Say Nothing of the Dog, this being the subtitle of Three Men in a Boat. There is a French graphic novel series named Jérôme K. Jérôme Bloche [fr] after the author. From 1984 to 2008, there was a museum honouring him in Walsall, his birthplace.[14] A sculpture of a boat and a mosaic of a dog commemorate his book Three Men in a Boat on the Millennium Green in New Southgate, London, where he lived as a child. There is an English Heritage blue plaque which reads 'Jerome K. Jerome 1859–1927 Author Wrote 'Three Men in a Boat' while living here at flat 104' at 104 Chelsea Gardens, Chelsea Bridge Road, London, United Kingdom. It was erected in 1989.[15] There is a beer company named Cerveza Jerome in Mendoza, Argentina. Its founder was a fan of Three Men in a Boat.[16] A building at Walsall Campus, University of Wolverhampton is named after him. British Rail named one of its Class 31 diesel locomotives after him on 6 May 1990 at Bescot.[17] Bibliography[edit] Novels Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (1889) Diary of a Pilgrimage (and Six Essays) (1891) (full text) Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters (1892) Novel Notes (1893) Three Men on the Bummel (a.k.a. Three Men on Wheels) (1900) Paul Kelver, a novel (1902) Tea-table Talk (1903) Tommy and Co (1904) They and I (1909) All Roads Lead to Calvary (1919) Anthony John (1923) Collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) Told After Supper (1891) John Ingerfield: And Other Stories (1894) Sketches in Lavender, Blue, and Green (1895) Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1898) The Observations of Henry (1901) The Angel and the Author – and Others (1904) (20 essays) American Wives – and Others (1904) (25 essays, comprising 5 from The Angel and the Author, and 20 from Idle Ideas in 1905). Idle Ideas in 1905 (1905) The Passing of the Third Floor Back: And Other Stories (1907) Malvina of Brittany (1916) A miscellany of sense and nonsense from the writings of Jerome K. Jerome. Selected by the author with many apologies, with forty-three illustrations by Will Owen. 1924 Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel (1974) After Supper Ghost Stories: And Other Tales (1985) A Bicycle in Good Repair Autobiography On the Stage—and Off (1885) My Life and Times (1926) Anthologies containing stories by Jerome K. Jerome Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror 1st Series (1928) A Century of Humour (1934) The Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts and Mysteries (1936) Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1957) Famous Monster Tales (1967) The 5th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories (1969) The Rivals of Frankenstein (1975) The 17th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories (1981) Stories in the Dark (1984) Gaslit Nightmares (1988) Horror Stories (1988) 100 Tiny Tales of Terror (1996) Knights of Madness: Further Comic Tales of Fantasy (1998) 100 Hilarious Little Howlers (1999) Short stories The Haunted Mill (1891) The New Utopia[18] (1891) The Dancing Partner (1893) Evergreens Christmas Eve in the Blue Chamber Silhouettes The Skeleton The Snake The Woman of the Saeter The Philosopher's Joke (1909) The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl (1909) Plays Pity is Akin to Love (1888)[19] New Lamps for Old (1890) The Maister of Wood Barrow: play in three acts (1890) What Women Will Do (1890) Birth and Breeding (1890) – based on Die Ehre, produced in New York in 1895 as "Honour" The Rise of Dick Halward (1895), produced in New York the previous year as "The Way to Win a Woman" "The Prude's Progress" (1895) co-written with Eden Phillpotts The MacHaggis (1897) John Ingerfield (1899) The Night of 14 Feb.. 1899: a play in nine scenes Miss Hobbs: a comedy in four acts (1902) – starring Evelyn Millard Tommy (1906) Sylvia of the Letters (1907) Fanny and the Servant Problem, a quite possible play in four acts (1909) The Master of Mrs. Chilvers: an improbable comedy, imagined by Jerome K. Jerome (1911) Esther Castways (1913) The Great Gamble (1914) The Three Patriots (1915) The Soul of Nicholas Snyders : A Mystery Play in Three Acts (1925) The Celebrity: a play in three acts (1926) Robina's Web ("The Dovecote", or "The grey feather"): a farce in four acts The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1908) (the basis of a 1918 film and a 1935 film) The Night of Feb. 14th 1899 – never produced[19] A Russian Vagabond – never produced See also[edit] List of ambulance drivers during World War I List of people with reduplicated names We (novel) – author Zamyatin inspired by Jerome's work References[edit] ^ =[1] ^ Oulton, Carolyn (2012). Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome. Victorian Secrets. p. 22. ISBN 1906469377. ^ a b c d "Great Lives: The writer who led the way in literary satire". Shropshire Star. 31 January 2022. pp. 20, 29.Article on Jerome by Mark Andrews, part of series on Midlands worthies. ^ Oulton, Carolyn (2012). Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome. Victorian Secrets. p. 23. ISBN 1906469377. ^ Jerome, Jerome (1926). My Life and Times. Hodder & Stoughton. ^ a b Oulton, Carolyn (2012) Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome. Victorian Secrets at Google Books. Retrieved 11 May 2013. ^ Joseph Connolly. Jerome K. Jerome, p. 183 ^ J. P. Wearing, The London Stage 1890-1899: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel (Scarecrow Press, 2013), p. 291 ^ Jeremy Nicholas: Three Men in a Boat and on the Bummel—The story behind Jerome's two comic masterpieces ^ Jerome, Jerome (1982). "Introduction". Three Men in a Boat, Annotated and Introduced by Cristopher Matthew and Benny Green. Michael Joseph. ISBN 0-907516-08-4. ^ Jerome K. Jerome: The Man, from the Jerome K. Jerome Society. Accessed 3 March 2012 ^ Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl – Odd Ends Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine ^ Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl at Project Gutenberg ^ Lambert, Tim "A Brief History of Walsall, England" ^ Open Plaques "Open Plaques – Jerome K. Jerome" ^ Los Andes "Viaje Favorito" ^ "Nameplate JEROME K. JEROME Ex BR Diesel Class 31 – Nameplates Diesel". ^ Published in Diary of a Pilgrimage (and Six Essays).(full text) ^ a b "Unpublished plays by Jerome". 23 August 2013. External links[edit] Jerome K. Jerome at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from WikisourceData from Wikidata Works by Jerome K. Jerome in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Jerome K. Jerome at Project Gutenberg Works by Jerome K. Jerome at Faded Page (Canada) Works by or about Jerome K. Jerome at Internet Archive Works by Jerome K. Jerome at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) "Jerome, Jerome Klapka" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). 1911. Works by Jerome K. Jerome at Open Library The Jerome K. Jerome Society Jerome K. Jerome Short Stories http://www.jeromekjerome.com/bibliography/unpublished-plays-by-jerome/ Jerome K. Jerome Quotes subject-wise Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome by Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton Jerome K. Jerome in 1881 Jerome K. Jerome at Library of Congress, with 116 library catalogue records Philip de László's portrait of Jerome K. Jerome Plays by Jerome K. Jerome on the Great War Theatre website A Humorist's Plea for Serious Reading from The Literary Digest, January 13, 1906 vteJerome K. JeromeWorks Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) Three Men in a Boat (1889) Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891) Three Men on the Bummel (1900) Paul Kelver (1902) All Roads Lead to Calvary (1919) AdaptationsThree Men in a Boat Three Men in a Boat (1920) Three Men in a Boat (1933) Three Men in a Boat (1956) Three Men in a Boat (1961) Three Men in a Boat (1975) Three Men in a Boat (1979) Other The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1918) Miss Hobbs (1920) All Roads Lead to Calvary (1921) The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935) Authority control databases International FAST ISNI VIAF National Norway Spain France BnF data Catalonia Germany Italy Israel Finland Belgium United States Sweden Japan Czech Republic Australia Greece Korea Netherlands Poland Portugal Vatican Academics CiNii Artists MusicBrainz People Deutsche Biographie Trove Other SNAC IdRef

Three Men in a Boat  (to say nothing of the dog)

CHAPTER I.
Three invalids.-Sufferings of George and Harris.-A victim to one hundred and seven fatal maladies.-Useful prescriptions.-Cure for liver complaint in children.-We agree that we are overworked, and need rest.-A week on the rolling deep?-George suggests the River.-Montmorency lodges an objection.-Original motion carried by majority of three to one. There were four of us-George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were-bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.
We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all.
It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.
Man reading bookI remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch-hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into-some fearful, devastating scourge, I know-and, before I had glanced half down the list of "premonitory symptoms," it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever-read the symptoms-discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it-wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance-found, as I expected, that I had that too,-began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically-read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.
I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.
I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class! Students would have no need to "walk the hospitals," if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma. Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but I cannot account for it. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, and I went a bit round each side, and a little way up the back. But I could not feel or hear anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out as far as ever it would go, and I shut one eye, and tried to examine it with the other. I could only see the tip, and the only thing that I could gain from that was to feel more certain than before that I had scarlet fever.
Man with walking stickI had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck. I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I'm ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now. "What a doctor wants," I said, "is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each." So I went straight up and saw him, and he said:
"Well, what's the matter with you?" I said: "I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is not the matter with me. I have not got housemaid's knee. Why I have not got housemaid's knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I have got."
And I told him how I came to discover it all. Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn't expecting it-a cowardly thing to do, I call it-and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out. I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist's, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back.
He said he didn't keep it. I said: "You are a chemist?" He said: "I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers me."
I read the prescription. It ran: "1 lb. beefsteak, with 1 pt. bitter beer every 6 hours. 1 ten-mile walk every morning. 1 bed at 11 sharp every night. And don't stuff up your head with things you don't understand."
I followed the directions, with the happy result-speaking for myself-that my life was preserved, and is still going on. In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work of any kind." What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.
"Why, you skulking little devil, you," they would say, "get up and do something for your living, can't you?"-not knowing, of course, that I was ill. And they didn't give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me-for the time being. I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, without further loss of time, than a whole box of pills does now.
You know, it often is so-those simple, old-fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff. We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to each other our maladies. I explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up in the morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed; and George stood on the hearth-rug, and gave us a clever and powerful piece of acting, illustrative of how he felt in the night.
George fancies he is ill; but there's never anything really the matter with him, you know. At this point, Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper. We smiled sadly at one another, and said we supposed we had better try to swallow a bit. Harris said a little something in one's stomach often kept the disease in check; and Mrs. Poppets brought the tray in, and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a little steak and onions, and some rhubarb tart.
I must have been very weak at the time; because I know, after the first half-hour or so, I seemed to take no interest whatever in my food-an unusual thing for me-and I didn't want any cheese. This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed the discussion upon our state of health. What it was that was actually the matter with us, we none of us could be sure of; but the unanimous opinion was that it-whatever it was-had been brought on by overwork.
"What we want is rest," said Harris. "Rest and a complete change," said George. "The overstrain upon our brains has produced a general depression throughout the system. Change of scene, and absence of the necessity for thought, will restore the mental equilibrium." George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge-sheet as a medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family-physicianary way of putting things.
I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes-some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world-some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint. Harris said he thought it would be humpy. He said he knew the sort of place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o'clock, and you couldn't get a Referee for love or money, and had to walk ten miles to get your baccy.
"No," said Harris, "if you want rest and change, you can't beat a sea trip." I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked. You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it.
I remember my brother-in-law going for a short sea trip once, for the benefit of his health. He took a return berth from London to Liverpool; and when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about was to sell that return ticket. It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told; and was eventually sold for eighteenpence to a bilious-looking youth who had just been advised by his medical men to go to the sea-side, and take exercise.
"Sea-side!" said my brother-in-law, pressing the ticket affectionately into his hand; "why, you'll have enough to last you a lifetime; and as for exercise! why, you'll get more exercise, sitting down on that ship, than you would turning somersaults on dry land." He himself-my brother-in-law-came back by train. He said the North-Western Railway was healthy enough for him.
Another fellow I knew went for a week's voyage round the coast, and, before they started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay for each meal as he had it, or arrange beforehand for the whole series. The steward recommended the latter course, as it would come so much cheaper. He said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds five. He said for breakfast there would be fish, followed by a grill. Lunch was at one, and consisted of four courses. Dinner at six-soup, fish, entree, joint, poultry, salad, sweets, cheese, and dessert. And a light meat supper at ten.
My friend thought he would close on the two-pound-five job (he is a hearty eater), and did so. Lunch came just as they were off Sheerness. He didn't feel so hungry as he thought he should, and so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef, and some strawberries and cream. He pondered a good deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he had been eating nothing but boiled beef for weeks, and at other times it seemed that he must have been living on strawberries and cream for years. Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream seemed happy, either-seemed discontented like.
At six, they came and told him dinner was ready. The announcement aroused no enthusiasm within him, but he felt that there was some of that two-pound-five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes and things and went down. A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, mingled with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder; and then the steward came up with an oily smile, and said: "What can I get you, sir?" Man feeling ill"Get me out of this," was the feeble reply.
And they ran him up quick, and propped him up, over to leeward, and left him. For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain's biscuits (I mean that the biscuits were thin, not the captain) and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he got uppish, and went in for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth. He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away from the landing-stage he gazed after it regretfully. "There she goes," he said, "there she goes, with two pounds' worth of food on board that belongs to me, and that I haven't had."
He said that if they had given him another day he thought he could have put it straight. So I set my face against the sea trip. Not, as I explained, upon my own account. I was never queer. But I was afraid for George. George said he should be all right, and would rather like it, but he would advise Harris and me not to think of it, as he felt sure we should both be ill. Harris said that, to himself, it was always a mystery how people managed to get sick at sea-said he thought people must do it on purpose, from affectation-said he had often wished to be, but had never been able.
Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the Channel when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not ill; but it was generally he and one other man. If not he and another man, then it was he by himself. It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick-on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.
If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough. It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the port-holes in a very dangerous position. I went up to him to try and save him. "Hi! come further in," I said, shaking him by the shoulder. "You'll be overboard." "Oh my! I wish I was," was the only answer I could get; and there I had to leave him. Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved the sea.
"Good sailor!" he replied in answer to a mild young man's envious query; "well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess. It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked the next morning." I said: "Weren't you a little shaky by Southend Pier one day, and wanted to be thrown overboard?"
"Southend Pier!" he replied, with a puzzled expression. "Yes; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday three weeks." "Oh, ah-yes," he answered, brightening up; "I remember now. I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the pickles, you know. They were the most disgraceful pickles I ever tasted in a respectable boat. Did you have any?"
For myself, I have discovered an excellent preventive against sea-sickness, in balancing myself. You stand in the centre of the deck, and, as the ship heaves and pitches, you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two; but you can't balance yourself for a week. George said: "Let's go up the river." He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet; the constant change of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of Harris's); and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.
Harris said he didn't think George ought to do anything that would have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous. He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four hours in each day, summer and winter alike; but thought that if he did sleep any more, he might just as well be dead, and so save his board and lodging.
Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a "T." I don't know what a "T" is (except a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and-butter and cake ad lib., and is cheap at the price, if you haven't had any dinner). It seems to suit everybody, however, which is greatly to its credit. It suited me to a "T" too, and Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George's; and we said it in a tone that seemed to somehow imply that we were surprised that George should have come out so sensible.
MontmorencyThe only one who was not struck with the suggestion was Montmorency. He never did care for the river, did Montmorency. "It's all very well for you fellows," he says; "you like it, but I don't. There's nothing for me to do. Scenery is not in my line, and I don't smoke. If I see a rat, you won't stop; and if I go to sleep, you get fooling about with the boat, and slop me overboard. If you ask me, I call the whole thing bally foolishness."
We were three to one, however, and the motion was carried.

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Word Lists:

Text : a book or other written or printed work, regarded in terms of its content rather than its physical form

Premonitory :

Malady : a disease or ailment

Typhoid : an infectious bacterial fever with an eruption of red spots on the chest and abdomen and severe intestinal irritation.

Entree : the main course of a meal.

Dispensary : a room where medicines are prepared and provided.

Disinclination : a reluctance or lack of enthusiasm

Seedy : sordid and disreputable

Invidious : (of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in others

Prescription : an instruction written by a medical practitioner that authorizes a patient to be provided a medicine or treatment

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Additional Information:

Rating: B Words in the Passage: 3718 Unique Words: 1,012 Sentences: 215
Noun: 983 Conjunction: 404 Adverb: 249 Interjection: 5
Adjective: 218 Pronoun: 552 Verb: 699 Preposition: 387
Letter Count: 14,773 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Conversational Difficult Words: 572
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