happens to one in consequence of his ceasing to read?
He suffers a hardening of the intellectual arteries. There are quaint
old codgers one knows here and there who declare that in fiction there
has "been nothing since Dickens." They are delightful, of course; but
one would rather see than be one. We all know many persons whose
intellectual clock stopped some time ago, and there are people whose
minds apparently froze at about the time when they should have begun to
ripen, and which are like blocks of ice with a fish (or a volume of
Huxley) inside. Nothing now can get in.

At those times of earnest introspection, when one would "swear off"
this or that, would reduce one's smoking, would adopt the principle of
"do it now," and so on--at those times an excellent New Year's
resolution, or birthday resolution, or first day of the month
resolution, would be to re-learn to read, to keep, as Dr. Johnson said
of his friendships, one's reading continually "in good repair."

EPILOGUE

ON WEARING A HAT

There is a good deal to be said about wearing a hat. And yet this
humorous custom, this rich topic, of wearing a hat has been sadly
neglected, as far as I can make out, by scholars, scientists, poets,
composers, and other "smart" people.

Man has been variously defined, as the religious animal, and so on; but
also, to the best of my knowledge and belief, he is the only animal
that wears a hat. He has become so accustomed to the habit of wearing
his hat that he does not feel that he is himself out of doors without
it. Mr. Howells (I think it was) has told us in one of his novels of a
young man who had determined upon suicide. With this intent he made a
mad dash for the sea. But on his way there a sudden gust of wind blew
off his hat; instinctively he turned to recover it, and this action
broke the current of his ideas. With his hat he recovered his reason,
and went home as alive as usual. His hat has come to mean for man much
more than a protection for his head. It is for him a symbol of his
manhood. You cannot more greatly insult a man than by knocking off his
hat. As a sign of his reverence, his esteem, his respect, a man bares
his head. Though, indeed, the contentious Mr. Chesterton somewhere
argues that there is no more reason for a man's removing his hat in the
presence of ladies than for his taking off his coat and waistcoat.

In the more complex social organisms of Europe the custom of lifting
the