The Wings of the Oof-Bird 97
What one needs is sound common sense to take
reasonable measures according to the physiological
indications. One needs elasticity. It’s simply spiritual
socialism to tie oneself down to fixed doses whether
one needs them or not. Nature is the best guide. We
had got on to the game.
Our misadventure at the Petit Savoyard had taught
us wisdom. We were getting stronger on the wing
every hour.
That chap Coué is a piker, as they say in America.
“Every day, in every way, I get better and better,”
indeed? The man must simply have been carried
away by the rhyme. Why wait for aday? We had
got to the stage where every minute counted.
As the Scotchman said to his son, half-way through
the ten-mile walk to kirk, when the boy said, “It’s a
braw day the day.” “Is this a day to be ta’king 0’
days?”
Thinking of days makes you think of years, and
thinking of years makes you think of death, which is
ridiculous.
Lou and I were living minute by minute, second by
second. A tick of the clock marked for us an interval
of eternity.
We were the heirs of eternal life. We had nothing
to do with death. That was a pretty wise bird who said,
“To-morrow never comes.”
We were out of time and space. We were living
according to the instruction | of our Saviour: “ Take
no thought for the morrow.’
A great restlessness gripped us. Paris was perfectly
impossible. We had to get to some place where time
doesn’t count.
The alternation of day and night doesn’t matter
so much; but it’s absolutely intolerable to be
mixed up with people who are working by the
clock.
We were living in the world of the Arabian Nights ;
limitations were abhorrent. Paris was always reminding