To be really happy and really safe, one ought to haveat least two or three hobbies, and they must all bereal. It is no use starting late in life to say: “Iwill take an interest in this or that.” Such anattempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort.A man may acquire great knowledge of topicsunconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly getany benefit or relief. It is no use doing what youlike; you have got to like what you do. Broadlyspeaking, human being may be divided into threeclasses: those who are toiled to death, those who areworried to death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual laborer,tired out with a hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football orbaseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional orbusiness man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work orworry about trifling things at the weekend.
It may also be said that rational, industrious, useful human beings are divided into twoclasses: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, thosewhose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have theircompensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, notonly the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and mostmodest forms. But Fortune’s favored children belong to the second class. Their life is anatural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, andordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vacation.Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of adiversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is theirpleasure are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their minds.
