A View into Space.

5

the crawling waggon yellow with wheat, the shadows of the clouds sailing over the sea and the down; to say nothing of that wonderful insight into the universe which you get by lying flat on your back and looking up, or rather down, into the sky. You turn away from the world, and gaze upon the infinite, with swallows wheeling about some hundreds, it may be thousands, of feet beneath you, and, if naturalists may be believed, filling their bellies with little red enterprising spiders, which cruise about in space. There are men who ascend great heights to have distant scenes beneath them. I lie on the grass, and get a deeper view with one half-turn of the body. Conceive

the change, when I look up, in London, and see smoke streaked with telegraph wires. By the way, these last have been multiplied wonderfully within the last few years; it will be impossible, soon, to get a good photographic view of any of our chief places. Mr. Reuter is like a spider with a great web converging over his offices at the top of Waterloo Place. There is little to choose, however, especially in the neighbourhood of our public buildings; the metal web is being spun over the town, until at last we shall see ourself shut in like tame birds, and London will be a gigantic cage.

6

Suspect a Multitude of Rules.

Next to change, exercise is essential to an effective holiday. I don't pretend to write about it medically; I don't know what it does for your diaphragm or mucous membrane; I don't know the specific gravities of the leg of a postman and the arm of a blacksmith; I can't tell you how much your chest will expand with a six weeks' course of gymnastics, or how rapidly healthy muscle is replaced by unwholesome fatty matter if you lie late abed, or loll about all day on a sofa, when your girth grows, indeed, but below the chest. I don't know how I don't know how many miles

a man in good health ought to make a point of walking in the course of each twenty-four hours. There are books enough to teach us plenty of scientific facts about the neglect and use of exercise. Indeed, to say the truth, I cannot help feeling a suspicion of this self-conscious management of the body and limbs. It is a questionable thing to obey Nature only by art. The charm, and therefore, to a certain degree, the benefit of all such things as diet and exercise, is endangered if we are always consulting printed wisdom to know when we ought to eat, walk, ride, yawn, sneeze, sleep, bathe, and have our hair cut. We may, on the other hand, attach too little importance to the when and the why of these things. There is a contempt

Don't be Run off your Legs.

7

of cause and effect which shortens many persons' lives, who yet need not have prim cut-and-dried regulations about the common machinery of health. Perhaps exercise is just one of those things which ought to have more regard paid to it than it has. If excessive, especially before the frame has become well developed and knit, however exciting at the time, it wrings the joint and strains the heart. It is a fine thing, no doubt, for a boy to find himself in the winning boat, though at the cost of white lips and a thumping pulse. He soon comes to-youth is elastic -and eats a famous supper; but maybe years afterwards the little evil seed then sown will show itself, possibly with fatal haste.

Let me then advise you, my friend, if not already well seasoned, to resist the charm of emulation on your holidays, at least at first. Don't be run off your legs directly you start on a walking tour. If you allow yourself to be carried away at once, you will perhaps spoil the whole thing. Protest, and secure the gratitude of others who have small moral courage, as well as your own digestion and sleep; protest, and win eventually respect and health.

Indeed, to enjoy a holiday thoroughly, there is need of more decision than appears at first. Remember that it is a holiday, and drive away

8

Do without Letters.

the working thoughts and cares which will sometimes follow in your track. If possible, do without letters; it has been found that they will answer one another if allowed to accumulate at home. Shuffle this coil off; the world will move round still, though you take your hand altogether off the crank. Determine to relax, to rest, and the recreation will be effectual. Let what boyishness you have come uppermost, and follow the innocent whim of the day. Holidays, to be profitable, must be entertaining, absorbing; if anything which is legitimate attracts and influences you, don't be ashamed of its appearing to be too childish. Tumble on the hay, throw stones on the beach, gape about in the market. There is much harmless amusement to be got out of your fellowtravellers, and the coffee-room acquaintances you make. Avoid the idolatry of guide-books, which tell you not only where to go, but what to feel and think while you are making the prescribed excursion. Explore, to some degree at least, for yourself; test your wits and native resources. The practice of taking a returnticket for your holiday is also questionable. You will be haunted by the remembrance that you must take such and such a route, and, moreover, by the suspicion that the thing will

Avoid Return Tickets.

9

You

be lost before you get its whole value. will peep at it in your pocket-book in unsuitable places. It will bring back the vision of the London terminus when you pay some boatman on the lakes, or buy a draught of milk at an upland Swiss chalet. You will see a Hansom cab and your office while you are looking for some foreign coin. The charm of a mountain pass will yield to a whiff of Oxford Street. No, let the holiday be cut off as cleanly as possible from the rest of the year; they will both be the better for the severance.

While we are on holidays, I must protest against the sneers aimed at the excursionist. Do not despise his baby and his bundle. If he should chance to be vulgar, he will be doubly so on his excursion. His black satin waistcoat, his bottle, and food in greasy paper, his ungainly frolicsomeness, his snobbish gallantry, are then inevitable. But I rejoice to see them all. He enjoys himself heartily. It is all very well for fine ladies and gentlemen to smile in superior dislike or condescension, which are pretty nearly the same thing. Probably you owe more than you fancy to that buoyant holiday-maker with his cheap Sunday clothes, and gin and water. Likely enough, he knows how to make the engine which drags you both. Perhaps he