Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1858-12-10
RECREATION,

@"h W io''J eiJey eu oEly oy the man
who has some earnest occupation. The
end of work is to enjoy leisure but to
ENJOY leisure You must have gone through
work. Playtime must come after school.
Time. otherwise it loses its SAVIOR. Play,
after all. is relative thing it is not a
thing which has an absolute existence
There is no such thing as play, except
to the worker. 1t come out by contract.
Put white upon white, ,and you can hard
ly sec it; put white upon black and how
plain tits. Light your lamp in the SUM-
shine. and it is nothing; you must have
darkness around it to make its presence
felt. And besides this, a great part Of
the enjoyment of recreation consists in
the feeling that VIC have earned it BY
previous hlrl work. One goes out for
tie afternoon walk with q light heart
when one has dore good task before
breakfast. 1t is one thing for a david
ling idler 10 set off to the Continent or
to the Highlands. just because he is sick
of everything around him and quite
another thing when hard-workiny man,
who is Of some use in life, sets off as
gay as lark, with the pleasant feeling
that he has brought some worthy work
to an end, on the self f-same tour. And
then busy man finds relish in simple
recreations; while a man who has nothing
to do, finds all things wearisome, and
thinks that life is fused up )" it takes
something quite out of the way to tickle
that indurated palate; you might as well
think to prick the hide Of a hippopotamus
with a needle, as to excite the interest
of that blaze being by any amusement
which is not highly spiced with the
cayenne Of vice. And that certainly,
has powerful effect. 1t was glass of
water the wicked old Frenchwoman was
drinking when she said, "Oh, tina. this
were sin, to give il relish"
have already said, IN the course Of
this rambling discussion, that recreation
must be such as shall turn the thoughts
into new channel. otherwise it is no
recreation at all. And walking. which
is the most usual physical exercise, here
completely fails. Walking has grown,
by long habit, purely automatic act.
demanding no attention; we think ali
the time we are walking; Southey even
read while he took his daily walk. But
Southey's story is fearful Warming
1t will do clergyman no good whatever
to leave his desk and to 90 forth for his
constitutional, if he is still thinking of
his sermon, and trying to see his way
through the treatment of his next
See in Gray's famous poem how little
use is the mere walk to the contemrla-
tive man, how thoroughly it falls short
of the end of play. You see how the
hectic lad who is supposed to have writ
ten the "EIegy' mpIoycd himself when
he Wandered abroad
There, at the foot of yonder nodding beach,
That wreathes its OLD fantastic roots SO high,
His lIstiess length at noontide would ne stretch
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now dropping, wotul, wan, like one forlone,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love
This was the fashion in which the
poor fellow took his daily recreation and
exercise +! His mother,no doubt, packed
him out TO take bracing walk she
ought to have set him to saw wood for
the fire or to dig in the garden, or to
clean the door-hanles If he had muscle
for nothing more. These things would
have distracted his thoughts from their
grand flights, and prevented his moaning
about in that lislcss manner. OF course
while walking he was bothering away
about the poetical trash he had in his
desk at homc: and as he knocked up his
gan slionic functions, he encouraged tab
crcies on her lungs, and he cam, to fur
nish matter for the 'hoary headed swain S
the silly fellow
Riding is better that walking, espec-
tally if you have rather skttish steed.
who compels you to attend to him on
pain of being landed in the ditch, or sent,
meteor. like, over the hedge. The elder
Disraeli has preserved the memory of the
diversions in which various hard thinkers
found relaxation. Pctayius. who wrote
deeply learned books.which l never saw,
md which no one ever saw ever heard
Of, twirled around his chair for FIVE
minutes every two hours that he was at
work. Sam lel Clark used to leap over
he tab=s and chairs. 1t was rule
which lsnatius L,yoia imposed on. his
followers, that after two hours of work,
:he mind should always be unbent by
some recreation. Every one has heard
If Paley's remarkable ftats of horsoman-
'h'p. Hundreds Of times did that great
nan fall off. The Sultan Mahomet, who
conquered Greece, anbcnt his mind by
.aryinp woode1 Socon. In oil ,boeo