The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-08-29
IDLING.
London Globe. |

ance for some months, to enjoy a fort. night of complete idling. which will dc more to put him right and start him ba ok in sound health than any tour or triu however we'll organiz d More than a fortnight of skillful idling is unnecessary The patient will find himself in such ex- uberant health that he will begin to be restless. But then there are very few people who know how to idle properly.
 The idler must start with the fixed de. termination to consult nothing but his own comfort and convenience There is no real selhshness in this. He has as much right to take his holiday in his own way as has any other person. The first object to be considered is his own health and if he is, like most middle aged men, bread-winner for others, the consider ation of his own he alth becomes a duty. Most fathers are victimized by their fam. lilies are taken to places where they do not want to go, lugged about from pillar to post la round of stupid amusement, and compelled to mix in society which irri.ates them. The experienced idler will start for his holiday with such funds as he may require about him, and, above I1 will, of course, avoid places where fashion congregates, because there he must dress as other people dress. He will probably choose some seaside place unknown to regular summer visitors and put up at a small inn. He will get up in the morn ing when he pleases, have his meals when he pleases, and spend the day in loafng about. There is no greater nuisance than lodgings where the family breakfast is at nine and the family dinner at two where tea Is at six precisely, and cold supper at ten where there are perpetual disputes as to the merest trlhes, and where the iandlady objects to smoking and abso- lutely forbids reading in bed. A single or quasi-single man at a respectable inn can get good plain cookery, and have as few or as many meals as he pleases at any hour he likes to order them, reas son- ably short of midnight. If your idler feels disposed for bath, he will take it. If not he will let it alone. He will eau tiously avoid excursions to djacent places of interest, knowing them to be delusions and snares, involving hot drive, and a deal ot needless scrambling about with no real net result. No idler ever visits ruins, or waterfalls, or things of that sort The most he will do is to take a drive through some large park, sternly forbid ding the driver to expatiate upon its beauties, or even to point them out But he will principally lounge upon the beach, and among the fishing boats, about the haroor, if there be one, avoiding the ac- quaintance of the old men of the sea, who are garrulous and eager for backsheesh. He will, in short, treat himself exactly as if he were suffering from heart disease, and were, in addition, anxious to hide himself from everybody he knows.
 When he is tired of his first place, or, as he will probably term it, pitch" he will take up Bradshaw or the county map, and let chance or whim decide up. on second. If he does not like place, 1t is easy to leave it if his sole impedi- menta are an umbrella, a walking stick and a travelling bag. And so he will saun- ter about until he feels longing to ioin his family, if he has one. at Brighton, in Eastbourne, or some such place or to go back to the world on his own account. He will then know that his cure is com plete. He will not take fowlipg piece with him, or ske.ching apparatus, or a long correspondence to be posted up and finished, or any other such toil- entailing hamper. A 6shing-rod is just permiss ble, although not to be recommended, for al- though fishing may involve certain amosnt of trouble, your true fisherman never gets excited over it The daily papers, it they reach the scene of action at all, should be kept till the evening A large farmhouse in some unfreQuented part of the country, or we'll out along the road, is capital pitch for an idler He can loiter about the garden and take languid interest in the horses and pigs and poultry, and saunter along the road to see the coach go by. Yarmouth is also to be commended to an idler of nautical proclivities. Guildford would not be bad place if the main street were not Il up hill. Tiverton, the New Forest will lages, and Birmingham have all their ad- mirers. But ysu cease to idle properly if you go to place of set purpose. The kind of place toward which your idler will grayitate will be one where nobody but an idler could possibly be persuaded to stop over the second night. An idler who is good sailor will start at hazard for any port, stop there for a day, and then start of for any other. If he can get on in French sufficiently well the coast from Boulogne downward will suit him admirably. Even Boulogne, Dieppe, Trouville, and such places will be pleas ant enough if he shuns the Casino and other haunts where friends might bounce upon him and claim him. In Normandy, more especially, an idler excites no at. tention, and creates no comment. He ese nn A Al of tree, or may carry corn in his pocket tor the ducks and pigeons but he must never give sous or bonbons to children. He will next day be driven from his quarters, and will find his good report, as kind Englishman, render the neighbor- hood for some miles round impossible.
 We have already said that an idler is not necessarily selfish. A man is not selfish because, when he knows he is not well, he spends the day on the sofa in the IlhRarxx and falve ea~~,, kA :~