The New York herald., 1921-09-04
By WILLIS STEEL.

Ell hobby, elder brother, and ride
it for your life Become a collec-
tor of something homogeneous,
first editions, first proofs, buttons from all
over the world, poetic scraps from the back
page of THE Sun, anything! Only you
must be as serious about it as the four
year-old boy who rides a kitchen chair
firmly believing that it's hoofs strike fire.
its nostrils breathe smoke and its tail
switches like an angry cats. Mount your
hobby, elder brother, realizing that IL it
doesn't devour distance 1t will eat up
ennui.
A new America has been d. covered
Nnose existence was not suspected in the
SOS and 90s of the last century-an Amer
lea of hobby riding. The world in this re-
spect has grown wiser as it grew older, and
men who once would have gone daily to
their Office after they felt little weak In
the hams; after the light that shines on
circumstance and makes it important had
failed: who would have kept looking with
lack lustre eyes on business as it IS con-
Quoted (all wrongly by younger men, now
retire and devote their leisure to hobby.
Happy to give all their time to the kitchen
chair, which formerly they could ride on
Sundays and occasionally after business
hours
Sports, and especially golf, are barred
from the list of popular hobbies The man
Of go who takes up the clubs doubtless gets
some of the benefits of hobby riding. The
modern Izaak Walton is born, not made:
he begins with bent pin and a piece of
twine; he ends with reel and fly. The
sport is part of him, as hunger is, and he
chose neither.
real hobby demands choice, thought
ful, prayerfuf choice. 1t is not thing to
be lightly assumed and as lightly dis
carded. The man who thinks it so de-
serves and gets one of two things-a violent
fall at the very start or half hearted
interest which never grows into Illusion
The founder Of a great publishing house
Of New York who arose and fiourished
in that nineteenth century supposed, mis-
takenly, to be hobbyless, kept room ad-
Joining his library always locked. The
family called it his Bluebeard chamber, but
he never left with any of them the little
key. When he died and the room was
opened it was found to be stacked to the
ceiling with theatre programmes-pro-
grammes not of entertainments held in
New York or this country alone but in
every city of the world. To collect this
trove must have taken time, patience and
money. and yet the collector went to the
theatre only once or twice in season.
Why did the great publisher choose this
hobby when to collect any other kind OF
printed matter-say first editions-would
have been much easier for him? The an
swer to this question is that nobody selects
a hobby because 1t is easy. Quite the con-
trary, as some of the following instances
show.
~ HARLES NJ. SCHwAB, noted steel
man and famous internationally
for his keenness in all things COM
mercal, takes his greatest pleasure in the
almost childlike pastime of assembling
chessmen Sets Of all sorts of material,
each with an interesting bit of history,
have been gathered by him. Many are
valued in the thousands. some merely in
scant dollars But each set gives JOY to
it's possessor and furnishes anecdotes ga
lore for those fortunate enough to be
shown them by the owner.
Much Of Mr.. Schwab's wonderful patience
and diplomacy have been devoted to acquir-
ing chess sets that were family heirlooms
and others that formed the basis of an
cestral worship by their owners. One of
the strange features of this hobby of the
steel master is the fact that he does not
play chess for diversion at all, but is an
ardent devotee of whist
-
r. ORGANS OF three generations have
MI had yachting as their hobby, and
in each instance the Morgan has
been skilled sailorman. The elder J. p.
Morgan, with his string Of Corsair craft
was one of the famous Commodores OF the