ation fond of
movement and excitement; what they desire is a picturesque
mise-en-scene, a simplicity which comes as a little pretty interlude to
busy life; they do not desire it in its entirety and continuously. They
would find it dull, triste, ennuyant.

Thus it must fall into the hands of individuals to practise it, who are
sincerely enamoured of quietness and peace. The simple man must have a
deep fund of natural joy and zest; he must bring his own seasoning to
the plain fare of life; but if he loves the face of nature, and books,
and his fellow-men, and above all, work, there is no need for him to go
out into the wilderness in pursuit of a transcendental ideal. But those
whose spirits flag and droop in solitude; who open their eyes upon the
world, and wonder what they will find to do; who love talk and laughter
and amusement; who crave for alcoholic mirth, and the song of them that
feast, had better make no pretence of pursuing a spirit which haunts
the country lane and the village street, the rough pasture beside the
brimming stream, the forest glade, with the fragrant breeze blowing
cool out of the wood. Simplicity, to be successfully attained, must be
the result of a passionate instinct, not of a picturesque curiosity;
and it is useless to lament that one has no time to possess one's soul,
if, when one visits the innermost chamber, there is nothing there but
cobwebs and ugly dust.

XV

GAMES

It requires almost more courage to write about games nowadays than it
does to write about the Decalogue, because the higher criticism is
tending to make a belief in the Decalogue a matter of taste, while to
the ordinary Englishman a belief in games is a matter of faith and
morals.

I will begin by saying frankly that I do not like games; but I say it,
not because any particular interest attaches to my own dislikes and
likes, but to raise a little flag of revolt against a species of social
tyranny. I believe that there are a good many people who do not like
games, but who do not dare to say so. Perhaps it may be thought that I
am speaking from the point of view of a person who has never been able
to play them. A vision rises in the mind of a spectacled owlish man,
trotting feebly about a football field, and making desperate attempts
to avoid the proximity of the ball; or joining in a game of cricket,
and fielding a drive with the air of a man trying to catch an insect on
the ground, or sitting in a boat with th