he will go and what he will see. Without
this fore-thought and planning they would not get their pleasure, and so
it is with reading. If we once acquire the habit of planning, we find
out increasingly what it is that we like, and our difficulty at any
spare moment is not to find some book that we are longing to read, but
to choose which book of those to which we are looking forward in
anticipation we shall take first.

I have spoken about planning for a holiday, and I will give an instance
of how thoroughly President Roosevelt planned for a holiday. Several
years ago when I was at the Foreign Office in London, I got a letter
from Mr. Bryce, who was then British Ambassador at Washington, saying
that President Roosevelt intended to travel as soon as he was out of
office. He was going to travel in Africa, to visit Europe, and to come
to England, and he was planning his holiday so minutely as to time his
visit to England for the spring, when the birds would be in full song
and he could hear them. For this purpose he wanted it to be arranged
that somebody who knew the songs of the English birds should go for a
walk with him in the country, and as the songs were heard tell him what
the birds were. That is a pretty good instance of thorough planning in
advance for a holiday. It seemed to me very attractive that the
executive head of the most powerful country in the world should have
this simple, healthy, touching desire to hear the songs of birds, and I
wrote back at once to Mr. Bryce to say that when President Roosevelt
came to England I should be delighted to do for him what he wanted. It
is no more a necessary qualification for the Secretary for Foreign
Affairs in London than it is for the President of the United States that
he should know the songs of the birds, and it is an amusing coincidence
that we should have been able to arrange this little matter
satisfactorily between us as if it were part of our official duties,
without feeling obliged to call in experts.

Time passed, and when the President retired from office he went to
Africa and had much big-game shooting and travel there. Then he came by
way of the Sudan and Egypt to Europe. The leading countries of Europe
were stirred to do him honour, England not less than others. He had a
great reception and everywhere a programme of great and dignified
character was arranged for him. European newspapers were full of it long
before he got to England, and I thought this li