children of all
ages agree to call play," nor the grave excitement of the mental
faculties in games of skill or chance, are in anywise connected with the
state of feeling we have here to investigate, namely, that sportiveness
which man possesses in common with many inferior creatures, but to which
his higher faculties give nobler expression in the various
manifestations of wit, humor, and fancy.

With respect to the manner in which this instinct of playfulness is
indulged or repressed, mankind are broadly distinguishable into four
classes: the men who play wisely; who play necessarily; who play
inordinately; and who play not at all.

Sec. XXVI. First: Those who play wisely. It is evident that the idea of
any kind of play can only be associated with the idea of an imperfect,
childish, and fatigable nature. As far as men can raise that nature, so
that it shall no longer be interested by trifles or exhausted by toils,
they raise it above play; he whose heart is at once fixed upon heaven,
and open to the earth, so as to apprehend the importance of heavenly
doctrines, and the compass of human sorrow, will have little disposition
for jest; and exactly in proportion to the breadth and depth of his
character and intellect, will be, in general, the incapability of
surprise, or exuberant and sudden emotion, which must render play
impossible. It is, however, evidently not intended that many men should
even reach, far less pass their lives in, that solemn state of
thoughtfulness, which brings them into the nearest brotherhood with
their Divine Master; and the highest and healthiest state which is
competent to ordinary humanity appears to be that which, accepting the
necessity of recreation, and yielding to the impulses of natural delight
springing out of health and innocence, does, indeed, condescend often to
playfulness, but never without such deep love of God, of truth, and of
humanity, as shall make even its slightest words reverent, its idlest
fancies profitable, and its keenest satire indulgent. Wordsworth and
Plato furnish us with, perhaps, the finest and highest examples of this
playfulness: in the one case, unmixed with satire, the perfectly simple
effusion of that spirit--in

"Which gives to all the self-same bent,
Whose life is wise, and innocent;"

Plato, and, by the by, in a very wise book of our own times, not
unworthy of being named in such companionship, "Friends in Council,"
mingled with an exquisitely te