of leisure tends to be filled up with bridge. The difficulty in dealing
with the situation is that the thing itself is not only not wrong, but
really beneficial; it is better to be occupied than to be idle, and it
is hard to preach against a thing which is excellent in moderation and
only mischievous in excess.

Personally I am afraid that I only look upon games as a pis-aller. I
would always rather take a walk than play golf, and read a book than
play bridge. Bridge, indeed, I should regard as only one degree better
than absolutely vacuous conversation, which is certainly the most
fatiguing thing in the world. But the odd thing is that while it is
regarded as rather vicious to do nothing, it is regarded as positively
virtuous to play a game. Personally I think competition always a more
or less disagreeable thing. I dislike it in real life, and I do not see
why it should be introduced into one's amusements. If it amuses me to
do a thing, I do not very much care whether I do it better than another
person. I have no desire to be always comparing my skill with the skill
of others.

Then, too, I am afraid that I must confess to lamentably feeble
pleasure in mere country sights and sounds. I love to watch the curious
and beautiful things that go on in every hedgerow and every field; it
is a ceaseless delight to see the tender uncrumpling leaves of the
copse in spring, and no a pleasure to see the woodland streaked and
stained with the flaming glories of autumn. It is a joy in high
midsummer to see the clear dwindled stream run under the thick hazels,
among the lush water-plants; it is no less a joy to see the same stream
running full and turbid in winter, when the banks are bare, and the
trees are leafless, and the pasture is wrinkled with frost. Half the
joy, for instance, of shooting, in which I frankly confess I take a
childish delight, is the quiet tramping over the clean-cut stubble, the
distant view of field and wood, the long, quiet wait at the covert-end,
where the spindle-wood hangs out her quaint rosy berries, and the
rabbits come scampering up the copse, as the far-off tapping of the
beaters draws near in the frosty air. The delights of the country-side
grow upon me every month and every year. I love to stroll in the lanes
in spring, with white clouds floating in the blue above, and to see the
glade carpeted with steel-blue hyacinths. I love to walk on country
roads or by woodland paths, on a rain-drenched day of