all
sense of proportion, and often all sense of sanity. I have seen more
unrelieved seriousness in a lunatic asylum than anywhere else.

The key to success is to come to a task with a fresh mind. That was the
meaning of the very immoral advice given by a don to a friend of mine on
the day before an examination. "What would you advise me to read to-night?"
asked my friend, anxious to make the most of the few remaining hours. "If
I were you," said the don, "I shouldn't read anything. I should get drunk."
He did not mean that the business was so unimportant that it did not matter
what he did. He meant that it was so important that he must forget all
about it, and come to it afresh from the outside. And he used the most
violent illustration he could find to express his meaning.

It is with the mind as with the soil. If you want to get the best out of
your land you must change the crops, and sometimes even let the land lie
fallow. And if you want to get the best out of your mind on a given theme
you must let it range and have plenty of diversion. And the more remote the
diversion is from the theme the better. I know a very grave man whose days
are spent in the most responsible work, who goes to see Charlie Chaplin
once or twice every week, and laughs like a schoolboy all the time. I
should not trust his work less on that account: I should trust it all the
more. I should know that he did not allow it to get the whip hand of him,
that he kept sane and healthy by running out to play, as it were,
occasionally.

I think all solemn men ought to take sixpenny-worth of Charlie Chaplin
occasionally. And I'm certain they ought to play more. I believe that the
real disease of Germany is that it has never learned to play. The bow is
stretched all the time, and the nation is afflicted with a dreadful
seriousness that suggests the madhouse by its lack of humour and gaiety.
The oppressiveness of life begins with the child. Germany is one of The two
countries in the world where the suicide of children is a familiar social
fact. Years ago when I was in Cologne I christened it the City of the
Elderly Children, and no one, I think, can have had any experience of
Germany without being struck by the premature gravity of the young. If
Germany had had fewer professors and a decent sprinkling of cricket and
football grounds perhaps things might have been different. I don't
generally agree with copybook maxims, but all work and no play does make