e fourth thing is some
degree of leisure and the use of it in some way that makes us happy. To
succeed in making a good use of our leisure will not compensate for
failure in any one of the other three things to which I have referred,
but a reasonable amount of leisure and a good use of it is an important
contribution to a happy life. How is this happy use of leisure to be
ensured? We sometimes meet people who do not seem to know what to do
with their spare time. They are like the man of whom it was said, "He
doesn't know what he wants, and he won't be happy till he gets it." The
first thing, therefore, is to take ourselves out of that category, to
know definitely what we want, and to make sure it is something that will
make us happy when we get it; and that is the beginning of recreation.
You are entitled to say to me, "That is all very well as a general piece
of advice, but tell us how you have followed and applied it yourself";
and it would not be fair for me to shrink from answering that question.
In one respect I must plead failure. I have been a failure as regards
golf, not because I did not succeed, but because I did not want to
succeed. I have a great respect for golf. I am sure it is very good for
many people; I know very many good people who play golf; but it so
happens that it does not give me a good time, and so I leave the
recommendation of it to people who can speak of it with more
appreciation.

But I do recommend some game or games as a part of recreation. As long
as I could see to play and had sufficient leisure, I enjoyed immensely
the game of real or court tennis, a very ancient game, requiring
activity as well as skill, a game in which Americans may take interest
and some pride, because for the first time, at any rate, in the recent
history of the game, an amateur is champion of the world and that
amateur is an American. The English are sometimes criticised for paying
too much attention to games. A British officer whom I know well, who
happened to be in Africa at the outbreak of the war and took part in the
fighting there, tells me that in one of the German posts captured by
the British there was found a map made by the Germans and showing Africa
as it was to be when the war was over. The greater part of Africa had
become German, and there was nothing left for the British excepting a
small patch in the middle of the Sahara Desert which was marked
"Footballplatz for the English." Football is a national