ou know about it, the more absorbing is the
interest of it. There is no season of the year at which the interest
ceases and no time of life, so long as sight remains, at which we are
too old to enjoy it.

I have now mentioned games, sport, and gardening. No one perhaps has
time or opportunity to enjoy all three to the full. A few people may
have sufficient range of temperament to care for all three, but many
people--I would say most people--who have opportunity may find, at any
rate in one of them, something that will contribute to their happiness.
I will pass now to a subject which is more important still.

Books are the greatest and the most satisfactory of recreations. I mean
the use of books for pleasure. Without books, without having acquired
the power of reading for pleasure, none of us can be independent, but
if we can read we have a sure defence against boredom in solitude. If we
have not that defence, we are dependent on the charity of family,
friends, or even strangers, to save us from boredom; but if we can find
delight in reading, even a long railway journey alone ceases to be
tedious, and long winter evenings to ourselves are an inexhaustible
opportunity for pleasure.

Poetry is the greatest literature, and pleasure in poetry is the
greatest of literary pleasures. It is also the least easy to attain and
there are some people who never do attain it. I met some one the other
day who did not care for poetry at all; it gave her no pleasure, no
satisfaction, and only caused her to reflect how much better the
thought, so it seemed to her, could be expressed in prose. In the same
way there are people who care nothing for music. I knew one Englishman
of whom it was said that he knew only two tunes: one was the national
anthem, "God Save the King," and the other wasn't. We cannot help these
people if they do not care for poetry or music, but I may offer you one
or two suggestions founded on my own experience with regard to poetry.
There is much poetry for which most of us do not care, but with a little
trouble when we are young we may find one or two poets whose poetry, if
we get to know it well, will mean very much to us and become part of
ourselves. Poetry does not become intimate to us through the intellect
alone; it comes to us through temperament, one might almost say enters
us through the pores of the skin, and it is as if when we get older our
skin becomes dry and our temperament hard and we can read only w