nbidden and the
creative imagination lives and grows.

(In the sphere of will, many great sages have said that an analogous
sequence holds good. When the whole emotional and moral nature has
thrown itself in a particular direction, and then an unwinding has
taken place, the moment of completed renunciation has been said to be
the dawn of some great new spiritual light.)

Who does not know the peaceful activity of a Sunday evening, the
fruitful quiet of a long railway journey or sea-voyage _at the end_ of
a holiday? Two friends walk slowly home together after an exciting
expedition or debate; two girls give each other their confidence while
brushing their hair after a dance.

Why is this so? Nowadays people are very ready to answer the question
by refusing the fact. It is waste of time not to be _doing_ something
strenuously. Rest is almost as strenuous as everything else; it is to
be thorough while it is the duty on hand and is to fit exactly on to
the work time, without overlapping but without interspace.

In this way too often the imagination, the really individual part of
the mind, is starved and atrophied. Especially in childhood there
ought to be a space left between useful work and ordered play for the
individually invented games, the pursuits that are not for any
definite end, for dreams and lived-out tales, when the child may make
what he likes, do what he likes, and in imagination be what he likes.
If we scrupulously respected this growing-time we should soon have a
race of sturdier mettle altogether. Just now this particular want is
probably most nearly supplied among elementary school children than
among those who have more "educational advantages"; they "go out to
play" in the streets for hours every day, and one cannot help thinking
that it is the vitality thus evolved that keeps most of them healthy
and happy in spite of many hardships.

In later life, if we really want to make something of our lives, we
shall do well to insist an keeping such a margin of free time to
ourselves. It need not be long. Five minutes, if one really sails away
in the ship of imagination, will take us to fairyland and back again.
But the five minutes (or the day in the country, or the week of quiet,
or whatever we take or can get) must really and truly be free; we
must have the courage to seek for what we really want, and we shall
have the inestimable reward of finding what we really are.

E.M. COBHAM.

HOW MUCH SH