game to her. How can your
game improve, or move forward, if you make no effort to strengthen what
is feeble?

Practise, then, conscientiously, and with infinite patience; never mind
who beats you. Take each weak stroke in turn, and determine to master
it, and I think you will find that you will be amply rewarded for all
your painstaking work by a vast improvement and keener enjoyment in your
game. What greater delight than to feel a stroke you have always dreaded
becoming easier and less embarrassing each time you use it, to know that
you are genuinely advancing instead of making no progress and playing
the same old bad shots time after time? I am sure you will say such a
sense of achievement is worth all the trouble which must be faced and
all the patience which must be exercised.

Of course in match play it is quite different. You avoid your weak
strokes as much as you can; your object then is to win the game. But
after discriminate practice you will find, probably to your surprise,
that there are not so many weak spots after all to remove, that your
game is opening out and steadily advancing. Do not get easily
disheartened if you find improvement slow; for a game that is worth
playing at all is worth playing well, and to play lawn tennis well you
must go through a stiff apprenticeship. You must school yourself to meet
disappointments and failures; you must cultivate a philosophic spirit,
or you will never reach the goal of perfection. I need not say that if
you wish to go forward enthusiasm is essential. Lawn tennis players
never seem to me to be nearly so keen on their game as golfers. So many
of them appear quite satisfied to remain at a fixed stage. They will
certainly not get their handicap reduced unless there is an ardent
desire to become better acquainted with the science of the game. A
struggling golfer is never tired of learning talking about his
pastime--often, I admit, to the annoyance of people who are not so
obsessed. Nevertheless, he is on the right track; and being so
thoroughly absorbed and in earnest, he ought to improve. You will find
him buying every new book that comes out and poring over its pages. He
may play in a few competitions, but his time is more seriously occupied
with practice and improvement. He wisely deprecates the continuous
strain of match play. He prefers to acquire a working knowledge of the
game, to make the various strokes with some degree of accuracy, before
he pits his skil