Amusements ought to be things which one wants to do, and
which one is slightly ashamed of doing--enough ashamed, I mean, to
give rather elaborate reasons for continuing them. If one shoots,
for instance, one ought to say that it gets one out of doors, and
that what one really enjoys is the country, and so forth.
Personally I was never much amused by amusements, and gave them up
as soon as I decently could. I regret it now. I wish we were all
taught a handicraft as a regular part of education! I used to
sketch, and strum a piano once, but I cannot deliberately set to
work on such things again. I gave them all up when I became a
writer, really, I suppose, because I did not care for them, but
nominally on the grounds of "resolute limitation," as Lord Acton
said--with the idea that if you prune off the otiose boughs of a
tree, you throw the strength of the sap into the boughs you retain.
I see now that it was a mistake. But it is too late to begin again
now; I was reading Kingsley's Life the other day. He used to
overwork himself periodically--use up the grey matter at the base
of his brain, as he described it; but he had a hundred things that
he wanted to do besides writing--fishing, entomologising,
botanising.
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