strides, and looking like a man in passionate, personal grief. On being gently asked the cause of this emotion, he answered vehemently: “I was thinking of how many souls are being eternally damned at this very moment. Is it not frightful to think of? Every minute souls are going there, to be tormented for all eternity!” Here was a fixed idea with which it was difficult to deal. It was true, and a thought which would do many good if they would realize it as he did—the innocent, large-hearted man, who did not need the idea for his own discipline—but it was decidedly an inconvenient disturbance of the domestic balance of things, and not a pleasant appetizer for the good breakfast that was before him.
Bores, pure and simple, are of a remote kindred with the riders of hobbies, and they are of as many kinds. There is the croaker, who cherishes some pet grievance and favors every one with it; the singer who is offended if he is not asked to perform, and is not applauded at the end like the leading tenor of the hour; the critic who thinks he would lose his reputation if he condescended to praise anything, or to admire and be pleased like a common mortal; the man (or woman) who sets himself up on a pedestal and assumes, subtly but unmistakably, that he is entirely above his neighbors or whatever people he may be with; the man who has quarrelled with somebody, and insists on reading you the whole correspondence; the man who is sure always to come to see you at inopportune times, and, worse still, never knows when to go away; the amateur—a terrible species—who imagines he can paint, or play the pianoforte or the flute, etc., or write poetry, or draw plans, or, in short, do anything
which it requires a life-time to learn—for the greatest always think themselves still at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge; the man who tells stories to satiety, and expects them to be laughed at; the man who interrupts a tête-à-tête, or who is so full of some interest of his own that he insists on you sharing it when you show no inclination to listen to him; the man who cannot take a hint, though he is as good-natured as he is obtuse—these there are, and many more, who are the human mosquitoes of the world.
Akin to hobbies, as we said at the beginning, are tastes, harmless for the most part, often æsthetic, and almost always beneficial. Indeed, many a taste, well regulated, has become an antidote or a preservative against vice; and, to put it from a very low point of view, a taste is generally far more economical than dangerous company and degrading sin. The Saturday Review, in an article on this subject last year, said with truth: “Tastes are not, as a rule, exorbitantly expensive; they are certainly very much cheaper than vices. A very moderate percentage of an income, judiciously laid out, will soon secure an excellent library. It is surprising how small a sum will suffice for the purchase of every standard work worth having. The most famous private libraries cost their owners nothing in comparison with the price of a few race-horses.” Although we have somewhat disparaged amateurs as a kind of “bores,” this was not meant to dissuade young men and women from cultivating some taste which will serve as a resource for evening hours or any otherwise unoccupied time, and be a relaxation from necessary work, as well as a gradual safeguard against coarse pleasures. As long as such pursuits are
undertaken with due modesty as to one’s proficiency in them, and not as a mere social “accomplishment” to be obtruded on others on all possible occasions, they are infinitely to be commended. They grow on one, too, and soon become the chief point of attraction in our intellectual life, especially if our business happens to be, as that of most persons is, of a prosaic nature. As we grow old they may develop into hobbies; never mind, they will still make us happy and never cause us shame. On the other hand, what will tendencies to convivial “pleasures,” or to frivolous and objectless conversation, or to gadding about to theatres, balls, and races, come to in the end? Dead-Sea fruit.
Among the minor arts which tend to occupy one’s leisure pleasantly and usefully are wood-carving, turning, ivory-carving, and leather-work. Even commoner things may be taken up. We have known young men who, during a long convalescence, took to mending cane chairs as a mode of making their fingers useful when their brains were still too weak to be taxed. Basket-making, decalcomania of the higher order—i.e., a sort of easy glass-painting akin to decalcomania, are all useful and possible methods of employing one’s self and cultivating a pleasant domestic taste. Mechanics, too, and household carpentry we have often seen fostered in young people and become their pride, while illumination—a really high style of art, though a rare gift—is not so uncommon as some may think. Of such tastes as gardening, reading, embroidering,
and music we say nothing; they are too well known. Such a taste generally ends in a collection, and then the pleasure is enhanced a hundred-fold; and, as the Saturday Review says, it really needs but a comparatively small outlay to secure a very fair collection of any kind. This in its turn helps to study by giving us the means of reference or comparison. And if in any family the members were seriously to look up the money really wasted—that is, the money spent in transitory, unhealthy pleasures, the value of which dies in the mere excitement of the moment, leaving no pleasant memory or useful impression behind, and often, on the contrary, leading to a remorseful, or at least an uncomfortable, remembrance—they would find that every year there goes forth imperceptibly from the collective treasury of the home enough to beautify their lives and increase their happiness if only they would lead it into the right channels. The money would not be missed, while their pleasures would be tenfold and lasting. Even the very poorest of the poor spends uselessly—and alas! often wickedly—what would make him a happy, self-respecting man; and, strictly speaking, no one can say that he cannot afford good and healthy pleasures, for, as a matter of fact, he does afford bad and unhealthy, or, to say the least, unsatisfactory, ones. Let every one ask this question of his own experience: Which costs most in the long run, a healthy pleasure, say even an innocent hobby, or a vicious and lowering pursuit?