FOREWORD xiii 



him, he would be so surpassingly comfortable! 

 Soon after, bicycles went out of fashion, and 

 I fear the moment of supreme luxury never 

 came. His mince pie had, as it were, been 

 snatched from him. One of my friends wrote 

 me once: &quot;It seems to me I am always dis- 

 tractingly busy just getting ready to live, but 

 I never really begin.&quot; Most of us are in the 

 same plight. We are like the thrifty house 

 wife who kept pushing the week s work earlier 

 and earlier, until it backed up into the week 

 before; yet with all her planning she never 

 succeeded in clearing one little spot of leisure 

 for herself. She never got her dessert at all. 

 Probably she would not have enjoyed it if she 

 had had it. For the capacity to enjoy desserts 

 in life is something not to be trifled with. 

 Children have it, and grown people can keep 

 it if they try, but they don t always try. I 

 knew of a man who worked every minute un 

 til he was sixty, getting rich. He did get rich. 

 Then he retired; he built him a &quot;stately 

 pleasure palace,&quot; and set about taking his 

 pleasure. And lo! he found that he had for 

 gotten how! He tried this and that, indoor 

 and outdoor pleasures, the social and the sol- 



