CHAPTEE VI. 



HOBBIES AND SOME OF THEIR EIDERS. 



The variety and contrary choices that men make in the 

 world argue that the same thing is not good to every man 

 alike. This variety of pursuits shows that every one does 

 not place his happiness in the same thing. {Locke. 



T is not true that " every man has 

 his hobby." The great mass of 

 men have no special source of 

 pleasurable diversion. They are 

 content to walk the weary tread- 

 mill of life in stoical monotony, 

 if they can but have the barren 

 assurance that "their oil and 

 their wine increaseth." But with 

 the man who has his " hobby " it 

 is not so. Equally with others, he has respect unto 

 his larder and his bank account, and is as willing 

 as the most thoroughly devoted man of business to 

 have " both ends meet " seasonably and symmetri- 

 cally. He has no less zeal or energy, and is quite 

 as industrious and thrifty as his neighbor; but 

 through the rift in the cloud of his daily struggle, 

 he catches frequent glimpses of his beloved " hob- 

 by," and his heart throbs and his step becomes 



