Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



331 



"THE LOVE OF PAIN." 

 Miss Constance Clyde writes in East and West on 

 our reaching out for pain. She insists upon — 

 the fact that what we may frankly call the love of pain is 

 more innate in u> than is usually imagined. Generally spoakini;, 

 it needs less encouragement than people think. The desire for 

 what materi.ilisis call a rough time (what in religious people 

 is felt as the need of pwnance) is part of human ualure. 

 It cannot be eradicated, it is as much part of that Nature as the 

 opposite desire for ease and luxury, .ind it is more lasting than 

 the opposite desire for ease and luxury. Pleasure has no such 

 faithful disciples as has pain. Monle Carlo gaming tables attract 

 .adherents less ferwnt than Thibetan monasteries. St. .Simeon 

 Siylites staycil loni;er on his pillar than Nero in his palace. When 

 the passion fur penance seizes the human soul it holds it in firmer 

 thrall than dots any passion for pleasure ; for pleasure is not a 

 descent down a hill, as is so often pictured. Rather it is a sea 

 wherein we plunge, only Icf return to the surface in spite of 

 ourselves. The more we think of it the less seldom can we 

 realise the embo<iiment of that simple oft-quoted phrase " the 

 pleasure-lover. " The man who pursues pleasure from the cradle 

 to the grave is practically non-eiistenl ; the man who pursues 

 pain from the cradle to the grave is everywhere. 



ihildren 



WHAT IS AN IDEAL HOLIDAY.' 



.Mr. Stephen Paget, author of the " Confessio 

 Medici," contributes to the August number of the 

 I'arenis' Revinc a charming essay on the subject of 

 holidays. 



LONDON FOR COUNTRY CHILDREN. 



When we Londoners talk of holidays we are thinking 

 111 anvwhere but London, he says ; but many of us 

 dream, now and again, of a holiday in London. London, 

 however, has been so much with us these many years 

 that we shall never sec her with amazement. Mr. Paget 

 has another dream, which runs thus. If he com- 

 manded sufTicient wealth of money and time he 

 would have up from the countn.-, every June and 

 every Christmas, two or three really nice 

 who have never been in Lon- 



lon. They must be talkative, 



inbitious, imaginative. young 

 people between fourteen and 

 eighteen, from some dull place in 

 the .Midlands, and he would give 

 them their unforgettable first sight 



I London. This not being realis- 

 il)le, he >ays that at some future 

 day the ('i(i\ernmcnt may intro- 

 duce a Country Children's London 

 Holiday Hill to compel every 

 Londoner rated at £100 or more 

 III provide board and lodging for 

 I fortnight each yeur for two 



hildren who have never seen 

 London. 



CHII.I>RI.N AND NATl'RE. 



Leaving ihe^e fancies, Mr. Paget 

 gives us his idea of the me.ining 

 of holidays. He compares holid.iys 

 to music. We enjoy holidays as 



we enjoy music, he says. In each of them the^e is 

 the same form of experience — the quiet, happy 

 recognition and appreciation of something beautiful 

 addressed to oneself. .\ holiday is a performance 

 which Nature arranges for us and addresses to 

 us ; but we cannot take it all in. We have a 

 sort of turnstile inside us, which lets in one im- 

 pression at a time and no more, and we count those 

 impressions which get through, but, alas ! we forget 

 a large number left kicking their heels outside. W'ere 

 we only keener, wiser, and better than we are. Nature 

 would get more impressions into us. From some 

 inquiries which Mr. Paget recently made it appears 

 that on an average people are seventeen before they 

 attain real admiration of scenery. It takes education, 

 experience, and wisdom to admire scenery, and children 

 cannot obtain these acquirements ready-made. 

 Scenery, to impress children, must be sensational ; 

 they will attend to a storm, a cataract, a precipice. 

 Those who are old enough will observe and admire 

 Nature in their own erratic fashion without being 

 urged. 



SOME HOLIDAY REQIIREMENTS. 



It is a real good famih' holiday which Mr. Paget has 

 in mind, a magic time earned by work and ended by 

 work. A holiday should neither be too long nor too 

 short. More than eight weeks is not a holiday, 

 but a house in the country. Among the many 

 gains of a holiday this is set high : that it brings 

 us nearer the children, and them to us. Besides 

 sight^seeing and the pursuit of health, some books, 

 which must not be rubbish, are necessary, and 

 there must be added " the pleasant sense of leisure, 

 freedom, elbow-room, lime to turn round, and space 

 to turn round in ; and the sense of a simpler way 

 of living, the riddance from the machinery of our 

 life in London."' 



t.r Khr.) 



A French Holiday Crowd. 



