30 MANUAL FOE YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



the mind, as are repose and sustenance to recruit the 

 forces of the body. 



Even from the pulpit, the true sense of the word 

 recreation, which men are wont to use frivolously as 

 equivalent to pleasurable excitement, has been pointed 

 out much doubtless to the wonderment of those ascetic 

 geniuses, who have set up their witness against all amuse- 

 ment as if it were at best idle and unprofitable, if not 

 sinful in itself, apart from its consequences. 



Much exercised, one can understand these Pharisees 

 to find themselves in the spirit, on discovering that this 

 re-creation, as they are wont to style it in their nasal self- 

 sanctification, is so called, because it has the acknowledged 

 potency, indeed, to re-create ; or make anew from the 

 beginning, and restore to all its pristine elasticity, lost 

 and worn out by overcarefulness concerning the things 

 of to-day, the mind, which has been actually unmade by 

 preternatural tension. 



That relaxation of the overtasked mind is necessary 

 even to the maintenance, much more to the improvement 

 of its powers, has never at any period of the world been 

 doubted or disputed. 



Neque semper arcnm 

 Tendit Apollo * 



has at all times been a proverb with the most Draconian 

 of pedagogues ; and never surely was there a time, when 

 its value is so appreciable, as this age of high pressure, 



* Nor does Apollo always bend his bow. Hor. 



