August 7, 1916. 
L A N U AND .WATER. 
A MODIFIED HOLIDAY. 
By J. D. Symon. 
THIS year the problem of the holiday takes a 
new complexion. Hitherto it has ^ways 
been a matter for heart-searchings, bat these 
were concerned chiefly with choice of retreat 
by land or water, |md with the inevitable 
question of ways and means. The point of ethics has 
now entered into the argument. National moralists 
urge the necessity of saving every penny. iWe say 
" Ay, Ay," heartily, and look about for corners to pare 
yet finer. The hoUday presents itself as a most obvious 
opportunity for economy from the personal point of 
view. But against this rise several counter-propositions, 
toot to be ignored. .What of those who five by the 
holiday-maker ? Is their brief harvest to be taken from 
them utterly, Aeir cakes and ale to be sacrificed that we 
may feel virtuous ? The point grows extremely fine ; in 
fact, it subdivides itself into Innumerable fine points 
and threatens to become a very hedgehog in our bands. 
Let us imagine the hedgehog a little further. 
Finer still is the point of honour. For those in the 
field there can be no holiday or thought of holiday until 
the great task is accompli^ed. How, then, are those 
who cannot take the field, much as they would wish to 
do so, to justify to themselves the usual August relaxa- 
tion ? It seems out of place, a thing that must taste a 
little bitter in the mouth when one thinks of the fighting 
man. Here every man must be a law unto himself. If 
his conscience will not let him take the customary ex- 
cursion he had better deny himself without further 
hesitation, for his holiday will not do him any good. 
But, on the other hand, before he rushes at self-denial, 
he might do well to ask himself a question or two. He 
has work to do, very unheroic work, perhaps, on the 
face of it, but needful to the nation. His holiday has 
been an investment in the Bank of Life, a means to 
the fit performance of duty. Will the entire omission 
of the holiday mean a present glow of self-satisfaction, 
but an ultimate overdraft on the vital account and a con- 
sequent incapacity for the little civilian share of war- 
fare ? Dilemma on dilemma ! 
Question of the Children. 
Again, there is the question of the children, now 
more than ever valuable to the State. But this is the 
most easily resolved of all. Plainly the children must 
have their holiday, and it is to them that seaside land- 
ladies must look for a little comfort in these dark days. 
As a rule, your landlady regards the children as a 
necessary evil, a dire peril to her furniture and crockery 
and incidentally most trying temporary inmates, for the 
Speaes is prone to import strange marine monsters and 
common objects of the seashore into well-ordered (if 
rather inartistic) rooms. But ttxlay the child is a cause 
of thankfulness, for it will be due to him primarily that 
the bill will come down from the window, in the 
right Bardellesque manner, and other bills will begin 
to mount up, not perhaps so high as in former lavish 
and peaceful years, but still sufficiently high to hold the 
wolf from the door, and to keep Paterfamilias's 
auditorial skill from utter rust. Things certainly will 
not be quite as they were. At the best the holiday must 
be somewhat shadowed for the grown-ups. We would 
>K)t have it otherwise. 
In every respect, however, there will be a difference. 
The modified holiday will be the rule alike for those who 
go and those who stay. But the new order holds its 
inevitable compensations. That was clear to us in the 
very first days of the present turmoil. The eve of trouble 
fell on the Feast of St. Lubbock last year, and next day 
ready scribes commented on the curious aspect of the 
crowds. Careless gaiety had given place to restraint. 
The term Bank Holiday now stood for something new 
and strange. But the throngs, if they took their pleasure 
quietly, did not take it altogether sadly, and they 3i(l well 
not to mope at home, but to seize the strength of open 
spaces and justifiable recreation to make them better able 
to endure what was to come. We are not volatile or ver- 
satile, but we are an adaptable people. On the succeeding 
festivals, Paschal and Pentecostal, this was even more 
apparent. The numerical exodus beyond the London 
area shrank to the inconsiderable, but the people did not 
miss their holiday. The parks wore a new and most 
interesting aspect, and Londoners who had formerly 
fled incontinent from City and suburb on the Money 
Changers' Gala-day now found that London itself is the 
finest of playgrounds. For a complete change you need 
not go beyond the London borders. Every Saturday 
afternoon, if you cared, you could visit some district you 
never saw before and are not likely to see again. And 
you could keep this up for years. 
Explorations by 'Bus. 
Here, for the unattached, might be an opportunity 
for an unusual kind of holiday. It is the easiest in the 
world, and continually available, as long as motor- 
'buses continue to run from the Centre into tlie Un- 
known. Few recreations can compete with this for 
romance. The joy of exploration, in Columbus's sense, 
has been closed to a world that has reached by proxy 
even the North Pole, but this romance of the untried 
T)us journey keeps the spirit of adventure alive. By the 
way, do 'buses still run to the North Pole, or has that 
pleasant wonder of London routes joined tlie things that 
were ? Be that as it may, enough romance remains to 
outlast the span of any holiday, however generous. 
Seekers after a modified holiday who choose this form 
will not be disappointed. 
There is fresh air in abundance, particularly brac- 
ing on the Northern Heights, and during the all too 
riiort passage of the bridges you can almost taste the 
tang of the sea. If the sea it must be, there is still, unless 
we are misinformed, a chance of a sail to Greenwich, or 
are these cruises only for the wounded ? Supposing 
no boats iare to be chartered, the Docks remain. Who, 
not having his usual business there, has ever thought 
a tour of those wonders of the world worth the amuse- 
ment of his leisure ? We die before we know this London 
of ours. We are content to hear about a thousand marvels 
we will not go to see. From each of these we would re- 
turn with a sense of change of recreation equal to that 
of foreign travel, and with the added piquancy of the 
knowledge that this unknown country lies close at hand. 
Much is to be had for the taking, much that we have 
hitherto neglected. Here, then, is one compensation of 
the modified holiday. 
Pilgrimages on Foot. 
Some may choose the public conveyance in its 
rarious forms for their exploration of the County of 
London and its immediate neighbourhood. But others 
will prefer to make their modified holiday pilgrimage 
on foot, and to keep the road for a day or two_ p.r even a 
week, instead of returning every evening to their town 
headquarters. For them, too, there is much in store 
that will be new, and as they go further afield they will 
gain in more purely rural experience. The village inn 
now more than ever in these days repays the observer. 
A mind sated with the heavenly wisdom of newspapers 
will turn for refreshment to the earthly comment of 
Hodge and Giles in their village parliament. Here are 
things to be heard that also open up a new and unsus- 
pected world. The rustic commentators may not be 
Solomons; their information may be no information at 
all, but in that it is not far behind many things that are 
written, including these presents. In sucli a pilgrimage 
there will be at least escape from convention, and if the 
modified holiday teach us nothing else than that, it will 
have brought with it a supreme compensation for minor 
sacrifices. 
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