Personally I was never much amused by amusements, and gave them up
as soon as I decently could. I regret it now. I wish we were all
taught a handicraft as a regular part of education! I used to
sketch, and strum a piano once, but I cannot deliberately set to
work on such things again. I gave them all up when I became a
writer, really, I suppose, because I did not care for them, but
nominally on the grounds of "resolute limitation," as Lord Acton
said--with the idea that if you prune off the otiose boughs of a
tree, you throw the strength of the sap into the boughs you retain.
I see now that it was a mistake. But it is too late to begin again
now; I was reading Kingsley's Life the other day. He used to
overwork himself periodically--use up the grey matter at the base
of his brain, as he described it; but he had a hundred things that
he wanted to do besides writing--fishing, entomologising,
botanising. Browning liked modelling in clay, Wordsworth liked long
walks, Byron had enough to do to keep himself thin, Tennyson had
his pipe, Morris made tapestry at a loom. Southey had no
amusements, and he died of softening of the brain. The happy people
are those who have work which they love, and a hobby of a totally
different kind which they love even better. But I doubt whether one
can make a hobby for oneself in middle age, unless one is a very
resolute person indeed.



February 7, 1889.


The children went off yesterday to spend the inside of the day with
a parson hard by, who has three children of his own, about the same