INDOLENT AMUSEMENTS. we wonder, make bed any more popular, or
rather news less popular P We are inclined to think that it will have the latter effect.
For nothing seems to us more certain than that indolent amusements do not amuse. The most remarkable thing about the popular amusements of the day, at least in England, is the amount of trouble that is taken about them, and the very little interest they excite unless a great deal of trouble is taken about them. Consider the skating, the golfing, the oricketing, the rowing, the boat-racing, the football playing, the jumping, the lawn-tennis, the cycling, the riding, the polo, the hunting, the shooting, the deer-stalking, the dancing. Do not all these amusements take as much life out of men as even ordinary professions P Or look at the so-called sedentary amusements, the betting, the Stock Eechange gambling, the 4' missing-word" hunting, and so forth. It is true that the gains of some of these amusements are great,—which adds, of course, to the excitement and interest of them,—but neverthe- less some of the most popular take the most labour, and bring iin the least gain. Consider especially the growing popularity of obscure poets like Browning, and of obscure prose-writers like George Meredith. There are no great gains to be obtained by studying and solving their special difficulties. Yet probably Browning has excited almost as much enthusiasm of late years, not in spite of his obscurities, but as a consequence of his -obscurities, as so clear a poet as Tennyson. The Drowning 'Society was a success, not so much because it solved difficulties, as because it occupied its members with finding the difficulties before it tried to solve them. No one can doubt that even the intellectual amusements of the day, if they are to fascinate men, must make a great draft upon men's diligence and per- gevera,nce. It is obvious enough that the labour involved in guessing the "missing word" was as much as anything else the charm which that particular kind of gambling exerted over men's minds. There is hardly such a thing as a really popular amusement in the world, which does not involve a great expenditure of energy. Chess, billiards, whist, are all games which it takes a good deal of energy, either mental or physical, to play well. It can hardly be doubted for a moment that the amusements which are most popular among the people, either excite their hopes or fears to a wry great extent, or call out their moral or physical energies to a very great extent. Either way, they make a great draft 'on the vitality of men. And so soon as growing age prevents tilos from honouring any great draft on their vitality, amuse- ments fall into discredit and no longer amuse. Then, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis used to say, when his own intellectual -eagernees was beginning to wane, "the world would be very tolerable but for its amusements."
And, no doubt, that is the feeling of those who have energy enough for the actual duties of life, but not energy enough to gpare for the unbending and relaxation of the bow when the work of the day is done. The love of amusement is a sign of 'surplus strength remaining after the chief business of living is over,—the energy that seeks an outlet for itself all some 'signal of the spontaneous overflow of vitality after the steady and permanent business of the hour is accomplished. How delicately Tennyson expresses this, when he makes the mourner who is brooding over the one great sorrow of his life cry out,—
" 0 well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play ! 0 well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But 0 for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still !" The man who muses thus may well envy the overflowing vitality of the fisherman's boy and the sailor who is blithe enough to 'sing even as he plies his craft ; for he feels that his own strength is used up to the lasta tom in confronting and adequately realising the great loss which it is his daily neces- eity to face.
In fact, we do not believe that indolent amusements are really popular amusements at all. Amusement is the spring- ing open of the safety-valve when the engine has done its work while there is still a superabundance of pent-up force,— of redundant steam,—to escape. What human nature craves at finch a moment, is some opening for buoyancy, some evidence of vivacity. You cannot get that by just awakening to the mini- mum of effort, and opening your ears alone to soft voices which murmur out in pleasant cadences the last rumours of the day. The eager listener wants some one to whom to pour out his pleasure or his anger, his own personal comment of compla- cency or disgust. And to go on listening lazily to unheeding voices which still continue their gentle revelations without a sign of sympathy or a stir of dissenting feeling, would be simply intolerable. Gossip, no doubt, is one of the great amusements of humanity ; but then gossip is a comparing of notes, an action of mind on mind, an argument or a conflict on the subject of the news communicated. No doubt, if the voice which inspires the telephonic news could reply to the thousand-and-on comments with which the lazy or invalid audience received the communications made, the telephonic newspaper would attain vast popularity. Unlimited gossip with the writer of a newsletter would have quite a new flavour of relish about it. But this it is not in the power of the tele- phonic editor to bestow ; the soft murmur may begin again with every fresh hour of the day, but it can give no response to the impatient listener, who wants to question the news given, or to utter angry ejaculations or joyous exclamations at what he hears, and to have somebody to listen to his com- ments. But the whispering continues without taking the slightest notice of the listener's state of mind, till at last the process of being informed by a monotonous mechanism of what is going on in the world, must become a perfect night- mare, and the so-called 'amusement' must be more oppressive than the Lady of Shalott's contemplation of what the world was doing, as she saw it reflected in her magic mirror. And even she had to exclaim at last, "I am sick of shadows!" Now, there is a good deal more to occupy the mind in the vision of the many-coloured comedy of life, than there would be in the mere story of that comedy as it is told in scraps and items by a newswriter. Even a solitary spectator at a play may be amused. But a solitary listener to a fragmentary chronicle of events, who cannot even so much as quarrel with the chronicler, can hardly be amused. He must soon become too much irritated with the mellifluous current of the narrative to do anything but swear. For our own parts, we believe that the new telephonic newspaper will be soon voted a dreadful nuisance, and that it will be found very dear, even at the price of 21 16s. a year. The hearer will greatly prefer his printed newspaper, which he can put down and take up again without losing the thread of the story. If you are to be closeted with an informant who cannot reply to you, it had better be one whose information you can interrupt at any time without missing the opportunity of finishing the story at your own leisure. To be shut up with a voice which is quite impersonal and quite indifferent to your leisure or convenience, must be vexatious in the extreme. Of course, you may cease to listen, but then you lose the opportunity of hearing what perhaps you want to hear, and what the printed page would tell whenever you chose to consult it. And as for the greater ease of the operation of listening, that for ninety- nine persons in every hundred would be loss, not gain. A little exertion expended for the purpose of acquiring informa- tion is gain, not loss. Indolence is a capital preparation for sleep, but a very bad one for amusement. You cannot really be amuscd without more or less exerting yourself. Exertion, the expenditure of effort of some kind, physical or mental, is as much a first condition of all real play as it is of all real work. The only difference is, that in play the steam is being let off without any special anxiety as to the effects it pro- duces; while in work it has to be carefully directed, so that it may work a particular piston and so turn special wheels. Still, steam cannot even escape without lifting some valve and coming into some conflict with the surrounding air. And so, too, play uses up redundant energy, and without using up redundant energy would not even be enjoyable. It is a great mistake to imagine that every reduction of effort implies increase of enjoyment. Excepting the enjoyment of going to sleep, there is hardly one which it does not involve effort, often considerable effort, to purchase. True indolence and true enjoyment are in all other cases almost incompatible.
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