THE BUSINESS OE' PLEASURE.
CONCEDING at the outset that there is much that is . wholly healthy and admirable in our national sports, we yet believe the present to be a not inappropriate occasion for making a protest against the exaggerated social import- ance attached to proficiency in them. The full extent of our heresy becomes apparent when we further announce our inten- tion of singling out lawn-tennis for especial consideration. Let us, however, frankly admit the fascination of the game, and grant that, were any ulterior end to be attained, we can perfectly understand how easy it might be to make it the chief business of a lifetime. It takes less room, fewer players, and less time than cricket, and within the com- pass of an hour or two gives don, (as the grassplots of Merton and All Souls bear witness), journalist, or barrister a sufficiency of the healthful excitement, distraction, and fresh air so valuable to them. But it is the overdoing of CONCEDING at the outset that there is much that is . wholly healthy and admirable in our national sports, we yet believe the present to be a not inappropriate occasion for making a protest against the exaggerated social import- ance attached to proficiency in them. The full extent of our heresy becomes apparent when we further announce our inten- tion of singling out lawn-tennis for especial consideration. Let us, however, frankly admit the fascination of the game, and grant that, were any ulterior end to be attained, we can perfectly understand how easy it might be to make it the chief business of a lifetime. It takes less room, fewer players, and less time than cricket, and within the com- pass of an hour or two gives don, (as the grassplots of Merton and All Souls bear witness), journalist, or barrister a sufficiency of the healthful excitement, distraction, and fresh air so valuable to them. But it is the overdoing of
it that we object to as at once ridiculous and dangerous. The possession of a tennis-ground has become such an impera- tive social necessity, that every wretched little garden-plot is pressed into the service, and courts are religiously traced out in half the meagre back-gardens of the suburbs of London, even though the available space is often little bigger than a billiard- table. Two thousand five hundred persons paid half-crowns to witness the unsuccessful attempt recently made by Mr. Lawford to dethrone Mr. W. Renshaw, one of "the Great Twin-Brethren of lawn-tennis," from the championship ; and the breathless interest exhibited made it only too plain that the event, to many of those present, was of far deeper importance than the fate of the Franchise Bill. The play was of a high, nay, transcendental order of merit, the champion especially displaying an audacity of attack and ubiquitous activity that awoke enthusiasm even in the hardened bosoms of the critics. The elder player, indeed, seemed bewildered for a while by the rapidity of his opponent. He was also handicapped by a strained wrist, and was unfortu- nate in being frequently " foot-faulted " by a vigilant Trans- atlantic umpire. We would respectfully call attention to this word, one of the latest neologisms of the game, a term which, along with " masher " and other choice vocables, may be expected to appear in the third edition of Bellows' inimitable French and English Dictionary.
It is when one considers the extent of the sacrifices requisite to attain this severity of "service" and" return," that the serious- ness of the question arises. The specialism of the age is carried into the sphere of games. As a contemporary remarks, "The time has passed when a country curate or a competition-wallah home on leave could aspire to championship honours." Not only must the aspirant have the requisite leisure, but he must refrain from indulging in a diversity of pastimes, and concentrate his energies upon the one game, and that alone. Cricketers, to keep their hand in in the winter, find themselves under the necessity of undertaking tours to the Antipodes. The lucky lawn-tennis player need not, however, travel so far afield. True, he must sacrifice his hunting, but the sacrifice is slight when we consider that no further off than the Riviera does he find ample scope for indulging his favourite taste ; and the dwellers at Pau and Cannes are now initiated into the mysteries of the "smash "—another word for Mr. Bellows, besides its use in potations—" foot-faulting," and the like. We already have tournaments all over the three kingdoms, championship meet- ings for ladies as well as gentlemen, inter-university and inter- national matches ; and we confidently look forward to the day when a team of Australian lawn-tennis players will visit our shores with the regularity and success that attend on the re- doubtable band of cricketers whose names have already become household words amongst us. For who knows not of Murdoch, the Ulysses of cricket; Blackham, peerless among wicket-keepers; and Spofforth, whose fiendish speed of delivery has won for him a title suggestive of supernatural powers P It is positively difficult to avoid lapsing into a heroic vein when treating of these mighty personages. So, too, in the world of lawn-tennis, eminent players are beginning to have their special titles, and the Messrs. Renshaw, as we mentioned above, have been fitly dubbed the Great Twin-Brethren. A decent respect, a becoming silence, and motionlessness of attitude, are indispensable on the part of the spectators on any great occasion. An anecdote in point is related of a noted performer, who is very particular on this score. During a grand match, after he had just been adjuring one of the small boys in attendance to stand still, and had got into position, an audacious butterfly, totally devoid of any proper feeling, boldly fluttered on to the court, and caused the famous virtuoso a further delay of several seconds, until it thought fit to depart, to the great amusement of a certain section of the spectators who were hardly alive to the solemnity ei the occasion. It would be easy to multiply instances of the seriousness, the Teutonic thoroughness, which characterise the pursuit of this game. Of late, the correspondence columns of the Field have been devoted to a discussion as to the difference between " absolutely unreturnable" and "impossible of return," (=ducted in a truly Aristotelian spirit. Perhaps, the reductio ad a.bsurdium of the whole thing may be best exemplified by the fol- lowing story:—We have been assured, on credible authority, that the run upon the crack lawn-tennis racquet-maker is so great that gentlemen who have found their own powers of persuasion and offers of enhanced prices unavailing, have been reduced, and with success, to the employment of the feminine wiles of their sisters to coax the coveted implements out of the artist. We
should greatly like to hear what an intelligent foreigner would have to say who had witnessed the recent tournament at Wim- bledon. His comments would, at any rate, prove entertaining, even though he saw no more " wit " in the game than the Frenchman did in cricket, or felt as mystified as the Turk at Constantinople who, seeing some young Englishmen playing football, cried out, "Will no one stop this fight ?"
There is, however, we think, a real danger in this earnestness with which we Englishmen take our pleasure, when it reaches such lengths as we have endeavoured to show that it has reached in the case of lawn-tennis. And the general public are in great measure to blame, for the preposterous amount of interest they exhibit in this victimising of them by the young men and women whom a natural aptitude, supplemented by assiduous practice, has placed in the front rank of performers. In a. thoughtful paper on "Athleticism," contributed by Mr. Edward Lyttelton to the Nineteenth Century some while ago, the writer, himself a mighty cricketer, spoke of the great fascination exerted by proficiency in any branch of athletics. Once at the top of the tree, the temptation to endeavour to stop there is very great. The risks of so doing may not be apparent at the time, but they are none the less real. For we conceive that a serious danger must be allowed to attach to this practice of allowing the pursuit of excellence in a game to eat up all one's energies at that critical time when the choice of a profession has to be made. It is a generally admitted fact that good brain-work cannot be done in combination with an excess of physical exercise. More- over, for the ambitious lawn-tennis player, this exercise must be confined to the one pastime. This singleness of pursuit has, as its inevitable consequence, a wonderfully restrictive influence on the conversational powers. For, of all talkers of "shop," defend us from the lawn-tennis amateur.
Even though the victims of this modern craze be few, still we think that an appeal to that section of society which en- courages them in their ways, is neither out of place nor useless. The surplus activity displayed by the devotees of the lawn-tennis world might surely be devoted to something better than gadding about the country from tournament to tournament. At the same time, it is one of the necessary evils of a more advanced civilisation, that as bodily strength, or endurance, or activity become less indispensable for success in the world, there is an increasing temptation for the possessors of these qualities to expend them in a variety of futile pursuits, six days' walking-matches, attempts, successful or otherwise, to " break " the " record " for various distances, and so forth. And when the day arrives, as arrive it must, though constant train- ing may defer it to the close of the seventh or even the eighth lustre, when the running-shoes must be doffed for good and all, or when the " form " of the amateur cricketer no longer warrants his selection, for five days out of every seven throughout the summer, to represent his county, what a barren vista must needs open out for those who have neglected to cultivate other and more enduring tastes while it was still possible to acquire them ! We speak particularly of men for whom the necessity of earning a livelihood has unluckily been dispensed with through the possession of independent means. Doctor Johnson, in per- haps an access of dyspepsia, once declared the reason for all the dancing, theatre-going, and pleasure-seeking of so large a por- tion of the community, to be that they were afraid to sit at home and think. Introspection is seldom an agreeable task, but it is doubly unpleasant when no record of solid achievement presents itself as the pages of the past unfold themselves.
We have, in the main, devoted our remarks to lawn-tennis, but they apply to other sports as well ; the chief danger of lawn- tennis being the artificial facilities that exist for rendering it an all-the-year-round pastime. This we believe to be one of the only points which imperil its chances of abiding popularity. It was this that in great part accounted for the decline and fall of rinking. A vigorous attempt is being made to convert ice- skating also into a pastime independent of the seasons ; but even the dazzling prospect of silver badges for proficiency in the higher flights of the art will fail, we are convinced, to tempt more than a few monomaniacs to forsake the fresh air of a summer's day for the temperature of an ice-rink. It is too cold-blooded and unnatural a practice to become popular. For the chief charm of skating to an Englishman is its uncertainty. And for those who derive most real enjoyment and good from lawn-tennis—not the professors of the craft, be it boldly stated —a great, if not the chief, attraction lies in its association with warm weather. • Another notable objection to an overdue de- votion to any game is the consequent deadening of interest in it Irui game.
Again, a professional racquet or tennis-player never plays so well as when there is "something on the game." Some cynical persons will be found to assert that they will never play-up otherwise. At any rate, very handsome inducements are found necessary to tempt itinerant lawn-tennis players of renown to enter their names for local tournaments. In other words," pot-hunting " is encouraged, aud with it the morale of lawn-tennis players must deteriorate. And though we have not yet developed the professional lawn-tennis player, there are young men who make lawn-tennis a special study, if not a profession, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. To these, and to the society who fosters them, we address the serious warning that it is a great mistake and a great mischief to substitute amusements for the Muses, and recreation for the work which alone justifies recreation.
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