After all it should be our first object in our autumn tourings to like the business that we have in hand. In all that we do, whether of work or play, this should be a great object with us, seeing that the comfort or discomfort¹—we may almost say the happiness or unhappiness—of our life depends upon it. But one would suppose that in these vacation rambles² of ours, made for the recreation of our health and the delectation of our spirits, there would be no doubt on this head,—no doubt as to our taking due care that our amusement should be to our own liking³, and that we so journeyed as to be able to enjoy our journeyings. But there[103] is reason to fear that such enjoyment⁴ does not always result from the efforts made. We see, alas⁵, too many of our countrymen struggling through the severe weeks of their annual holiday with much of the agony but with little of the patience of martyrs⁶. We see them thwarted⁷ at every turn and cross because they are thwarted. We see them toiling⁹ as no money-reward would induce them to toil⁸ at home, and toiling with very little of that reward for which they are looking. We see them hot and dusty, ill at ease, out of their element, bored almost past their powers of endurance, so weary with work as to drag along their unhappy limbs in actual suffering, dreading¹⁰ what is to come, and looking back upon what they have accomplished¹¹ as though to have done the thing, to have got their tour over and finished, was the only gratification of which they were

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