Hence, undisturbed occupation with himself, his own thoughts and works, is a matter of urgent necessity to such a man; solitude is welcome, leisure is the highest good, and everything else is unnecessary, nay, even burdensome.

Much leisure, light labor, was not the worst thing that could befall some of the men whose lot was cast on Foray.

Old Leisure was quite a different personage; he only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from that "periodicity of sensations which we call post-time.

Leisure is time for doing something useful.

But to tell over the multitude of their prizes of bronze is a thing impossibleto count them longer leisure were neededwhich Kleitor and Tegea and the Achaians' high-set cities and the Lykaion set for a prize by the race-course of Zeus for the conquerors by strength of hands or feet.

The roads are sloughs; side-walks are wanting; shelter is gone with the leaves; non-intercourse is proclaimed; companionship cannot be found; leisure is a drug; books grow stupid; the country is a stupendous bore.

Since, then, leisure is the flower, or rather the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into possession of himself, those are happy indeed who possess something real in themselves.

Mere leisure, that is to say, intellect unoccupied in the service of the will, is not of itself sufficient: there must be a real superfluity of power, set free from the service of the will and devoted to that of the intellect; for, as Seneca says, otium sine litteris mors est et vivi hominis sepulturailliterate leisure is a form of death, a living tomb.

Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through the fields from "afternoon church"as such walks used to be in those old leisurely times when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal, was the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them old brown leather covers, and opened with a remarkable precision always in one place.