One other point we must emphasise particularly. Many visitors, whether they are run down or in good health, suffer from headaches when on a holiday simply because of tired eyes. They want to enjoy the full benefit of the air, and are also ambitious to return home sunburnt, so walk about without any proper shade to the eyes. They succeed in getting tanned, but much of the pleasure of their vacation is spoiled owing to a constant feeling of ache and oppression in the head. A wide hat-brim or a pair of smoked glasses will avert this, and add to their enjoyment in proportion as they do so. For the same reason a good rest in a shady room in the middle of the day is of the greatest value. It rests not only the eyes but everything else as well. People regret the waste of a single minute when they are taking a hard-earned holiday, and often ruin the good of it by staying out of doors until they are too tired to enjoy themselves. An hour’s rest in the house after the midday meal will be found to make their holiday worth twice as much as it would be otherwise. [Sidenote: Returning home.] It is always a pity to spoil the good effect of a holiday by returning home at the last possible minute, late at night it may be. Better lose half a day of the vacation than get up next morning to resume work tired out and utterly unfit for it. For this will rob the holiday of those pleasant recollections which are one of its greatest boons. CHAPTER XVII. RECREATION. HOBBIES. [Sidenote: Games.] Recreation may be divided into games, reading and hobbies. Games occupy a useful part in daily life. Indoor ones form a pleasant way of passing the time, and helping to take the mind off work and everything else that tends to cause worry or fatigue. Outdoor ones tempt people to fresh air and exercise, and thus constitute a valuable aid to health. And games of all sorts do one thing, they teach people to take a beating in good part. By games we mean of course the playing, not the watching of them. One game even badly played is worth fifty hours of looking on while others take part, even if they are experts and play vastly better than we could ever do. [Sidenote: Hobbies.] Yet games necessitate having someone to play with, and there are many times in our lives when we cannot have anyone else to take a part. That is the great advantage of hobbies, they can be enjoyed in solitude. Not that we have any wish to drive people to solitude, for there is nothing worse than being alone too much. Solitary people are very apt to become too introspective, and that is always a bad thing for their nervous systems. If people avoid the society of their fellow-men they acquire an undue sense of their own importance, and their own affairs loom too largely in their thoughts. Furthermore, they are liable to become depressed, and to develop that mixture of conceit and diffidence which is of all things most objectionable.