These continue with their work even while they are on their vacation. They make work even of their visits to art galleries, museums, show-places, and of their breathless flying trips hither and thither. This is really not the kind of idleness that means a relaxation of tension. It’s only a variation in the kind of impressions. A sea-voyage would be a compromise between the two antagonistic tendencies. That is why Englishmen prefer a sea-voyage to other forms of rest. On board ship a person must be lazy. He sits on deck and stares at the waves. The vastness of the sea stands between him and his work. He must be idle. Impressions fly by him; he does not have to go in search of them. The right to laziness is one of the rights that sensible humanity will learn to consider as something self-evident. For the time being we are still in conflict with ourselves. We shun the truth. We look upon laziness as something degrading. We still stand in too much awe of ourselves to be able to find the right measure. Our mothers’ voices still ring in our ears: “Have you done your lessons?” THOSE WHO STAND OUTSIDE I am at the Circus with my children. They are laughing and clapping their hands in glee. They are delighted with the grotesque antics of the stupid clown. In vain I try to kindle my own enthusiasm at theirs as a means of banishing the unpleasant feeling of being bored. The peculiar odour of a menagerie pervades the great building and brings back to me, by way of the obscure paths that connect our thoughts, memories of days long since dead. I am myself a child again, my cheeks hot and flushed, sitting in the topmost gallery at the Circus, as excited as if I were beholding the greatest of all earthly wonders. It is just when one of the star attractions is being given. A skilled athlete is vaulting over very great obstacles. He leaps over ten men in a row, five horses, a little garden. His faultless dress-suit shows scarcely a wrinkle after this feat. This too must be counted among the advances made by modern art. In my boyhood days athletes still wore a gay uniform and “worked” in costume. To-day every juggler and prestidigitator is a pattern of a drawing-room gentleman. Some may be making a virtue of necessity and gladly escape the exhibiting of their none too handsome bodies. These reflections are suddenly interrupted by a blare of noisy music. Everybody is excited, for this seems to indicate that the athlete’s most wonderful trick is coming. True; something out of the ordinary is happening. Through a wide gate an old-fashioned comfortable, drawn by a weary nag, is brought into the arena and our valiant athlete leaps over horse and rider amidst the thunderous applause of the enthusiastic youngsters and of those of their elders who have remained children in spirit.