Play.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 458, 29 March 1890, Page 6

Play.

Play, whether in child or man, is doing what we love to do—whatever that may be. Fatigue, long continued, may make rest and sleep the only pleasant thing for a time; hut these wants once satisfied, every, healthy person craves employment, and that to which the nature springs with instinctive pleasure is its play, and should receive due respect as such. It is true that work is the best prelude to play, that duty well performed prepares the whole nature for enjoyment. The toil and drill which the boy goes through in learning to read gradually pass away, and the book that was once the symbol of work becomes a symbol of play. The artist works slowly and laboriously at first ; hut at last his heart springs with joy to his canvas or bis marble, and the fingers that were once so stiff and awkward with brush and chisel now move with nimble grace, skill and pleasure to delight the eyes of the world. The very expression 4 a laboured affair,’ in relation to art of any kind, implies a certain lack of excellence for which no painstaking can atone. Hard, toilsome w< rk, while necessary and honourable, should always be regarded as work in its first stages. It is our own fault if it continues so to the end.