of the past and not by knowledge of the future.  I observe that those who score the greatest number of lost days on the world’s calendar always do so under the impression that they are enjoying pleasure.  An acute observer whose soul is not vitiated by cynicism may find a kind of melancholy pastime in observing the hopeless attempts of these poor son’s to persuade themselves that they are making the best of existence.  I would not for worlds seem for a moment to disparage pleasure, because I hold that a human being who lives without joy must either become bad, mad, or wretched.  But I speak of those who cheat themselves into thinking that every hour which passes swiftly to eternity is wisely spent.  Observe the parties of young men who play at cards even in the railway-train morning after morning and evening after evening.  The time of the journey might be spent in useful and happy thought; it is passed in rapid and feverish speculation.  There is no question of reviving the brain; it is not recreation that is gained, but distraction, and the brain, instead of being ready to concentrate its power upon work, is enfeebled and rendered vague and flighty.  Supposing a youth spends but one hour per day in handling pieces of pasteboard and trying to win his neighbour’s money, then in four weeks he has wasted twenty-four hours, and in one year he wastes thirteen days.  Is there any gain—­mental, muscular, or nervous—­from this unhappy pursuit?  Not one jot or tittle.  Supposing that a weary man of science leaves his laboratory in the evening, and wends his way homeward, the very thought of the game of whist which awaits him is a kind of recuperative agency.  Whist is the true recreation of the man of science; and the astronomer or mathematician or biologist goes calmly to rest with his mind at ease after he has enjoyed his rubber.  The most industrious of living novelists and the most prolific of all modern writers was asked—­so he tells us in his autobiography—­“How is it that your thirtieth book is fresher than your first?” He made answer, “I eat very well, keep regular hours, sleep ten hours a day, and never miss my three hours a day at whist.”  These men of great brain derive benefit from their harmless contests; the young men in the railway-carriages only waste brain-tissue which they do nothing-to repair.  A very beautiful writer who was an extremely lazy man pictures his own lost days as arising before him and saying, “I am thy Self; say, what didst thou to me?” That question may well be asked by all the host of murdered days, but especially may it be asked of those foolish beings who try to gain distinction by recklessly losing money on the Turf or in gambling-saloons.  A heart of stone might be moved by seeing the precious time that is hurled to the limbo of lost days in the vulgar pandemonium by the racecourse.  A nice lad comes out into the world after attaining his majority, and plunges into that vortex of Hades.  Reckon up the good he gets there.  Does he gain health?