That we Englishmen attach too much importance to sport goes without saying--or,rather,it has been said so often as to have become a commonplace.One of these days some reforming English novelist will write a book,showing the evil effects of over-indulgence in sport:the neglected business,the ruined home,the slow but sure sapping of the brain--what there may have been of it in the beginning--leading to semi-imbecility and yearly increasing obesity.
A young couple,I once heard of,went for their honeymoon to Scotland.The poor girl did not know he was a golfer (he had wooed and won her during a period of idleness enforced by a sprained shoulder),or maybe she would have avoided Scotland.The idea they started with was that of a tour.The second day the man went out for a stroll by himself.At dinner-time he observed,with a far-away look in his eyes,that it seemed a pretty spot they had struck,and suggested their staying there another day.The next morning after breakfast he borrowed a club from the hotel porter,and remarked that he would take a walk while she finished doing her hair.He said it amused him,swinging a club while he walked.He returned in time for lunch and seemed moody all the afternoon.He said the air suited him,and urged that they should linger yet another day.
She was young and inexperienced,and thought,maybe,it was liver.
She had heard much about liver from her father.The next morning he borrowed more clubs,and went out,this time before breakfast,returning to a late and not over sociable dinner.That was the end of their honeymoon so far as she was concerned.He meant well,but the thing had gone too far.The vice had entered into his blood,and the smell of the links drove out all other considerations.
We are most of us familiar,I take it,with the story of the golfing parson,who could not keep from swearing when the balls went wrong.
"Golf and the ministry don't seem to go together,"his friend told him."Take my advice before it's too late,and give it up,Tammas."A few months later Tammas met his friend again.
"You were right,Jamie,"cried the parson cheerily,"they didna run well in harness;golf and the meenistry,I hae followed your advice:
I hae gi'en it oop."
"Then what are ye doing with that sack of clubs?"inquired Jamie.
"What am I doing with them?"repeated the puzzled Tammas."Why I am going to play golf with them."A light broke upon him."Great Heavens,man!"he continued,"ye didna'think 'twas the golf I'd gi'en oop?"The Englishman does not understand play.He makes a life-long labour of his sport,and to it sacrifices mind and body.The health resorts of Europe--to paraphrase a famous saying that nobody appears to have said--draw half their profits from the playing fields of Eton and elsewhere.In Swiss and German kurhausen enormously fat men bear down upon you and explain to you that once they were the champion sprinters or the high-jump representatives of their university--men who now hold on to the bannisters and groan as they haul themselves upstairs.Consumptive men,between paroxysms of coughing,tell you of the goals they scored when they were half-backs or forwards of extraordinary ability.Ex-light-weight ******* pugilists,with the figure now of an American roll-top desk,butt you into a corner of the billiard-room,and,surprised they cannot get as near you as they would desire,whisper to you the secret of avoiding the undercut by the swiftness of the backward leap.Broken-down tennis players,one-legged skaters,dropsical gentlemen-riders,are to be met with hobbling on crutches along every highway of the Engadine.
They are pitiable objects.Never having learnt to read anything but the sporting papers,books are of no use to them.They never wasted much of their youth on thought,and,apparently,have lost the knack of it.They don't care for art,and Nature only suggests to them the things they can no longer do.The snow-clad mountain reminds them that once they were daring tobogannists;the undulating common makes them sad because they can no longer handle a golf-club;by the riverside they sit down and tell you of the salmon they caught before they caught rheumatic fever;birds only make them long for guns;music raises visions of the local cricket-match of long ago,enlivened by the local band;a picturesque estaminet,with little tables spread out under the vines,recalls bitter memories of ping-pong.One is sorry for them,but their conversation is not exhilarating.The man who has other interests in life beyond sport is apt to find their reminiscences monotonous;while to one another they do not care to talk.One gathers that they do not altogether believe one another.
The foreigner is taking kindly to our sports;one hopes he will be forewarned by our example and not overdo the thing.At present,one is bound to admit,he shows no sign of taking sport too seriously.
Football is gaining favour more and more throughout Europe.But yet the Frenchman has not got it out of his head that the coup to practise is kicking the ball high into the air and catching it upon his head.He would rather catch the ball upon his head than score a goal.If he can manoeuvre the ball away into a corner,kick it up into the air twice running,and each time catch it on his head,he does not seem to care what happens after that.Anybody can have the ball;he has had his game and is happy.
They talk of introducing cricket into Belgium;I shall certainly try to be present at the opening game.I am afraid that,until he learns from experience,the Belgian fielder will stop cricket balls with his head.That the head is the proper thing with which to play ball appears to be in his blood.My head is round,he argues,and hard,just like the ball itself;what part of the human frame more fit and proper with which to meet and stop a ball.
Golf has not yet caught on,but tennis is firmly established from St.