The Unimportance of Earnestness.

Men do foolish things to keep themselves sane. They make work of a hobby lest they make a hobby of work. A man from Mars, suddenly coming on a football match, might imagine that such fervent energy must be aimed at some sublime end. If he were to watch a golfer in a bunker he might think that the unfortunate one was there to expatiate some nameless sin or to solve the riddle of the universe. And he would be right, although he would-not know it.

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For, to get the mind off the mind is the first step to supreme wisdom. Hence the hobby—the apparently mild mania that drives men to drive from the tee and dive in the sea; to stick stamps in books and brood over them like a clucky hen with an everlasting egg.