A new oath holds pretty well; but... when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.
So it may well be believed that when I found him taking a complete holiday, with a vast supply of books at command, he had the air of indulging in a literary debauch, if the term may be applied to so honorable an occupation.
Actually, when you're doing something you love, even when you're busy and it's hectic you don't feel the need to relax. I never used to take holidays and it would upset ex-wives and girlfriends, but working has me in a better mood than doing nothing.
The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games. You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter. When I tell you a cat must have three different names.
You can leave a kid alone and it will learn to fend for itself, how to work the remote, a tin opener, and the microwave. I see the holidays as a chance for kids to learn self-sufficiency.
Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
A holiday is when you celebrate something that's all finished up, that happened a long time ago and now there's nothing left to celebrate but the dead.
For it was Saturday night, the best and bingiest glad-time of the week, one of the fifty-two holidays in the slow-turning Big Wheel of the year, a violent preamble to a prostrate Sabbath. Piled up passions were exploded on Saturday night, and the effect of a week's monotonous graft in the factory was swilled out of your system in a burst of goodwill. You followed the motto of 'be drunk and be happy,' kept your crafty arms around female waists, and felt the beer going beneficially down into the elastic capacity of your guts.
I like working, I'm not into relaxing. Work motivates me, and even when I do take a holiday, I meet friends, talk about projects and set up meetings, set meetings between other people, or get involved.
I don't spend much on clothes. I buy old books. I tell myself I ought to save - it's the classic Northern work ethic. I like good holidays, though. I'm a big fan of cruises. I love unpacking once and having the scenery change every day.