Regular readers will recognise in this wonderfully simple and suggestive article a continuation of the series previously entitled “Healthy Brains.” The author of “The Children All Day Long” is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as on physical fitness.—[Eds.]

Of all the occupations which imagination gives us, surely none is more popular or more delightful than the planning out of future days. Pleasure and fame and honour, work and rest, comfort and adventure: all things take their turn in our romances.

Not all the castles are for ourselves alone. In childhood it is our school, our club, our town that is to be the centre of great events. The young man's castle is a nest to which he hopes to bring a mate. The mother sees the future coronet or laurel-wreath round the soft hair of her baby's head. And we all build castles for the world sometimes—at least for our own country or our own race. Sometimes we knock them down and rebuild again in rather different shape—Mr Wells has taught us what a fascinating game it is.

Sometimes, especially perhaps in little, unimportant things, our imagination does centre chiefly around our own activities. What we mean to do, what we might do, what we would like to do: there must be something else besides selfishness and waste of time in the constantly recurring thoughts.

Who does not know the charm of looking down the theatre-list of the morning paper? One may be too busy or two poor to go often to the play, but the very suggestion of all the colour and interest is pleasant. Who does not like looking over prospectuses of lectures and classes at the beginning of the winter session? “I should like to go to that course on Greek Art. Oh, it is on Mondays, then that is no good. German, elementary and conversation. How useful that would be! Gymnasium and physical culture; how I wish I had another evening in the week to spare!”

Railway books, again, and guides and travel bills—how delightful they are! It is easy to plan out tours for one's holidays up to the age of 100. “Brittany; oh yes, I must go there one day. And Norway, that must really be my next trip.” The Rockies, the cities of the East, coral islands of the Pacific—they all seem to enrich our lives by the very thought of their possibilities.

Again, who does not love a library catalogue? To go through with a pencil, noting down the names of books one wants to read is a form of castle-building by no means to be despised.

Some people get the same pleasure out of house-hunting; they see an empty house and go and get the key in order to see over it. The chances of their ever living there are practically none, but the view gives a stimulus to their inventive activity: they plan out how they would furnish the rooms and fill the empty hearths with dreams.

Is not the same thing the explanation of shop-gazing? The woman who has bought her winter coat and hat does not as a rule refrain from looking any more into shop windows till the spring; instead, she clothes herself in imagination in all the beautiful stuffs she sees displayed, and if some of the things demand ballroom, racecourse, golf links or perhaps the Alps for the background, why, so much the better, the suggestion puts, as it were, a view from the windows of her castle in the air.

A garden—a dozen square yards or reckoned in acres—is full of material for our imagination; indeed, a seedsman's catalogue or a copy of “Amateur Gardening” will often be enough to start us; long lines of greenhouses will build themselves for us, or rockeries, or wild glens with streams in them, and the world will blossom round about us.

Sometimes it is ambition that calls us, personal or professional; we get beforehand the sweet taste of power upon the tongue. It may perhaps be sometimes the rewards of work, riches and honour and so on, but more often, I think, the dreams of youth circle round the work itself. We will be of use in the world, we will find new paths and make them safe for those coming after us to walk in, we will get rid of that evil and set up a ladder towards that good; we will heal, teach, feed, amuse, uplift or cherish the other human beings round about us. We will store only for the sake of distributing; we will climb only to be better able to give a helping hand.

Well, there are some danger signals at cross-roads of our dream-way, some precautions to be observed if we would not let romance obscure and hinder us in our search after reality. But none of these “castles” are bad in themselves. In so far as they quicken our attention power, deepen our thoughtfulness, make our activities more elastic and keep us from carelessness or sloth, they are surely all to the good as episodes in our development.

E.M. Cobham.