What are the reasons for this recent tendency? There are many answers.
In the first place, mankind need no longer turn the whole of its energy
to defence and sustenance. The life of the average man is not completely
devoted to his business. He is a rarely active person if one-third of
his day is given over to actual work.
“I work eight hours, I sleep eight hours,
That leaves eight hours for love.”
—_Popular ballad_
Otherwise what does he do with his time?
“What makes the business man tired?
What does the business man do?”
—_Popular song_
He reads, he plays, sometimes he wages war, and for the rest of the time
he sleeps, eats and makes love. We find ourselves in a restless age, a
time of experiment; when almost everyone is urged by the same desire to
revise and improve.
It is the Golden Age of good living, consequently it is the age of
impending boredom. In such an atmosphere we would expect to find a
development of parlour pastimes. These conditions, this pleasant
leisure, this much vaunted, generally diffused prosperity, this
impatience for hallowed tradition and the time-honoured devices for
improving one’s time, have given rise to crossword puzzles,
introspection, and modern seduction.